

Paradise Falling

A Novel of Our History's Future

Book Two

J.T. Marsh

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

PARADISE FALLING: BOOK TWO

First Edition. April 2019.

Copyright © J.T. Marsh 2019

Written by J.T. Marsh

Published by Queensborough Books
Matthew 24

6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

7 For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in diverse places.

8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.

9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.

10 And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.

11 And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.

12 And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

I

1. Holding the Line

After having seized their own homes, the working men of Britain yet still face a dire fate. All through the day and night there's the dull thump of distant explosions interspersed with erratic rattling of gunfire, pockmarked by rare moments of silence. The stench of raw sewage permeates every breath drawn in. Everywhere in London's vast sprawl you can never escape the lingering, half-conscious sensation that every waking moment might be your last. With the country set alight by the fires of liberation, though, men like Valeri Kovalenko feel in their hearts the common thrumming of our universal pulse guiding them through this tentative early period when the war at home still searches for a decisive battle. As they use this time to bury their dead and tend to their wounded, Valeri and the other residents of Dominion Courts look ahead with a mounting desperation to survive. After having fought off the Home Guard's troops who'd to confiscate food and supplies, they'd expected another attack to come immediately, the next assault surely to kill them all. But it doesn't come. Each morning and each night Valeri looks to their defences, each day that passes seeming to draw out the tension in his muscles, only to return it ten times stronger than ever. But if ever Valeri should take to fearing his own demise, he should comfort himself with the knowledge that fear is courage, and courage is fear. For men like Valeri, their fear of death comes from a determined knowledge that he'll keep on risking life in confronting evil, which makes his fear courageous.

Still they remain committed to their common struggle, bearing as they are the working man's spirit of survival. Though they've been through much hardship, though they've seen much hunger and much pain, the spirits of the residents remains high. If not for the walls sagging under their own weight, for the windows shattered, for the splinters of wood and fragments of drywall scattered inside and out, it might not even seem like a block of flats so much as a loosely-piled assortment of materials, perhaps the ruins of a block demolished in the night. But for Valeri, his neighbours Tonya and Roger, and everyone else who's still there, it's theirs, and that's what makes it worth fighting for, right down to the last plank of wood, the last pane of glass, even the last brick smashed into a thousand pieces. The ad hoc governing committee the three of them have formed seems more imagined than real, confined as its authority is to the narrow box of land surrounding Dominion Courts. As Valeri, Tonya, and Roger, among others, prepare to meet with residents of the other blocks in this working class district, Valeri, for one, can't help but feel that odd and entirely discomforting mixture of courage and fear. But their courage comes from their determination to stave off death at all cost, which makes their courage fearful. This tension between courage and fear will guide them through their paradise, falling. But for Valeri, this is only the beginning of a much larger struggle, one which should consume them all. As Valeri will come to realize, with time, weakness is strength and strength is weakness, their struggle soon to embody this fundamental truth.

In fact, even as Valeri pledges himself to the uprising, he considers it may come to a final sacrifice. All cupboards are now bare. There's no running water at all. Even paracetamol is impossible to find. Still the red-and-gold flag of the Popular Front flies from a makeshift flagpole on the roof, proudly declaring to all who would dare strike out at them the residents' steadfast determination to win through. But when others come around looking for whatever meagre shelter and sustenance Dominion Courts can offer, Valeri realizes the time has come for new action. Though he hasn't yet spoken one word among the residents in this little box of an apartment block, he hews to a cautious and disconcerting path, in the weeks since they'd fought off that first Home Guard incursion his initial euphoria wearing off. But this is by design; the Home Guard and the men who lead it are not stupid, even if they sometimes succumb to the temptation of believing in their own lies. For Valeri, this is still an awkward, uncertain, in-between time, when their budding revolution could easily be crushed by one enemy attack. As Valeri makes his way across the little strip of land they and the others have liberated in their rising, he recalls the words of his mother and father, something they'd said to him not altogether long before they'd died. He steps over a small pile of rubble, as he steps recalling his mother having said to him, "it doesn't matter what we do for ourselves, but what we can do for the next generation." Then, he steps over a small amount of scattered glass shards, as he steps recalling his father having said to him, "it doesn't matter what you can do for others in this life, but what you can do for others who will come long after you've passed." And then they'd died. Will Valeri follow in their footsteps? Or will he outlive them and achieve something more? Even he doesn't know. But watching him, surrounding him at all times is the dark essence which guides the revolutionary struggle in all, there to coax his instincts, to guide him though this difficult, uncertain time.

When he meets with others from across the working class districts and hears their circumstances are just as dire, at a nearby church he proposes a joining of forces, a pooling of resources. "United we can never be defeated," he says from the pulpit once so occupied by a Father from the Anglican Church. A muted approval works its way around the would-be rebels assembled there. But even as Valeri delivers a fiery speech on the righteousness of their struggle, there's a part of him aware of the growing evil gathering strength in the world beyond, just out of sight but surely there. "It's not enough to be here," Valeri says, "because the enemy will come for us in force, sooner or later. We've all seen them building their strength down the road." He refers to the roadblocks they've been watching. He wishes they'd attack, the waiting seeming to impose a lingering uneasiness over them all. "They may blockade the area," says Tonya, "then starve us into surrender." And she looks Valeri in the eye, the two exchanging a firm, sharp glance. But hiding behind their debate, in the pauses and in the awkward, momentary silences that occasionally pervade, is the unspoken but acutely felt tension between these would-be revolutionaries. Each of Valeri and Tonya represent different factions within their ranks; Valeri looks forward to the next chance at fighting to the bitter end, while Tonya wants to become part of the larger revolution. This tension amongst them that's emerged in recent weeks stems from the worsening situation in the liberated zones. Food supplies are dwindling, with abandoned shops looted and no discipline or rationing among the looters. They have some food, the war economy outside their liberated zones permitting the acquisition of supplies through the gaps in the Home Guard's blockade. But even this will soon disappear. As if to accentuate the point, Valeri's stomach growls, empty as ever, his having become used to the hunger pangs making them more of a reminder.

"United we must always stand," says another young man named Michael O'Connor, himself duly elected to lead the residents of his block through the current crisis. "It's one thing to talk of unity," says Valeri, "but it's something else to make it happen!" But Michael has not seen action, having been so elected only after their leader Elijah had called for unity against the Provisional Government; the distinction is not lost on Valeri, who eyes Michael half-suspiciously from across the church. But they're not alone in this church. An old woman named Evelyn Davis looks on, from a spot in the pews halfway down the hall. Alone, she's come here to pray, but she finds it difficult to concentrate with the rebels talking so loud. After her husband had bled to death on the floor of a hospital's waiting room, she'd taken to praying in this church every day. They'd never had children, and she now has no one. Her health is failing. As she prays for good health, she recalls the last thing her husband had said to her before he'd died. "You and I are too old for this," he'd said, "but the young folks, they've got a chance." Her husband had watched the last uprising fail but hadn't taken part, something he'd always regretted, to some degree. "I'll go to the grocer and see if there's any food gotten in today," her husband had said, keeping his upper lip stiff as he bade her farewell. That afternoon, he'd been caught in a riot, among those shot by the Home Guard troops who'd fired into the crowd. And now she sits in this church and watches, silently grieving, confronted with an imminent future she can never live to see.

"It's always easy to talk," says Tonya, interjecting from the front pew, "but the fact that we're all here is proof that we're on the right path." Though men like Valeri can sense, in the basic, instinctive way they can, this is the start of something more, they can only imagine on the struggle talking place in cities around the country and across Europe, as men like Valeri all pursue the same means independent of each other. But as they agree to form a common force in fighting the surely-impending attack by the Home Guard on their homes, still Valeri senses the evil waiting for them when they come under attack again. But he can only sense it; he can't know it. In the end, it's agreed: they'll cooperate in organizing the defence of the neighbourhood they've seized, now referred to as one of the many liberated zones across cities, throughout Britain. They'll form a governing committee, of sorts, for the purposes of better coordinating their defense against the Home Guard's impending attack. As Valeri, Tonya, and the others have at one another, a consensus slowly emerges, even as the distant sounds of gunfire rattling and bombs bursting fade in through the church's broken windows and half-collapsed walls. While they wait for either the Home Guard to attack in force or for the rebels in the Popular Front to come to their aid, the war outside their liberated zones will continue to rage, throughout Britain and across the continent people dying in ever greater numbers. But for Valeri and his newfound brothers and sisters in arms, the future presents itself as a vast unknown, about to impress itself on them and impose its will on their nascent revolution. They have little time until the next attack on their positions, the next attack to be so much stronger and more violent than the last they'd only just repelled.

Off the coast, the newly-flagged cruiser Borealis lies at anchor as there's no pier long enough to dock. On board, Dmitri Malinin leads an inspection to determine the extent of the damage they'd sustained during their escape down the Thames. There's a gaping hole in the ship's port side where some of her crew quarters had been. Further aft, where she'd taken a hit square to her stern, she now has a smoking, smouldering patch of twisted metal. It seems no small miracle she'd made it out to the coast. Now, confined by battle damage to this little coast guard station, the cruiser Borealis can't hope to resist any attempt by the loyalist navy to bring her under control or send her to the bottom. Expecting an attack to come at any moment, the crew must work to make good on their repairs before loyalists come to take them in. "How's the repairs coming?" asks Dmitri. "Not well," says the engineer, a young crewman named Sean Collins. Although the engineers weren't officers, they'd fled when the men took over, leaving the rest of them struggling with the ship's systems. "Keep at it," says Dmitri, receiving only a nod in return. Knowing that Collins has already been at it for twelve hours straight with no end in sight, Dmitri lets it be. It's all he can do. It was only a short time, some weeks earlier that they'd fought their way out the Thames, dodging fire from loyalist units in the British Army, and only some months earlier that they'd been limping home from the thrashing they'd taken along with the rest of the fleet at the hands of the Russians. Although war rages on the continent, they still face assault from their countrymen at any moment, their commitment to the revolution at home earning them more enemies than friends. At any moment they could come under attack, whether from the Russians or from their own countrymen, and the need for constant vigilance wears on their nerves.

Dmitri heads to the bridge after completing his inspection, turning to his scope. Even out here on the coast he can still see the columns of smoke rising in the distance, across England and all around Europe the fires of liberation burning hotly, confusedly through the days and through the nights. His lead hand, a young man named Mason Smith, returns to the bridge, his face dirty, his eyes heavy and tired. What had been meant as a temporary refuge looked to be a permanent home. Still that hastily-made red-and-gold banner flutters from the cruiser's mainmast, more threads than cloth by now. It flies not as a reminder but as a bold declaration on the crew's transformation, on their having cast off the shackles of oppression and embraced the fires of liberation burning in the hearts of every last one of them. "Any word yet?" Dmitri asks. "No," says Mason. With the loyalties of the local government undeclared, they must expect to be expelled from port at any moment, without notice. But the same evil growing, gathering strength seems to lie in wait here, too, while the men wonder what's become of their loved ones after news of their rebellion reached the Admiralty. In truth, the evil, a light essence to the rebel's dark essence, has plans for them, too. Although Dmitri, Mason, and the rest of the men have thrown their lot in with the rebels in the Popular Front, rebels who fight to establish worker's rule in Britain and around the world, still they must continue to choose the right way forward. As they're learning, the right way forward is fraught with hardships, with pain and suffering for them and their children and their children's children. As they're still to learn, the right way forward is much more difficult than the wrong, their struggle for justice provoking injustice against them.

In his years working as a common labourer, Valeri had seen much turmoil, much unrest, the working man's constant yearning for freedom always met with the jackboot of the wealthy man's oppression. If his mother and father were alive to see him now, they'd surely be proud. This, Valeri knows in his heart. As news breaks of the impending assault on the rebellious working class districts of London, men like Valeri know they haven't a hope of standing against a serious attack by the enemy. But it's precisely this knowledge that assures their ultimate victory. In the distance, gunfire rattles intermittently, while the heavy thud of explosions randomly punctuates the din. At Dominion Courts whole sections of walls have fallen, exposing the block's innards to the elements. These facts Valeri is acutely aware of as he listens at the church to others declare their intent to stand and express their anger for the wealthy man whose arrogance and greed have led them all to this. On the way back from the church, Valeri feels the ground rumbling slightly beneath his feet, the bursting of distant bombs and the rattling of distant gunfire reminding him. "Not enough of the rebels are here," says Tonya. "Not yet," says Valeri, "but we can hold out until they do." As they wait for the rebels of the Popular Front to come to their assistance or for the Home Guard's troops to destroy them, Valeri can't shake the feeling that the death they've all seen is only a small preview of the death to be meted out on them all. He doesn't know it, not yet, but the feeling he can't shake comes from the dark essence which surrounds him at all times, which guides the revolution.

Not far from Dominion Courts, a family huddles in the wreckage of their little flat. The father, named Howard, returns from a meeting to the others, bringing with him a small bag of rice. With the beans they've got already, it'll make a meal enough for the four of them. But Howard won't eat. He says to his two children, "I'm not hungry," then pats his stomach and says, "I've already eaten and I couldn't eat any more." Then, he passes his plate over to the children, dividing his portion between them, watching until they've eaten every last grain of rice and spot of beans. Later, when the children have gone to bed, his wife presents him with a serving she'd saved for him, and he gratefully eats. Although Howard still has work, working as he does as a mechanic at a shop which services the area's buses. His shop is just outside the liberated zones seized by the likes of Valeri, and soon he'll be completely cut off from his income. It's only by virtue of the uprising that he's not been taken for service in the Army, his skills as a mechanic in high demand. He's only a short time left to escape, to send his children away, if only he had anyplace to send his children to. But most of all Valeri sees the others unsure what to do next. After having met with others from blocks around the neighbourhood, Valeri returns to Dominion Courts, there his neighbours, Roger among them, meeting him in the lobby. "What's the word?" asks Roger. The walls suddenly shudder and rumble, shaking off dust flakes of paint, a distant bomb exploding in the street. "Everyone's in the same situation," Valeri says. The rattling of distant gunfire interrupts, erratic, as though someone's shooting at nothing.

"Can we expect anyone to help us?" asks Roger. "No," Valeri says, before putting a hand on Roger's shoulder and saying, "we'll be helping ourselves, just like it's always been." Among the three it's understood he means this in exactly the disquieted, roundabout way that's come to be the way of our time. The others have questions, too, and these questions are answered to the best of Valeri's and Tonya's abilities. But battle calls, word arriving of the Home Guard's troops about to attack. Valeri, Tonya, and Roger, along with some of the others who've pledged to support their cause rush to the barricades in the streets, clutching their few firearms close to their chests. In the heady days following their uprising, all seemed possible, as if their revolution could succeed in overcoming the existing regime in a few days of fighting. Reality, though, is proving Valeri's heady optimism to be crushingly naïve.

Though the men of the cruiser Borealis are pledged to follow the banner of Elijah and the Popular Front, they don't know where their next orders will come from. In the morning, they receive over the radio a summons from the Admiralty, ordering them interned. Dmitri's on the bridge when the order comes through. But they ignore the call, as duly elected captain of the ship Dmitri receiving full confidence of the crew in issuing the order. It's only by virtue of the fact that no one anywhere knows who's in charge of the British government, in these few days that have passed since Elijah issued his call to action. It's not even clear who at the Admiralty has sent the order to the Borealis, whether the still-new Provisional Government has removed the admirals and installed its own apparatchiks or whether the admirals are still there, at some stage in the process of deciding whether to follow the Provisional Government or make war against it all the same. But, Dmitri thinks after the Admiralty repeats their summons, they're not following the banner of the Popular Front, and that means they'll come after him and his crewmates no later than the precise moment their decision is made. "Now we have to decide what to do next," says Mason, "we won't last long before they come for us. And we need to find a supply of food, there's nothing for us here." Their families, many of them have families, are all left behind, Dmitri's wife and young daughter having escaped to the countryside but cut off from all contact with him. Many of the men face similar trials. It's a choice they'd made knowingly and willingly, the choice to risk never seeing their families again, but having made it knowingly and willingly makes it no easier.

"The docks at Rosyth have been seized by striking workers," Dmitri says, "once we finish repairs, we'll make for there. Until we receive orders from the Front, it's the best option we've got." He looks aside. "There may not be a port left when we get there," says Mason, the lead hand looking over a console's screen, "there are Russian submarines in the North Sea. They'll surely see us as an easy target." Dmitri thinks for a moment, then says, "it seems we have a choice now—the enemy's bullets or those of our own countrymen." Mason looks at him and says, "which do you prefer?" But Dmitri tightens his jaw and stiffens his back, then says, "I choose to follow the banner of Elijah and the Popular Front, until death or victory." And all on the bridge growl their menacing agreement. It's a moment of peace. Confined to port, the men of the free cruiser Borealis can only continue making repairs with what little they can scrounge from among the smattering of smaller vessels laid up ashore, all the while wondering whether just beyond the horizon there lies death waiting to mete itself out on them, one by one, man by man. This, they know, the immediate task facing them to restore power to their cruiser before the forces arrayed against them attack. They won't have long to find out which will happen first. But they have much to lose. As their leader, the rebel Elijah has said, theirs is the path not of peace but war, not of joy but suffering. And they take to this path willingly, hoping to see their families again. None of them knew what they'd be putting themselves through when they'd agreed to mutiny and seize control of their ship, but nor did any of them believe their war would be over by now. In the wake of their dramatic escape out the Thames, they'd spoken at length, even going so far as to hold a vote on the matter; and so they'd committed themselves to the cause of the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front.

For every hero of the revolution like Valeri Kovalenko and Dmitri Malinin, there's an anti-hero waiting to confront them. There're no villains; war doesn't have villains. After having lived their lives working themselves exhausted, battered, and bruised for the profit of their masters, the working men of Britain, Europe, the world now stand on the precipice, looking off into the distance and imagining the dawn that has yet to come. Not far from the station where the Borealis has put in, a young woman named Sara Simmons works in an armaments factory, every day under the watch of Home Guard troopers. The troopers keep an eye out for anyone who might step out of line, leaving Sara to listen. She hears someone say, "I want to turn the clock back to before." But then she hears another say, "there's no going back, not for any of us." As for Sara, well, she hears the rattling of gunfire and the bursting of bombs in the distance, and she knows these are the mark of the rebel. She turns away from her work, walking over to the others before telling them, "I don't have a family to go back to, but even if I did I wouldn't take back all that's happened. I only want peace." And there's a muted agreement among the workers, before a trooper appears round the corner and eyes them up. For a moment, it seems a riot might break out. But it's not to be. They all return to their work, their courage having not yet reached its crest. For men like Valeri and Dmitri, it seems only yesterday they were ordinary men subsisting on meagre wages, every day a struggle to make more from less. Now, they're still ordinary men but called to extraordinary purpose, in the midst of an ascension to their true purpose, to a higher calling that's been waiting for them all their lives.

It's taken this long for us to call what we've seen, what we've yet to see a revolution, but here we are. The fires of liberation burn across Britain, columns of smoke rising, blending into the sky, casting a pall on the country. In the midst of a reawakening, the working man looks into his own future and sees a dark cloud gathering, at first only a patch of sky obscured by the blackness, then the sun blotted out. Standing where once there's industry there's now only death, the gears having seized, the engine sputtered and stalled. Still the wealthy man's power endures, not in the form of his dominion over the workers but in his ability to marshal immense strength against the nascent democracy in the streets. Although Greater London is a war zone and cities across Britain seized in a revolutionary fervour, still the old order persists, with shops and petrol stations dispensing their wares for a price, with the luxurious villas and with the mills and factories still firmly under his control. So long as these facts remain true, men like Valeri and Dmitri know they can never be free, that their work can never be complete. This knowledge is what fuels the rebel Elijah's campaign, giving him and his Popular Front the strength and the will to persevere, no matter the cost. Well outside the liberated zones, a young woman named Lori Taylor stands in a queue to receive their daily allotment of food, the woman in front of her murmuring indistinctly, the woman behind her silent. But when it's Lori's turn to receive her rice and beans, she's told there's nothing left, the Home Guard trooper cruelly inviting her, "try again tomorrow." She looks past him deeper into the warehouse, seeing it full of food from top to bottom. "I'm hungry," she says. "Try Longview," says the trooper, his cruelty softening for a moment, "they might have something left for the day." But then the trooper steps a step over to block her view. Longview's twenty kilometres away. She thinks to challenge him, but the better part of her knows not to. As she walks home, thinking what to tell her family on her failure, she sees a lorry on the road, an armed Home Guard escort watching over a new shipment of fuel and food into the very warehouse she'd just been turned away from. Although shortages have been commonplace in Britain for many, many years, it's only since the war on the continent began and the rationing that came with it that it's brought this kind of hardships. And just out of view, not far from where Valeri and Tonya and all the others at Dominion Courts live, there're bodies of people starved to death lying in the street.

The lights flicker on and off through the evening, finally quitting for good just after the sun has set. Despite the crippling shortages, men like Valeri and Dmitri survive on scrounging for food wherever it can be found; some barter in goods with the merchants, others take what they need at gunpoint. Despite this, even alongside it, shops remain open, buses trundle along the streets sometimes passing through several barricades and checkpoints along a single route, even television stations keep on broadcasting their simple comedies right through power failures. It's this juxtaposition of the complete devastation and the continued functioning that strikes men like Valeri and Dmitri as the most unsettling. So resilient is the way of things even the destruction and violence meted out so far can't keep it from subsisting on whatever it can find. This, then, is the new goal of the rebel Elijah and his Popular Front, not merely to decapitate the Provisional Government and the wealthy men whose interests it serves, but to wrest power from it and in so wresting laying clear the path forward. Never forget, the rebel Elijah knows, the indignities meted out on the working man's head by the wealthy man's dominion, the mass unemployment, the hunger, the fear. Whatever the cost of this war, Elijah and his Popular Front know there can be no turning back. As Elijah knows, the blame lies not with those who resist oppression but in those who perpetuated it to begin with. After the Provisional Government formed in February with the ouster of the old Parliament, a short time has passed, hardly two months and already the unusually short and brutal winter has passed, giving way to an unseasonably hot and humid spring, without power and without running water the parched conditions leaving men like Valeri and Dmitri facing a dire fate, with or without enemy attack.

But in the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front men like Valeri and Dmitri have hope. The chronic food shortages induced by decades of crop failures amid a rapidly shifting global climate have now given way to full-fledged starvation, with bodies visible in the street from Valeri's perch atop the roof of Dominion Courts. Still men like Valeri and Dmitri place their hopes in the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front, only to soon enough realize their true struggle for deliverance from evil has only just begun. It's been two years since Valeri began his rise from working class everyman to not-trained, poorly-equipped soldier, and in those two years Valeri's learned to look into the future and see something, anything at all beyond his own eyes. But grounding him in the moment is a struggle for survival amid a vast and desolate wasteland of starvation, fatigue, and death. Still there's much hardship, much pain and suffering in their future, in all our future, but as is the way of working men they'll press through. They know how to do nothing else. In the middle of the end of one world already they look ahead to the dawn of the next. Still little's known about the Provisional Government, who controls it, what it intends to do, little other than its half-hearted determination to carry on Britain's participation in the unpopular war in Eastern Europe. But for men like Valeri and Dmitri, this fact is borne out by the old Union Jack still fluttering from the Palace of Westminster, in the midst of all life grinding to a halt the way of things persisting like an infestation of vermin that refuses to die. Across Britain, the managers still manage, the administrators still administer, and the executives still hoard their ill-gotten wealth, the warehouses still filled floor to ceiling with food and fuel, reserved for those essential to the war effort, leaving many to slowly wither away.

Still Valeri insists on the old slogan, 'NO SURRENDER,' in refusing even consideration of a strategic withdrawal suggested by Tonya and some of the others, determined as he is to face his impending fate. It's hard to pin down an exact moment when his fatalistic ideal set in, sometime in the months they'd been living in this apartment block-turned-fortress. When the moment comes, Valeri's sure, they'll have the chance to make the hated Provisional Government and its troops earn every inch of ground they take. But the dark essence which guides the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front have grander designs on Valeri, Tonya, and the others here, designs that should earn them all a place in history. The immediate task facing Valeri, Dmitri, and all the others who've pledged to follow the banner of Elijah and the Popular Front is to consolidate their forces in preparation for the next battle. Neither Valeri nor Dmitri know it this way, only the rebel leader Elijah does, but their hearts are guided by the dark essence which inhabits all men who yearn to become masters of their own destinies.

None know what the Provisional Government will do next, and the rebel Elijah can only sense this unknown as proof on its weakness. All who count themselves among the ranks of the Popular Front know they are both the many and the few, the ignorant and the learned, the crude and the sophisticated, the strong and the weak. This is the way our future will be won, not by grand armies clashing on a distant battlefield but by men in their own homes, men approaching the task of victory with all the dispassionate, methodical rhythm of a working man at work. Every muscle smoothly contracted and expanded, every breath drawn in and pushed out, every step brought down and every pace measured forward bringing us all closer to our goal. In the months to come, we'll all see what wonder and what terror our future has in store.

2. Memorial

Although the whole of Greater London has been plunged into chaos, there still remains an odd, roundabout sort of order to it. The crowds gather around Victory Monument, its spire still standing, defiantly, in memorial to the grand achievements of another time. But now, with half the city in ruins and the other half under the guns, it might seem a perverse irony that Victory Monument of all things should remain standing so stoutly and so resolutely. The rebel Elijah secretly wishes to preserve the monument, in the back of his mind hoping it should survive long enough to be pulled down by bulldozers surrounded by crowds of cheering workers. In the crowd, a man named Eric Parker throws his voice along with all the others, angry as he is with all the others. Each is angry for his own reason, and the sum of their reasons blends into a single chorus of anger. Parker raises his clenched fist, shouting, "no surrender!" Parker's with friends, all of them in their early twenties. His mother had warned him not to take in with the crowds of malcontents, asking him to stay out of harm's way if not for his sake then for hers. He'd promised her not to come. He'd said he was going out to look for work. A lie was the last thing he'd ever say to his own mother. And the Home Guard troops, they respond the only way they know how, with nightsticks crashing down on skulls, with rifles firing into the air, filling the square with broken bodies and spilled blood. As Eric Parker is caught up in this attack, he tumbles to the ground, narrowly avoiding the bullet, rising to his feet again only to be struck down by the nearest trooper. This is one of the many pitched battles taking place throughout British cities and towns, between mobs of angry demonstrators and the handful of Home Guard troops mustered to confront them. After the formation of the Provisional Government only months earlier and the establishment of the liberated zones in the uprising only weeks earlier should've calmed the disorder in the streets, there's a renewed outrage, as young men like Eric Parker die a new stage in the burgeoning revolution arriving.

It's a delicious image, one that makes Elijah's mouth water even as he must confront the next move in the Popular Front's campaign to liberate the working class of Britain, Europe, even the world. Nevermore assured of himself, the rebel Elijah and his trusted leadership committee hatch a new plan, one which should replace the deliberate acts of terror in their old strategy with a clever and incisive campaign to draw the Provisional Government along until it, too, must inevitably collapse under the weight of its own stinking, rotted, bloating corpse. Then, the rebel Elijah knows, all the Popular Front will need to do is make one incisive strike to destroy the Provisional Government and seize power for the working man once and for all. The details, Elijah knows, can be worked out along the way. But while Elijah works out the details on the Popular Front's campaign, inside the liberated zones men like Valeri continue their work. After having agreed to form a new governing committee in their liberated zone, Valeri and the others take to the streets, posting signs in strategic locations, over street signs, on the façades of apartment blocks. These signs call for the residents to attend meetings at the local church where the defense of their homes will be planned, the very church where Valeri, Tonya, and the others had met and agreed to a plan only recently. But after Valeri returns home, he speaks to one of the residents at Dominion Courts, a young, single mother who says her name's Carmen, only Carmen, Valeri saying to her, "it doesn't look like this is going to be over any time soon." Deemed non-essential to the war effort by the Provisional Government, people like Carmen and her two young children have nowhere else to go, Valeri and the others here agreeing to take them and others like them in only out of compassion. Even as food grows scarcer still they admit refugees, something in each of the defenders compelling them to offer their homes as a safe haven for anyone who comes.

In the streets, the Home Guard's troops launch attacks on apartment blocks at random, sowing terror among the impoverished working class. Bullet holes mark the sides of exterior walls. Shards of glass lie shattered on the ground, littered inside and out. Piles of still-smoking wreckage lie in places where old apartment blocks had been defended to the last plank of wood and the last block of cement by ordinary people, by the workers, the unemployed, the most pathetic and wretched among the masses who've already given their lives in service of freedom. Already in ruins, the war can only set fire to the ashes of history strewn across the cityscape, here in London and across Britain, from the old industrial towns in the north to the historic ports along the channel. No one living has ever seen anything like it. No one dead can be heard for all the fire and fury unleashing itself in the streets anew every morning and every night. Elsewhere, not altogether far from the historic docks in Liverpool, a younger woman named Lois Price works in a transit station, seeing food imported from Canada and the United States forwarded to other parts of Britain. One morning, she's arrived at work to find the electricity shut off but the bosses still demanding the work done, leaving Price and all the other workers to move crates by hand. The shipping containers come in from the port, pulled in by diesel-engined lorries, lined up to bay doors, left to be handled without the use of the electrically-powered machinery they normally use. In the middle of manually hauling a pallet of food from one side of the station to the other, Price stops for a moment, wiping the sweat from her brow. "Keep moving!" shouts the foreman. She feels uncomfortable in clothes that haven't been washed in weeks. "They need these supplies at the front!" shouts the foreman, "every time you stop, one of our soldiers dies!" Price looks over at the foreman, who glares at her. After she's had her moment, she resumes hauling her pallet, her body tired and sore all over, still thinking of her family as she finishes the day's work. But when she returns home to the little flat she shares with her brother and father, she sees them being led out at gunpoint, rounded up with so many others to serve in the Labour Brigades around the country.

"If the enemy should seek to try our resolve, then they will be sorely disappointed," says Elijah, speaking with his closest disciples in a disused restaurant, somewhere in Bolton. Manchester itself is the scene of heavy fighting, the heaviest yet seen in the working man's burgeoning revolution, the gun battles there offering a taste of what's to come. "But Manchester is not our prize," says Elijah, looking each of his disciples right in the eye, "nor is Westminster. Through every victory and through every defeat, you must remember that our war is not won until every last man oppressed is liberated, here and across all the world." And Elijah senses the coming betrayal, when his eyes settle on one disciple in particular, a man whose name we should learn, in time. As Valeri, Tonya, and the others try to mount a defense against the Home Guard's surely impending attack, Valeri looks to affairs much closer to home. "I've got something to tell you," he says, "it's not good." A burst of gunfire chatters in the distance. "There's not a lot of good news these days," says Tonya. The ground quivers slightly for a moment. It recalls a conversation they'd had some days earlier, after having returned from the church with a new mandate. In the street that runs alongside Dominion Courts, they'd stood watch, on seeing a group of Royal Air Force fighters streaking overhead Valeri saying to her, "d'you think they'd bomb us?" And Tonya had only shaken her head, then said, "I've got a cousin whose husband's in the Air Force. Think he flies cargo planes. They're as hard up as anyone else." It's a rare moment of introspection, causing Valeri to shift his thoughts elsewhere. "How's your leg?" asks Valeri. "Same as yours," says Tonya, "or anyone else's." And Valeri says, "right." Taking the hint, Valeri lets it be. Tonya's been walking with a slight limp for a few weeks now, not enough to handicap her but enough to be noticeable. She can still shoot, and she still fight, as much as anyone else in the liberated zones of London's restless working class blocks. For now, that's enough. There're no doctors, no hospitals anywhere near them, anyways, and no medical supplies for her to use. Valeri thinks she might just as well walk it off, if such a thing's even possible. As he sees to the barricade they're building in the street, Valeri puts Tonya's injury out of his mind, looking down the street at the Home Guard troops in the distance, the better part of him half-wishing they'd attack and end their waiting. A young woman named Gillian Bailey has lived at Dominion Courts for several years, longer even than Valeri, and she's joined in the uprising quietly, having no family to speak of. At the barricade, though, she talks with Valeri, saying things that offer hints of her past life, her reasons for joining their revolt. "I used to clean their clothes," she says, on the line day, "I used to clean their rooms." She says this referring to the wealthy, as she'd worked for a time at a luxury hotel, immersed all day in luxury she could never have. "Now we can make them dirty," says Valeri, "and no one will be there to clean the blood from their shirts." She smiles.

But with the fires of liberation burning, burning with a frigid heat, all the workers in this city have to guide them is the essence that watches over them every moment they live. The rebel Elijah and his Popular Front, its membership now numbering in the hundreds of thousands across Britain, serve this essence as well, tapping into the common thrumming of our universal pulse. Applying force diligently, dispassionately, the rebel Elijah directs the next stage of the people's rising with all the skill and precision of a conductor leading an orchestra, a bomb bursting here, fits and spurts of gunfire rattling off there, while among the working class districts the ordinary men and women make good on their pledge to live and die by the means of their own liberation. Still in this tentative, in-between time, Elijah's revolution is beset by numerous problems, fractured by internal divisions that've not yet made themselves clear. Still further afield, along Belfast's Falls Road a teenaged malcontent named Harper Quinn lives without work, surviving with many others by his wits on the streets. Belfast's Falls Road, like the other working class districts, is the scene of much decay, much hardship, its brief flirtation with prosperity following the end of the twentieth century's Troubles having given way to a renewed impoverishment, while the old sectarian tensions have become inflamed again. On this day, one day, Harper's walking along the side of the road when he feels the ground rattle and rumble beneath his feet. He nearly trips over himself, but reaches for the nearest lamppost in time. "Keep your wits about," Harper's father had said, the last time they'd spoken months earlier. "Are you hungry?" asks the priest. Harper doesn't reply, not right away. The priest says, "you're always welcome here." But Harper turns away. Later, the Home Guard raids the church and hauls off all the troublemakers, one of the many raids they stage across the country over these weeks. It's only because he'd turned away from the priest that Harper escapes the raid.

But while Valeri, Tonya, and the others in the liberated zones wait for the inevitable, Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front plan their next moves. "Don't you think it should be good enough for anyone to join?" asks one disciple. "It's not for any man to know," says Elijah, looking over the city. They talk after the meeting. "But if we—" "And I tell you we must expend our strength," says Elijah, turning to face the man, "in order to grow it anew." As the rebel Elijah teaches, their revolution must make a terrific show of force, humbling the Provisional Government. Attacking in a moment of weakness is a supreme show of strength. And so it's agreed by Elijah and his closest disciples in the Popular Front; they'll launch a new offensive, so soon after the general uprising in the liberated zones seeing the opportunity. But this opportunity is distant to men like Valeri, living as they do in those very liberated zones, watching, waiting for help from outside, dismayed as each day seems to pass without help. The Home Guard tightens its perimeter, strengthening a few key barricades, establishing new ones elsewhere, leaving only a few open spaces in the lines around the liberated zones. It's through these narrow open spaces that the flow of refugees continues unabated, each of them taking whatever they can carry. Even as Valeri's up posting signs announcing their committee's authority, he sees a group of young men entering a flat while refugees continue to flow in all directions. When Valeri's back at Dominion Courts, he says to one of the remaining residents, "if you want to leave, I won't blame you." But the resident, a middle-aged woman whose name he doesn't know, says, "I've got nowhere else to go." But then she says, "they'll arrest me and take me into one of their Labour Brigades if I leave here." And Valeri only nods. In the weeks since they'd seized Dominion Courts, the block has become something of a refuge, along with the other blocks in London's liberated zones. As the Home Guard tightens its grip around the liberated zones, more and more refugees flow into them, concentrating the most wretched and pathetic among London's working class in a small area.

A young man named Harry, Harry Jones is among those still working, among the men not yet conscripted to serve in the Labour Brigades. "It's impossible to imagine this getting any worse," says Chris Cook, his friend, who lives in a flat on the floor below his. "Whatever happens things can always get worse," says Harry. They're both employed at the local metal shop which receives scrap gathered by the Home Guard, sometimes taken from local merchants at gunpoint. "But what'll you do if work stops?" asks Chris, and Harry has to think about his response. At exactly the right moment when Harry finishes his thought, the power suddenly fails, cutting off their conversation for the night as each of their families turn for the bomb shelter. But the thought remains in Harry's mind through the night. For the final moment they've got it seems the rebel Elijah's campaign could hang in the balance, at this still-early stage in the revolution his forces weak where the enemy's forces are strong. In the far reaches of Northampton's working class slums, a woman named Petra Kaminska finds herself struggling simply to survive. Already out of work when the war began, she survived by the work of her husband, his pitiful wages stretched just far enough to keep them all alive. It's something of an historical irony that there should be widespread unemployment even with the rigours of war imposed on Britain's industries, a legacy, perhaps, of many decades of de-industrialization. But this irony is lost on Petra, who gives what food she can scrounge to her children, already their father, her husband killed in one of the many botched raids carried out by the Home Guard in the streets. At home one night, as on nearly every night as Britain's come to be in the grips of a revolutionary fervour, Petra listens with her children as the bursting of bombs and the rattling of gunfire sounds out across the night. Petra says to her children, "it'll be over soon." Her children, nine- and six-year-old girls, are frightened by the noise even as they've lived their whole lives in the midst of war. "It'll be over soon," says Petra, reassuring herself more than her children as the noise in the street seems to grow louder. "It'll be over soon," says Petra, clutching her daughters close as there's shouting in the street right outside their flat, the loud crack of gunfire bringing the war right to their door.

Meanwhile, events in the world at large continue to mount. Still at war with Russia, Britain must endure not only the policeman's truncheon but the air raids and naval bombardments of its foreign adversary. The bulk of the British Army is bogged down in a pointless slaughter along the front lines in Poland and Ukraine. The Royal Navy and Air Force, both crippled by shortages of fuel and defections among the men, can make a show of defending the country, but they can only make a show of it. If not for the fact that all the warring powers of Europe on both sides are paralyzed by their own internal crises, Britain and her allies would surely have sued for peace by now. In this war Britain finds herself caught in an impossible dilemma she's never before faced, where she looks to the future unsure whether she can stand alone but certain she can never stand together. All this is rather distant to men like Valeri, men focused on simply surviving through the days. But while Valeri and his fellow insurgents—they don't think of themselves as insurgents, even as that's what they are—continue to receive more and more refugees at Dominion Courts, the refugees bring with them news of the arrests, the Home Guard intercepting the refugees and picking off those it wants for work in the Labour Brigades. It's an insidious plot, deemed to concentrate only the most useless and burdensome in the restless working class districts. What Valeri doesn't know, what he's to find out, is the Provisional Government's hope to fill the liberated zones with so many refugees that so many will be killed, if not by the deteriorating conditions then in the assaults yet to come. It's a vile and insidious plan, devised at the heart of the Provisional Government's power, one which'll be revealed to men like Valeri in time.

The rebel Elijah and the other leaders of his Popular Front are careful not to attack, in the aftermath of Elijah's speech to the world the passions of the working men of all countries having been roused further. Instead, Elijah and the Popular Front liaise with their counterparts in the other countries, with the Front de Libération in France, the renewed Sozialistische Einheitspartei in the industrial quarters of the old East Germany, and the Frente de Liberacion Nacional in Spain, where each faces their own difficulties, the closer they are to the front lines of the war between countries the darker and bloodier events having become. But it's not enough, not yet. In this uncertain time following the collapse of the old British government, with still the Provisional Government seemingly without purpose, without cause, all have confused, the demonstrations in the street momentarily quieting, the crowds of angry students, workers, and parishioners ceding the public square to a strange and disconcerting unease. But much, much closer to the seat of power, a middle-aged man named Aaron Alexander works twelve hour days at one of the many storehouses around Greater London's outer environs. He works for the same pittance anyone else might, having been corralled into working by the Home Guard's roundups. This isn't the way things were the last time Britain found herself in a life-or-death struggle with a hostile power on the continent; these men are slaves. Today, one day, Aaron struggles with a piece of machinery, unable to carry its full weight, stumbling to the hard cement floor. A Home Guard trooper appears, looming over him, rifle slung over the trooper's shoulder. Although Aaron might've expected a beating, he looks up at the trooper with a fearful, forlorn light behind his eyes. The trooper keeps looking down at him. Aaron says only, "please," his voice hoarse and tired. The trooper's eyes soften, and he extends to Aaron a hand. In moments Aaron's on his feet again, slowly, painfully ambling forward, having summoned the strength to carry the piece of machinery he'd dropped just a few metres further, just long enough to let it go into a bin. The bin's pushed off by another worker, a middle-aged man just as tired and sore as Aaron. Even after all that's happened, after all the bodies broken and the blood spilled in the streets, still some are capable of a kindness that seems so out of place. But war continues to escalate.

Still this uncertainty lingers in the night, eating at the fabric of the night like an awful spirit haunting us all. In truth, in the liberated zone surrounding the old working class district in London, Valeri has much time for introspection, the rigours of war amounting to extended periods of boredom interspersed with only the occasional burst of action. When he closes his eyes and listens to the night, Valeri can hear the distant bursting of bombs and the rattling of gunfire, sometimes not so distant, threatening to engulf him in a slow and studded silence, but for the memories only recently lost to the pages of time lingering in the back of his mind it'd seem he's become engulfed in the chaos of war. At the scrapyard, when Harry and Chris next work, they find spare moments to talk. It's in these little moments, in shops and in pubs and in shelters across Britain where the working class has its dialogue. "Don't think it'll take too long for the war to come here," says Chris. "And it might never come here at all," says Harry. They each reach for a piece of machinery too heavy for either, when they finish lifting it onto the table together before setting to it. "It's everywhere now," says Chris, "and it'll come to us sooner or later." A horn sounds, signalling the arrival of a new load, with a lorry appearing at the gate. Harry and Chris soon find themselves swamped with work, too much work to allow for talk, but the thought continues to linger in Harry's mind. But then, the war arrives.

In the alley behind a church not altogether far from the old Gatwick Airport a woman named Theresa rummages through a dumpster in search of anything that could be used. It's not clear whether she's homeless or not; in the current war, many live in homes that were never theirs, that could hardly be called homes so much as a slipshod assortment of cement and wood. "I wish you would move faster," says her neighbour, searching through the rubbish along with her. "We're moving as fast as we can," says Theresa, stopping only for a moment to wipe the sweat from her brow. So late in the summer, the thick, swampy air all around seems only to become heavier, pregnant with the heavy, laboured breathing of so many desperate people. "I know we are," says her neighbour, "but I still wish we could move faster." He doesn't look up as he speaks, and neither does she look at him, the both of them keeping on rifling through the dumpster, looking for anything of value. It's a fool's errand, a struggle futile as it is degenerate, on reaching their destination stepping in through the church's back door, finding not a priest delivering his sermon but the pews filled with parishioners seeking shelter wherever it can be found. A woman poor and sick, Theresa has lived in shelters, in council flats, in boxes on the side of the road all her life, Theresa can recall being beaten and humiliated, made to suffer the indignities of living as among the most pathetic and wretched of us all.

There's nothing in this dumpster they can use, but there're a few more down the way they might have better luck with, if only they can search through them all before dawn. Still the revolutionary consciousness surges in women like Theresa with every stab of pain cutting into her body like a knife. It's a feeling like being angry, so angry she can feel the heat rising in her face and the blood pumping through her veins. We all live under the banner of heaven, but the banner of heaven lives over only the most pathetic, the most wretched and powerless among us, to deliver us from the wealthy and powerful men who've terrorized us for so long. After Valeri had last heard from Sydney Harrington, his one-time lover from stock better than him, he can only imagine she's still alive somewhere. Having fled with her family to the supposed safety and security of the countryside, there's no telling where she's wound up. All the fighters in the urban liberated zones have heard of the utter terror sweeping through the rural areas; if London is chaotic in war, then the impression is created in the minds of people like Valeri that outside London lies beyond the edge of Hell.

But Valeri doesn't know his one-time lover is no longer where she'd said she was going, she having been forced out of even her family's country retreat at gunpoint when guerrillas seized what supplies they could from the estate and then burned it down. The next time they meet, if ever they do, Valeri and Sydney would see in each other and in themselves completely different people, total strangers but for the vaguely familiar faces and names. This war has seen this scenario play out many times over, across Britain and all the other countries of Europe in the grips of a revolutionary fervour many friends, families cut apart by the fracturing of the old way into a thousand-and-one shards, each as sharp and dangerous as the other. At the start of the second half of another double-shift, Harry turns to Chris and asks him, "what'll you do when the work ends?" It's a continuation of the discussion they've been having, on and off, for weeks.

As they keep working on a pile of scrap, they keep talking, a moment here and a moment there when the gears and the hydraulics rest for a second or two between turns, between contractions. "I'll enlist in the Army," says Chris, "and if I die in the war then my wife gets a widower's pension, when the war ends of course." And Chris says, "it's better than working like a dog for pennies on the pound!" After shoving the scrap back onto the conveyor, Harry's about to answer, with what he doesn't know. But then a burst of gunfire cracks across the street, the scene immediately descending into chaos, Harry ducking behind cover while Chris is caught in the crossfire. By the time the rebel's attack is over, there're bodies strewn across the pavement, spent shell casings littered everywhere, and a smoldering hole in the front of the shop, Chris dead while Harry looks out from behind cover. They don't know it, they can't know it, but this is among the first in a series of rebel attacks which are the new start of something more.

Farther afield in the city of Portsmouth, another young woman named Joanna works with her neighbours to hastily finish fortifications around the old port. Already her hands are dirty, her whole body sore and bruised, yet still Joanna diligently applies herself to the task before her, helping to move pieces of furniture into the middle of the road where they've all convinced themselves a serious attack could be blunted. "I'm not ready to call it quits," she says, "no matter the odds." Her fellow residents voice their assent. Theirs is a bond, a camaraderie formed not by the illusion of grandeur but the acute awareness they all share of their own ordinary character. A fraternal awakening, this current war has provoked in the working class of England, all of Europe, rising from its slumber an essence that's always been. "No, no that's not right," Joanna says, halfway through the day's last piece of work pointing out her own error, as though she could arrive at some higher understanding through the lost art of self-criticism. In Portsmouth the Provisional Government exercises some measure of control, spared the worst of the unrest due to the heavy military presence. (A strategic installation, they say the port is, along with Southampton and a half-dozen others along the channel). But Joanna lives and works outside the liberated zones, as they've come to be called, and sees the jack-boot of the Provisional Government every time a formation of soldiers marches, whether they're marching to the port where they'll board a transport across the Channel or towards the chaotic conflagration threatening to consume all London. But the Home Guard are in the midst of a counteroffensive, gathering strength to attack the working class districts. Joanna is recently widowed, her husband among the first troops in the British Army killed in an ill-advised attack on Russian lines in Belarus. A wife deprived of her husband, she now mans the ramparts at home, readying herself for a battle she knows nothing about.

For Joanna this is a deeply confusing time, the pain of her husband's death still raw, pulsating through her with every agonizing beat of her heart. Still, on this day she puts on her coat and steps out into the day, heading to the central square to be mustered for duty whether she wants to be or not. Still around Valeri's flat, or rather what's left of it, there's some scant evidence of his old flatmate, Hannah. Although she left without taking most of her things, most of the things she'd left have since been repurposed by the defenders of Dominion Courts or traded to others in the liberated zones for whatever there was to be traded. But Valeri thinks on her presence, even as he surveys the street in the morning and his stomach growls violently in protest at its continued starvation. A trained nurse with some ten years' experience must've been pressed into service in the Home Guard by now, he reasons, which makes her a target for any of the Popular Front's gunmen, or the gunmen of any of the other factions that've emerged. But he's wrong. Some of the Home Guard troops around have turned a blind eye to looting, with Valeri and the others struggling to assert control of the liberated zones even as unknown persons seem to freely invade homes, steal anything of value, and attack whoever seems to be living inside. As many of the original residents have fled and left flats to be occupied by squatters taking refuge from the war, there's no way to know who's doing what. This is a formidable obstacle to the would-be governance of the liberated zones, with the signs Valeri and the others are posting seeming to be more of a cruel and ironic joke.

As Valeri looks down the street at the Home Guard troops manning a roadblock in the distance, his old roommate with whom he'd shared an unspoken but acutely felt attraction is tending to the wounds of some of the Popular Front's gunmen, having been drafted at gunpoint into service of the revolution which Valeri chose. After they've had it out over the lives they've lost, neither Alan Watson nor his friend Samara Stuart know what to expect next. There's still work to be done, wages to be earned, food to be eaten, but no telling how long that might be true. "I have to take care of my mother," says Samara. "A lot of us have someone to take care of," says Alan. A pause. "Does your mother have work?" asks Alan. Another pause. They're not at work, either of them having been given Sundays as a day of rest. Instead, they're at the local canteen, receiving their daily allotment of food, hardly enough to feed themselves with only a small portion left over for their families. Their pitiful wages will be stretched further than ever trying to make up the difference, the hated Provisional Government having set This is the face of the extreme rationing the Provisional Government has imposed on them in the months since it took over, those left to fend for themselves resorting to picking through rubbish for food.

"No," says Samara, "she's too old, too frail. It's a wonder she hasn't died yet from all the medical shortages." For a moment, Alan doesn't seem to know what to say. And with that, they leave the room, each under a distinctly different impression on where next they should go. But it won't be long, no more than a day or two, before they pick up exactly where they left off, in the streets behind their council flat a small exchange taking place between two masked figures, drawing the attention of none but making good on the night for all. Like all able-bodied working men and women throughout Britain, Alan and Samara both fear the possibility they might be forced into service in the Home Guard, or worse, in the British Army. But unlike most able-bodied men and women throughout Britain, for Alan and Samara the decision on how to respond is about to be superseded by a random turn of events neither saw coming but which both should've seen a mile away. After their day of rest is passed, they're back to work, at the warehouse where they work still the sound of distant gunfire rattling and bombs bursting to mark the exact spots where the peace that's been offered is torn into a thousand little pieces, where the hated Provisional Government finds its troops in pitched battles with the forces of the burgeoning revolution, led by Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front. But when Theresa returns to the church where she's come to live, she finds a group of militants from the Popular Front there, standing in the pews, mingling freely with the congregants. It's a sight almost unsettling, certainly unthinkable only some months earlier, but one which now seems ordinary, common, even mundane. "Don't fear," says the rogue priest, approaching Theresa and sharing a firm embrace. "I'm not afraid," says Theresa, "we're in liberated territory now." The rogue priest nods and says, "we are." But neither can Theresa escape the creeping feeling of dread, as though there's some part of her that can sense the future can only worsen for them all. "But enough of this," the rogue priest says, turning her away from the din. "Tell me what you've seen," he says.

She tells him of the troops marching through the city, on their way into London, how many she's seen, the camouflaged lorries carrying them in convoys, the fresh-faced troops and the weary old men among them. The rogue priest passes this information along to his friends in the Popular Front, his reports among many the Front receives. You see, the Front fights on behalf of the people, the working man and woman so long neglected, spat on, insulted, beaten, made to suffer the indignities of unemployment, poverty, and despair. When the most pathetic and hopeless among us look to the Popular Front and the rebel leader Elijah, they see an army which pledges itself in service of them. For the working man has nothing to offer but his labour, nothing of value to be extracted from within his person except the essence of his being. It's a tiresome act. Theresa must never waver in her commitment to the burgeoning revolution, must never allow herself to be deterred by self-doubt. In truth, Theresa holds the future in her heart; the future will choose to flow through people like her, the most pathetic and wretched among us, among they who have no redeeming qualities, they who are deemed fit only to die. But later, when Valeri's finished posting notices around the neighbourhood, he returns to Dominion Courts still expecting the

Once, not altogether long before the revolution began Theresa's landlord told her all drug users should be killed; he told her this without irony or sarcasm. It was a small but seminal moment in Theresa's life, that she should be told by someone with even some small measure of power that she should be disposed of like human waste. It mattered little, then, that her landlord knew not that she'd been addicted to drugs earlier in her life, even after she'd moved into that flat which now lies in ruins. Though the wealthy men who once controlled all and whose control is now being contested would've had us believe we'd, then, lived in enlightened times, in truth the working man still lived subjected to the barbarism of exploitation, only dressed up in a suit-and-tie. Now, as she receives her next set of instructions from the rogue priest, relayed unbeknownst to her from the Popular Front, she readies herself for the chance to have vengeance on men like that pathetic old landlord, if not him personally then another in his stead.

It wasn't all that long ago, in the grand scheme of things, when Valeri had rescued a beaten and bloodied prostitute named Maria from the streets and given her a temporary shelter in his flat, this very flat which he now defends as a bulwark against the way of things. Though she's joined the guerrillas of the Popular Front, she serves outside the liberated zones, among those who relentlessly attack the enemy. As Valeri looks down the street and counts the Home Guard troops looking back at him, Maria's somewhere else in the country, surveying Home Guard troopers, but unlike Valeri she's readying herself not to defend but to attack. Although she may not be alive much longer, and in fact it's some small miracle she's survived the months she's served in the Popular Front, she's to spend that time in the midst of her own personal transformation from reluctant soldier serving simply to feed herself to willing servant of the rebel Elijah and his disciples. Valeri sees in the distant sky a loose formation of helicopters flying, seeming to head towards them until a pair split off and bank, heading into the distance. He'd raise the defences, but armed helicopters in the sky are too common to warrant a call. Instead, he watches the helicopters as if they're looking for something that isn't there.

Living every moment of her life in their ranks has converted her into a completely different person, one who sees certainty in chaos. "But you can't leave now," says Samara, Alan Watson's friend and onetime lover. "I've made up my mind," says Alan, continuing to pack his things into a small duffle bag, although now he moves a little faster and packs his things into the duffle bag a little less carefully. "I never thought you'd be the one to go," says Samara, her words stopping Alan as he's on his way out the door. "And I'd never thought you'd be the one to stay," says Alan, before leaving. It'd seem this war has turned everything on its head, making not only heroes out of villains but also ordinary people out of extraordinary circumstances. As Alan walks towards the train station, he looks overhead and in the distant sky spots a pair of helicopters flying low, too low, and he imagines they must be on patrol. One of the helicopters banks sharply and turns back towards him, flying overhead, disappearing behind him, and Alan pays it no mind until a terrible explosion knocks him forward, the shock keeping him down. As he staggers to his feet, Alan turns to look at what'd happened, only to be confronted with the sight of the flat he'd just left smoking and smoldering, with pieces of wood and cement strewn about the street. Alan can't know it, but the attack that's just killed Samara and a score of others is part of the Provisional Government's new counter-offensive, against the rebels, against anyone who would oppose it, many more innocents dying than men at arms here and everywhere across Britain.

When Joanna hears news of the Army's latest failed attacks, she thinks of all the wives who must now be mourning the deaths of their husbands, sisters their brothers, mothers their sons. In the afterward of her husband's death, Joanna works in of the Labour Brigades, this war making slaves of us all. "I'm tired," Joanna says, "but I'll keep working." Her fellow worker, a younger woman, nods and says, "we're all tired. We all have to keep working if we want to stay alive." Still, Joanna thinks aloud, saying, "but there comes a time when staying alive is no longer enough." Her fellow worker says, "and that time has come and gone a long time ago." Joanna nods slightly, the two women working through their conversation, their agreement formed in half-spoken words, in shared looks, in a common spirit that can't be expressed but can only be felt between them, among them all working men.

But Joanna knows the enemy is resourceful, cunning, even in these times of great setback and uncertainty the wealthy men have their collaborators, their sympathizer among the working class who've willingly given themselves over to the oppressors. In the streets of Portsmouth, Joanna is part of a labour battalion mustered to build fortifications against the next attack by the guerrillas of the Popular Front, under the watchful eye of the newly-formed Home Guard's troops working twelve hour days. This part of the country seems so far removed from the old industrial towns and cities of northern and central England where the revolutionary spirit burns brightest. It's in those northern towns that the horrors of unemployment, poverty, and despair were the greatest. But while women like Joanna and Theresa fight to survive, in the small way they do, in the offices of a warehouse somewhere men conspire to escalate the war at home, promising on the working man's path to liberation more death and destruction. But as Valeri turns away from the roadblock and makes back up the street towards Dominion Courts, he allows thoughts of his mother and father to seep into the back of his mind. These are thoughts that've lingered every day of his life since their deaths in the failed rising more than fifteen years ago, but it's only recently these thoughts have come to assume a new character. Some part of him thinks they'd be proud of him, yes, but that they'd be prouder still to see him join them in giving his life in service of the revolution. Overhead, he sees planes from the Royal Air Force flying, fighters and bombers having taken off from nearby air bases, the aircraft speeding east as they climb.

It's a perverse way of thinking, yes, but under the stress of a constant hunger, with death threatening at all times, it's the kind of perverse way of thinking that seems to become normal, natural, alluring even, and which threatens to deprive Valeri of his true purpose in service of the revolution. This, his mother and father know as they look down on him and see into a future none of us can see but we'll come to view as having been in plain sight all along. In the night, it always happens in the night, the next attack on the liberated zones stalls before it's even begun. After Valeri spots three troopers approaching their lines, he thinks it might be the enemy, but in fact it's the guerrillas of the Popular Front. They've come not to assist but to draw assistance, taking from the ranks of the defenders of Dominion Courts a few men and some of the scant supplies that can be found. There's discussion among the defenders whether to cooperate, but Valeri and Tonya, among others, agree that there ought to be no discussion. Even as they're in the midst of starving to death, they surrender food, along with some other items. When they leave, now Valeri and Tonya must consider how to survive on even less than the meagre stores they'd had. Instinctively, they know continued sharing with the others will ensure their survival for at least a little while. But quietly they agree the likelihood of another Home Guard offensive will render moot the possibility of a long and painful death by starvation.

3. Lineage

Outside London in the county of Sussex two of the top men in the Provisional Government, Douglas Schlager and Nathan Williams meet with select co-conspirators, in a grand mansion with marble floors and wide, airy halls. This is the way criminals conduct themselves, this is the way those who make war against the working class plot to escalate their war, the foolishness and the depravity of their scheming in full view of anyone who should care to look, if only the men gathered could see more than a few inches in front of their own faces. But it's all a sham, a fraud, an elaborate display put on for the cameras that aren't there, as Schlager and Williams work to secure their place at the centre of the newly-forming government. "Once our forces are in position, we can strike at the rebel-held areas and destroy them once and for all," Schlager says, "and once we do this, the remaining security forces who have still refused to pledge loyalty to the Provisional Government will fall in line. As will the whole of the population." He's speaking to members of this very Provisional Government, gathered as they are well outside the houses of Parliament. Almost all London is aflame, seized by the Popular Front and their masses of supporters or under threat. But then, Westminster was never the goal of these men, no matter how they present themselves. "And as an added bonus," says Schlager, "the elimination of the most significant opposition will leave us able to viciously persecute anyone standing against us."

"If you go through with these planned wage cuts then the workers and their unions will only harden against us," says one man, an administrator named Winston Maxwell. "The wage cuts are necessary," says Williams, interjecting, "for our government is facing a critical shortfall. As we've resorted to wage cuts, then we've exhausted all other options. And the unions may be more malleable than you'd expect. Punishments for sabotage are severe already." And this is not a lie, something rare from the mouth of Nathan Williams. Not all members of the Provisional Government are here; in the relative safety of the Southeast of England only a few can gather in an old palace to plot the next stage of their counteroffensive. Although the streets of Britain have seen much pain and suffering already, in truth all men, even those without honour know the blood spilled is like a grain of sand tumbling about in the oceans yet to be spilled. Colonel Schlager, a man from a long line of officers who'd served in the British Army back to the Victorian era, believes in the cause of the British nationalist, recalling in his heart if not his mind the imperial period as a golden age. It's a sham. His mouth waters whenever he thinks of the next battle, even as he sits far removed from the battlefield and talks politics with a group of men who're all in it for their own selves, even if none of them realise it. Under the circumstances, evil men like Schlager and Williams only believe they serve some higher purpose, when in fact they work simply to advance oppression. We follow their thoughts and movements not to create sympathy for their work but to understand the very character of evil we face. Although the rebel Elijah isn't here, doesn't know the identities of most of the Provisional Government's inner circle, his is a kind of intelligence which must make itself acutely felt. For now, though, the dark essence contents itself to exert a constant presence, to infuse itself into every moment that passes, every breath these men draw in and push out, every pulsating heartbeat at the centres of their chests, knowing as it does the inevitability of their defeat. This manor the conspirators use for their meetings is the perfect example of the paradise that is falling, the wealthy man's paradise, within these walls, within the minds of these men there persisting a paradise where they can rule.

Williams is a former government minister who left public office to lead a large and wealthy group of companies. Schlager is a Colonel in the British Army, injured in the opening operations of the war on the continent, returned to the homefront thereafter to be put to use taming the unrest in the streets. But it's not for the faint of heart. Williams interjects, saying, "and the rebels around the country will fall when their leadership is brought down and their headquarters is smashed." Williams looks over at Schlager, and the two exchange a firm look. The members of the Provisional Government assembled all agree to support their cause, in so agreeing giving themselves over to an insidious evil that should seek to suppress the nascent worker's revolution and forestall the impending arrival of our history's first democratic way of life. "And when we succeed in seizing these blocks," says Williams, "we can see to it that most of those who are caught inside will be killed. A few we'll take prisoner, and we'll conduct show trials. Then they can be executed." The men assembled in this room are not noble men, nor are they concerned selflessly with some higher purpose, even if they believe they are. No, these men are the villains of history, who conspire to preserve their place in the way of things, who know how to do nothing else, who can never do anything else, committed as they are to advance their own interests even in the face of the inevitability of our history advancing inexorably towards its logical conclusion. While they scheme, surrounding them are elegant, floor-to-ceiling windows, marble floors, and expansive halls flanked by busts of political figures long dead. Beyond these walls, though, there're towns and cities filled with people, people like Martha Blackburn, an older woman living hand-to-mouth in a working class slum. In the years before the failed uprising all those years ago, Martha had been working to feed herself and her children, always working but never seeming to do much more than subsist. Today, she works diligently in a local shopping centre, tending to the few customers who brave the threat of war. A man asks her, "have you got any canned stuff?" But Martha shakes her head, saying, "just what you see," before gesturing at the shelves behind him, the shelves empty save the odd box of stale bread or instant potatoes. Even before the war, before the failed uprising fifteen years before all this began people like Martha Blackburn and the unknown stranger she's never seen before and'll never see again were trapped in hopeless poverty; only now there are no shops stocked with goods they can't afford to taunt them, no new glass-and-steel towers to cruelly mock them. As she watches the unknown man walk away, she harbours a secret antipathy for the naked greed and lust for power displayed in the wealthy's hoarding, even in times of such unrelenting starvation and fear.

But at the palace which serves as the de facto headquarters for the Provisional Government, men like Williams and Schlager can only submit to a power even they can't understand. These men surround themselves with the trappings of the old way, with banners of Houses long extinct and paintings of figures from histories more imagined than real. The halls of Parliament in Westminster are but an empty shell, dark, decrepit, pockmarked with bullet holes and missing chips of limestone from its façade. But aware Schlager, Williams, and the members of the Provisional Government are of the Russian bombers penetrating British airspace at this very moment, of the Russian submarines waiting offshore to put a torpedo into any British warship that should dare to venture out of port. They know it's only for show, that the Russians see violence and degradation in the streets of their cities just as we see in ours. To Williams and Schlager, this is the impetus behind their actions; the first among the warring powers to tame the unrest within their own borders will be the first to realize victory. All Britain must do, they believe, is stabilize itself internally and the path to victory and a return to glory is assured. After the meeting's over and the leaders of the Provisional Government, Schlager and Williams remain behind. "Tell me what you think," Williams says. "You know what I think," says Schlager. Williams nods, and says, "but I do like to hear you say it." Schlager turns away from the window to look Williams in the eye, and says, "the only thing you like to hear is the sound of your own voice." Rather than take offense, Williams laughs, and says, "it's true, I do like to talk. It's perhaps a failing I've always liked to indulge in." But between these veiled insults they reach an agreement, Williams pledging his considerable political and industrial might, Schlager the service of the battalions whose loyalty he commands, with the various and sundry allegiances and assets of the others in the Provisional Government cobbling together a force which could attack and destroy the burgeoning strength of the rebel Elijah and his Popular Front, in London and across the old industrial centres throughout Britain. Beyond these walls, though, a man named Clark Duncan works to load crates onto trains, the crates holding various strategic materials confiscated from among the local population, the trains taking them to warehouses. After he finishes loading a particularly hefty crate, he stops for a moment, taking a swig of water before wiping the sweat from his brow. "Back to work!" shouts a nearby Home Guard trooper. Cursing under his breath, Clark returns to the work, waiting until after the trooper's out of earshot to say, "I'd like to give it to him," loud enough for his fellow workers to hear. "Don't you need this work?" asks another worker. "Sure, but I'll be worked to death at this rate," says Clark. He's older than most of the workers at the railyard. He's slower, too. "They'll shoot you," says the other worker, referring to the rumours of some unproductive or insubordinate workers punished, some by shooting. Clark thinks of his family, and he relents. Although he's paid a pittance for his work, his family needs every last penny simply to survive.

But at the old palace in the countryside, there's greater forces at work. This meeting has been critical in the conspirators' plan, for they have carefully negotiated a plan satisfying to all but for the still-unresolved question of what to do with His Majesty the King, still under house arrest at an undisclosed location somewhere in county Kent. All powers are controlled by the same force, not by a conspiracy of men but by a confluence of factors flowing through history like a river across the rolling hills of the English countryside, steadily eroding a path for itself, shaped by the land even as it shapes the land it flows along. All powers abide not by the whims of history but by its edicts, whether they realize it or not. It's always been the way of things. "You had assured me the rest of the army would fall in line after we'd taken out the Chiefs of Staff," says Williams. "And you assured me the factories and dockyards and all the rest would increase production once we'd received the King's endorsement," says Schlager. It's the same argument, only rephrased slightly, the habit having worn itself on either of them over the months. "It's not so simple as you'd imagine," says Williams, "and perhaps not so simple as I'd imagined either, I suppose." A rare moment of agreement between the two emerges, but only a moment before old prejudices get in the way.

From old stock, Williams is well-heeled, genteel, used to the comforts of life. But so, too, is Schlager, having been born into the uniform, educated at the finest academies as a young boy, then alongside royalty at the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst. But even as these men talk, still the dark essence surrounds them, infusing itself into every breath they draw in, using them as it does for its own separate purpose. As they pursue their own way, the evil which they serve, too, gathers itself for the coming decisive clash. This, we all know; the dark essence which guides the revolution is content, for now, to let men like these ensnare themselves in a trap of their own making. One of Williams' servants, a woman named Sheila Robertson works by night repairing roads, having been corralled into the Labour Brigades only a few weeks earlier. A few dozen others work alongside her, supervised by the local police, their constables declared inducted into the Home Guard but still wearing their old uniforms. While she lays down asphalt, a policeman walks up the line, passing behind her at exactly the right moment to hear her let out a barely-audible sigh. He stops. After she'd returned to work, the policeman remains for a few seconds, long enough to make the point acutely felt. Later, after they've finished laying down this segment of asphalt, another worker turns to Sheila and asks, "did you get paid in full this week?" And Sheila says, "no." Owed two hundred pounds, they've each been shorted, Sheila by almost forty pounds, her co-worker around thirty. Before the month's out, they'll see the shorts on their cheques cut even further. As the policeman comes around again, they start laying down the next segment of asphalt, Sheila thinks how she'll spare any money for her family, charged as she is for all kinds of expenses, for food, for room and board. The policeman again stops, just long enough to make the point acutely felt, but this time he looks over at Sheila, seeming about to step at her. But then, in the distance, there's the bursting of a bomb, the ground beneath their feet rumbling only slightly. The matter is laid to rest, for now. Before it can be raised again, between Sheila and this particular guard, one will be dead and the other crippled. There're so many more.

Despite their divergent interests, Schlager and Williams have in common their families and the need to protect them. Each have sons and daughters in safe locations, guarded by handpicked Home Guard troops. In truth, there's nowhere in Britain truly safe from the war in the streets, and wherever Williams and Schlager try to store their loved ones there's nowhere the dark essence won't find them when the time's right. If only they knew what lay in store for their families, then perhaps Schlager and Williams would throw their lot in with the rebels and spare themselves the ultimate pain. "And what is it you desire?" asks Williams. "Above all else?" Schlager asks. Williams nods. "You're still looking for weakness," Schlager says, "even after all that's happened." Williams raises an eyebrow, and says, "I like to think it's in everyone to have a little weakness." Schlager says, "to make them easier to exploit, I suppose." Williams chuckles and nods. You see, men like Schlager and Williams work not against the Provisional Government but for it, subordinating it to their whims even as they work to undermine if from within. To them, the Provisional Government is truly provisional in character, as it should, they believe, form the basis for a new government which could defeat the rebels, put down the unrest, and restore all Britain to her former glory. It's a fool's game. It's all an elaborate charade, a farce, a regression masquerading as progress. Men like Schlager and Williams may believe in the things they say even as they understand the fraud they are foisting upon all around them. In the streets, armoured cars drive along the motorways, expecting the Popular Front's guerrillas to attack at any moment. Columns of smoke rise as the fires of liberation burn across the country. Gunfire rattles off all around. Rockets fire at random. The war in the streets seemingly escalates with each passing day.

But most unsettling of all to Schlager and Williams is the way things look, the way the rolling hills and the city's streets all seem to look exactly as they've always looked even as they look entirely unlike they've been. It's as though the essence of the revolutionary struggle has permeated the sky and the soil, in an instant the world turning from one era to the next, leaving powerful men like Schlager and Williams to flail about helplessly in pursuit of preserving a power they've already lost. In this, men like Williams and Schlager come to control the Provisional Government and in so controlling they set it on path about to collide with destiny. But while men like Williams and Schlager flail about helplessly, there're others who know how to do nothing but keep on working. A young man named Adrian Harrison struggles with the fastening of bolts on a beam, a beam he's putting up to effect repairs on a bridge damaged in a recent bombing; they don't know, aren't told whether it was a rebel bombing or a strike by Russian bombers. Adrian fumbles with a wrench, then leans into it too hard, the wrench snapping forward, falling ten metres into the river below. When Adrian hoists himself back onto the bridge deck, he asks the foreman for another wrench. But the foreman only says, "don't have anymore," then pairs Adrian up with another worker who's still got his. It's only because the foreman's a decent fellow that Adrian's not being chewed out, or worse, for losing his wrench. In wartime Britain, you just don't lose tools like that. He won't get another one. Their work detail hasn't been given any replacement tools in months. But at the end of the day, Adrian and his work detail accomplishes their work, weeks overdue, but accomplishing it nevertheless. When next Adrian, a single, childless young man, has a moment to himself at his little flat nearby, he pulls out his screen and looks over the last pictures he'd taken of a lovely young woman who'd loved him as he'd loved her. After her death due to complications from the starvation rations she'd been living on for some time, Adrian had thought of taking his own life by throwing himself off the very bridge he's putting up. But he realizes it's far too low off the water to guarantee a fatal fall, so he keeps on working.

The Provisional Government does not meet in the houses of Parliament, nor does any self-appointed leader reside at 10 Downing Street in the City of Westminster. Its members, mostly anonymous to the average Briton, gather from time to time in mansions and estates just like this one, in rural areas outside major cities where some measure of safety and security can be had from the uprisings. In the night, it always happens in the night, a crane somewhere topples over onto an apartment block, pulverizing rubble into dust, sending the survivors fleeing like rats from a burning building. "I'm meeting with some of the old labour union leaders," says Williams, sipping from a poured glass of brandy. "When?" asks Schlager. "The day after tomorrow," says Williams. "Why wasn't I informed?" asks Schlager. But Williams doesn't respond, not right away, instead preferring to let the force of the revelation be felt. But Schlager has his own secrets as well, feigning outrage with his colleague's duplicity even as he's made his own secret arrangements to meet with leaders not only in unions but in the churches as well. They're not the only ones plotting and scheming, with each of the members of the Provisional Government calling on its own array of interests in pursuing a complicated path forward. Although the rebel Elijah does not, cannot see these men caught up in their scheming, the dark essence which surrounds them informs the rebel Elijah on the happenings here, not the specifics of the Provisional Government's weakness but granting him instead an intuition of what's transpired. It's little more than a feeling, a feeling Elijah can experience but no one else.

Across London, there's shouting, wailing, crying, there's screaming and there's the pounding of clenched fists against doors. Here in county Sussex, though, men like Schlager and Williams are removed by some kilometres from the worst of it all, allowed some small peace by way of their separation. It's an illusion, of course, but it's an illusion men like Williams and Schlager are content to have. They're unlike one another, in many ways; while Schlager's the consummate officer, tending towards self-denial and a spiritual satisfaction, Williams enjoys the pleasures of the flesh, at times to excess. When Williams offers Schlager a drink, the latter declines. "Don't you find war is such thirsty work?" Williams asks. But Schlager says, "perhaps if you didn't talk so much your throat wouldn't get so dry." Williams laughs. To these men, the game they're playing is afoot, even as they're aware it's not a game they're playing is no game. As they discuss the finer points of their plan, going over details already gone over a dozen times, the ground shakes and the windows rattle gently in time with a distant explosion, the bursting bombs seeming to draw nearer to them with each passing day. They can sense, in the almost-conscious way all men can, the steadily rising tide of history, and they are compelled by that very rising of the tide to fight against it, no matter how futile their fight. In the midlands, where the fighting between the Popular Front's gunmen and the Home Guard's troops is the most intense, a woman named Erin Perry works to keep the electrical system at a Royal Air Force base running, swapping out bad wiring for good in the wake of a botched rebel bombing. "It's no good," she says, speaking to her partner, "try another set." As she waits, her partner looks for more. But they've got no more wiring, not on them. "We'll take some out of the old shop," Erin says, even as she knows there's nothing left in the nearby disused shop they've been taking wiring from for weeks. They return to the base's maintenance yard, having failed to restore power to part of the base's electrical grid. Although they're only civilians and not yet conscripted into the Labour Brigades, both Erin and her partner receive a chewing out by the boss, even as there was nothing they could've done. But when Erin returns to work the next day, there's nothing waiting for her and her partner but more work, the pressing demands of war compelling them to find even newer ways to keep things running for at least one more day. At work, Erin recalls a conversation she'd had with her brother, the last time they'd seen each other before he'd gone off to war on the continent. He'd told her, "when the war's over and I come back home, we'll go to the Lakes again," referring to the national park up in Cumbria where they'd used to go as children on holiday. But she hasn't heard from him in weeks, something she keeps in the back of her mind as she futilely tries at another solution to the last day's problem.

All around them, the poverty of the old regime has only worsened, the country's housing stock having reduced itself to a motley assortment of rubble and ruin. Still the working men live amid the wreckage, few of them still working for much of Britain's industry having ground to a halt. Men like Schlager and Williams are acutely aware of the need for rapid action, if only to save their own way of life and forestall the arrival of the next. In the halls of this mansion, built two hundred years earlier by working class slaves, the sound of silence echoes in the halls like a dull, hollow ringing, that almost-noiseless hum that pervades every moment of life in the post-industrial world. Neither Williams nor Schlager know it, not yet, but even this mansion is seen by the eyes and heard by the ears of the rebel Elijah and his Popular Front; the servants who bring Williams his cognac and Schlager his mineral water and who clean their floors every day whether those floors have been walked on or not, they're spies. They hold no rank, no membership, they pay no dues and honour no law. They work expecting no personal reward, no salvation except the deep, almost-spiritual satisfaction in making themselves useful to the revolutionary cause. No, Schlager and Williams presume themselves secure even as they are acutely aware there could be spies all around them, never suspecting for a moment that the very men and women who've served them tea and cleaned their suits for years could turn on them without either of them realizing it. But it's a sham, it's all a fraud, the wealthy men who'd gathered here filled with delusions of restoring a grandeur that was never there.

Elsewhere, an older woman named Tami Bridges cares for her two grandchildren, left for her after their mother disappeared and their father, her son, was killed in the war on the continent. "You must sleep," says Tami, as her stomach growls and a dull pain gnaws at her insides. "If you don't sleep soon then you might not be able to sleep at all," says Tami. Despite her hunger, she muscles a pleasant look onto her face whenever in the company of her grandchildren, thought she won't know how much longer she can keep this up. Finally, as her grandchildren fall asleep, she gathers herself again and makes for the sitting room, arriving just time to see, through the windows of her little house a Home Guard patrol in the streets. She pauses, watching as the Home Guard troops enter a house on the other side of the road, then listens for one, two, three seconds, about to turn away when there's the loud, sharp crack of gunfire, followed by the wailing of a young woman's voice, muffled for all the distance between them. Her grandchildren wake up; she takes them into the bathroom, locking the door behind them. There they'll spend the rest of the night, quietly praying for the war to pass them by. But nothing can stop the crying of children in war-torn Britain in the middle of the night. Tami's part of the Provisional Government's plans, if only in ways she can't know. She's a pawn, a small figure in the larger struggle unfolding in the darkened streets and crumbled alleys of Britain's cities, destined to be caught up in the Provisional Government's insatiable need for labourers despite a lack of functioning factories, so much human misery to be harvested to afford the hated Provisional Government with all it needs.

Despite this, the last battle has yet to be fought, in the darkness of the night still only the coming dawn there to tempt us forward. Gathering strength, the battalions under the command of Douglas Schlager and the Popular Front mass around London's southern environs, readying themselves for battle even as the city, the country, the entire world tears itself apart. The skies above the city remain thick and grey, the early-summer's sun having yet to burn through the clouds that blanket the south of England half the year. It's not time, not yet, and in places the undersides of the clouds are marked by thinning, light patches of almost-clear, where the sun's rays seem ready to break through at any moment. For the last of the wealthy man's apparatchiks declare the coming of the summer's season, boldly predicting the insurgency of the rebel Elijah and his Popular Front to be in its last throes. But this is by design, according to the plan of the rebel Elijah, granted to him by the dark essence which infuses itself into the very air Elijah breathes, the blood pumping through his veins. Despite the last battle still lying far in the future, Elijah knows the Provisional Government's new plans will move the forces of the Popular Front closer towards its inevitable victory, even as he knows victory can only come in the form of a crushing defeat.

We'll all see, soon enough, the sad yet delicious irony in their wild gesticulations and in their melodramatic proclamations proving to be wrong. But we'll also see the rising of our paradise, swarming, with it the dawning of a daylight breaking darker over the eastern sky. It's not for the faint of heart. Somewhere in the environs of Greater London, there's a man named Leo Vaughn who works, today, on the line at an armaments factory that's been opened only in the past few months. He's with four other workers, and says to them, "we've all got our own families to worry about," but receives only subdued nods and tightened jaws in return. "If the worst comes to be, then there's no telling how many of us will die," says one of the four workers to him, "and I've got my family to worry about just the same as you, so if you think—" But the boss approaches. "Talking is forbidden," says the boss, and Leo looks him over with a firm glare before turning back to work. He knows, they all know the war is soon to engulf them, but with the Provisional Government still in power their revolutionary consciousness is not yet risen. In the morning, as daylight breaks dark over the eastern sky, both Williams and Schlager rise, by coincidence, at the same time, almost to the minute stepping out of their rooms into the hall. In the night, the fires of liberation have burnt their way closer to the edge of county Sussex, much faster than either Schlager or Williams could've anticipated. It's only been three months since the British government fell and the Provisional Government assumed power, what little power there was to assume, and already its authority is eroding by the day. As the revolution gathers strength, so gathers strength the counter-revolution, amid the rolling hills and the rainy skies of England's southeast two equal but opposing forces set to clash.

Emblematic of this fact is the life of a young woman named Stacey Owens, working in a railyard not far from the nearest Home Guard base. They run the trains that ship munitions to the channel, from there bound for the army on the continent. She's speaking with a fellow worker. Stacey says, "I can still afford to feed myself, but for how long will that be true?" Her fellow worker says, "our wages are pitiful, but it's the rationing I hate the most!" But when the boss assembles the workers to announce further cuts to the wages as necessary to support the flagging war effort on the continent, from Stacey and all the others there's a wave of anger. "Come you," the boss says, "Britain is a great power and will remain a great power, no matter what happens. Britain is at war, and we all must fight to defend her, and show that we are children of a great power. We all have to do our part to defend nation, religion, and king!" It seems a ridiculous notion, the boss man regurgitating the hated Provisional Government's de facto slogan as if to inspire the workers, and it seems ridiculous because it is. But Stacey's unconvinced, as are the rest of the workers. Already some among them, Stacey included, give their sympathies over to the rebels in the Popular Front. But she doesn't show it, not yet, planning as she is on taking part in the next strike, whenever that should happen, she standing in stark contrast to the scheming and the plotting of the men in control of the hated Provisional Government. But it's not time for that, not yet, in the time it takes news of wage cuts here and in shops, yards, and warehouses across the country to spread like a wildfire in the middle of a scorching hot summer all the working men in Britain seeing their anger roused once more. We've seen the beginnings of the Provisional Government's next moves, but we haven't seen the pain and suffering that must be caused by those who would carry those moves out, nor by those who would oppose them. In time, the true consequence of these early, tentative moves will be made clear. By then, it'll be too late for anyone in the hated Provisional Government to do anything about it, if ever it wasn't too late.

But the appeals of the Popular Front's apparatchiks to insurrection are met with a mostly muted ambivalence as of yet, the great bulk of the working class still uncommitted to the leadership offered by the Popular Front, even if the Provisional Government is all but universally loathed. Unsure whether the future will play itself out, men like Schlager and Williams plot to arrest the next stage in our historical development. But elsewhere, there're forces at work, even in the areas considered secure by Schlager and Williams working men gathering their own strength in preparation for the next strike. Time moves fast, seeming to all parties concerned against them and for their enemies, the Popular Front's weakness about to assume a strength so unlike its ragged, haggard character. It's still this uncertain time when it seems to the observer the war could go either way, that the past might still be our future.

4. Survival Instinct

Meanwhile, deep inside the working class districts of London men like Valeri Kovalenko are in the midst of a fight simply to stay alive. After having reached a broad consensus with the residents of the other blocks in the neighbourhood, the men of the liberated zones have agreed to cooperate. But overhead, warplanes fly, buzzing low over the working class apartment blocks. Sometimes, when Valeri's on lookout at the barricades they've thrown up, he sees the Royal Air Force's jets streaking east, he imagines on their way to the war on the continent. In the meanwhile, there's action. The Provisional Government has imposed a renewed state of martial law, but few hear of it and none abiding by it, not here in London where the working class blocks have been freed from the jackboot of the police. At the City of Westminster, the houses of parliament remain dark and quiet, the area controlled by the Home Guard but dead and buried anyways. For now, men like Valeri Kovalenko and Michael O'Connor must fight only to survive. It's this divergence of goals that should come to characterize the working class struggle we must all wage, each in their own way, each of them committed along the same path. But Valeri doesn't yet trust O'Connor and many of the others taking refuge in the liberated zones, consumed as he is with the task of keeping himself and all his brothers and sisters alive. It's taken a long time, some weeks for the Home Guard troops to muster for an attack on the zones, but when they inevitably come Valeri knows it'll be in force. When that moment arrives, neither Valeri nor O'Connor will have the time or the energy for an indulgence like mutual distrust of their own. But as Valeri explains to Roger, telling him, "if our alliances strengthen then we just might stand a chance," he hears indistinct yelling in the distance. By the time they're turned to face the commotion, Tonya's come running, talking through gasps as she struggles to gulp down air.

"There's troops coming this way," says Tonya, "it's an attack." Valeri turns and says, "not good. We're not ready." He reaches for his rifle, slinging it over his shoulder before joining Tonya in the street. They've constructed a makeshift barricade a few hundred metres down the road, and by the time Valeri arrives a half-dozen men brandish arms, each of them fully prepared to defend their liberated zone to the death. Each of these men has answered the call, coming to the defense of the liberated zones at the behest of the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front. They don't know it as such; the edicts of the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front are not always disseminated directly to them, but through a complex and constantly-changing, even chaotic network of intermediaries and apparatchiks, none of whom have any membership card or wear any uniform. Although Valeri doesn't realize it, not yet, their postings around the neighbourhood are a call to action from the rebel Elijah and the dark essence on which Elijah calls. It's a far cry from the relentless assault on the working class districts only some weeks earlier mounted by the police in their last, fevered push to dislodged the working men from their own homes. It's a far cry, too, from the paradise imagined in the minds of idealists the world over, a paradise, swarming in the last moonlit night. "We're ready," says Tonya. Valeri nods and says, "as ready as we're going to be." They share a quick, straight-jawed look, then turn to point their rifles down the street, looking for the troops advancing on them. But in the thick, hazy smoke pervading the scene, only the measured stomp of boots against pavement and the continuous mechanical grinding of a tank's treads to alert Valeri, Tonya, and the others of the coming attack. It's not coming for them, not yet, some hundreds of metres away the young man Michael O'Connor at his own barricade, looking out across the street, his nerves frayed and his breath short.

There's to be no armed clashes yet, unbeknownst to the working class men in the streets of London the forces arrayed against them instead too far away to have at them. The troops moving, now, are the not yet committed, those who follow neither the Provisional Government's limited authority nor the Popular Front's call to revolution. They're the Home Guard, not the professional troops on the battlefields of Poland and Eastern Ukraine. They're the walking wounded, the slightly-too-old, the religious objectors and those with criminal records. While Valeri and Tonya, plus Michael O'Connor and all the others man their barricades across the working class liberated zones of London, the Home Guard troops move about, following first one set of orders, then another conflicting set, all concerned entirely unsure of what they're doing.

In time, the gunshots ring out and the fires of liberation burn anew, rubble set on fire, the streets themselves seeming alight. It's not yet time for Valeri and the others to have achieved their final liberation; they need medical supplies to tend to their wounded. The nearest hospital is closed, the staff having fled at the onset of the rebel offensive three months earlier, and although Valeri, Tonya, and Roger agree there's not likely to be anything of value still left they also agree there's no other good options. But in the meanwhile, a message arrives at Dominion Courts from the church, a call to arms anew, orders from the rebel Elijah and his Popular Front for all the residents of these apartment blocks to band together and form their own interim self-government, thus freeing the rebel and his troops to confront the enemy directly. It's a tall order, Valeri knows, and it supersedes their need to secure medical supplies. But elsewhere, in a hospital still-functioning despite the hardships of war, a younger woman named Annette Norton works feverishly to save lives. With every surge in the violence in the streets there comes a surge of casualties into the hospital's A&E, and this night is no exception. Annette tends to a young man wounded in an exchange of fire between Home Guard troops and rebel gunmen. The young man lapses out of consciousness, and Annette knows he's near death. "I need help over here!" she shouts. A porter arrives, a big, burly man. "Keep pressure on that," says Annette, directing the porter to press down on a piece of cloth over a wound in the young man's side. But this man is not typical; constant instead is the flow of people coming in for sicknesses deriving from starvation and malnutrition, always those deemed non-essential to the war effort and thus deprived of adequate food by the Provisional Government's new rationing programme. And when Annette turns from the young man bleeding out, she confronts, as she's learned to in the slivers of moments between one second and the next, the thought of her young son and daughter, evacuated to the countryside when the war began but sent home when Russian aerial bombing failed to materialize. Trapped, now, any day they could be killed. But all Annette can do is keep on working.

They don't know it, but in the liberated zones of Britain's cities there're residents already dying from entirely preventable diseases, from poisons leeching into the open mains they're using for drinking water, from smoke and gas inhalation drawn out of the fires of liberation burning everything, all at once. Stomachs growl and tempers wear thin. The skeletal remains of the old order have yet to fully disintegrate, and the structural framework of the new order has yet to stand. But for the grinding poverty that'd already been in these streets for decades, one might be tempted to consider this a step back. But for men like Valeri, they know the fight is a noble cause, the revolution a war of liberation, and that any hardship they must endure to see their liberation through is a price to be paid willingly, eagerly, even enthusiastically. But the day sees action. They come under fire, Valeri and Tonya at their barricade when the sharp crack of gunshots sends them diving for cover. "How many are there?" asks Tonya. "Don't know," says Valeri. He pokes his head up from cover, looking down the street to see troops behind their own barricades. They've taken to firing into the liberated zones almost at random, but this, this is different. Valeri knows it's different, only from the vague intuition given to him. At the centre of the Home Guard's barricade there's an armoured car, its turret rotated to point directly down the street. But when Valeri sticks his head up too far, a pair of hands pull him back down forcefully, a half-second before there's the crack of gunfire sounding out again. "It's coming," Valeri says, "this is it." And he's right, if only in ways he couldn't know.

As Valeri and Tonya man their barricade, they maintain a state of constant readiness, an unrelenting tension working its way into their nerves. It's the price they pay, and the price they'll keep on paying until their final victory is won. Only their lost wages and their lost lives can make quantifiable the rage unleashed, once unleashed which can never be chained again. But across the country on the Yorkshire coast a man named Bradley Martin lives with his mother and father, working by day at the nearby port. It's tough work, the loading and unloading of chemical freighters, but it's been one of the few industries to survive through the decades of decline, and now through the war. After work one evening Bradley encounters a Home Guard convoy on the way out from their nearby base. He's become accustomed to seeing the convoys in only the few months it's been since the Provisional Government came to power, but he can never become accustomed to the rattling of gunfire and the bursting of bombs the Home Guard's convoys seem to provoke in the distance. On this day, the Home Guard convoy heads out to "It's your mother," says Bradley's brother, "she's dead." Bradley rushes home, but there's no one there. At the local hospital, he finds his brother standing over their mother's lifeless body. It's not clear how she'd died; as weak and frail as she was, she'd been weak and frail for some time. The doctor comes in and says it was tuberculosis, made worse by her weakened state. She's only in her fifties, far too young to be so weak. As the two brothers talk, the doctor having left almost as quickly as he'd arrived, the power suddenly fails, plunging the hospital into darkness. The emergency generators haven't been fuelled in months. Except for the odd battery-powered lamp, there's no light, and the hospital evacuates. Bradley and his brother have to leave without knowing when they'll be able to return for their mother's body. Bradley has to work at the port in the morning, working to advance the very war machine that's been ultimately responsible for his mother's premature death.

On the coast, the crew of the liberated cruiser Borealis continue repairs while underway to the best of their ability, and prepare to limp out to sea. They've not yet received orders from their contacts in the Popular Front; in fact, their contacts no longer reply, seeming to have disappeared into the fog of war. Instead, on board the men continue to deliberate, the ship's revolutionary committee discussing whether to continue to honour their pledge of loyalty to the rebel Elijah and his Popular Front or to stand down and pledge neutrality. Throwing their lot in with the Provisional Government isn't considered an option. At a late-night meeting when the revolutionary committee meets to reaffirm their support to Dmitri as ship's Captain, there's a moment of clarity. It recalls a time only a short time ago when it seemed as though apprehension could've been imminent, the local authorities having informed on their presence to the Provisional Government's apparatchiks; it was shortly before they'd fled to Rosyth, but after they'd left the old coast guard station, and it came at a time when there was still some discussion aboard on the cruiser's ultimate fate. On the bridge at the time, Dmitri had received a call over the radio from the harbour master, who'd said simply, "we got trouble," before explaining the situation. And thus they'd made a hasty retreat, leaving the coast guard station before they were ready, not knowing what fate awaited them. After having fired on loyalist troops, Dmitri was sure the docks at Rosyth offered a safe haven. But it wasn't to be. Arriving in Rosyth, they'd found the dockyards, once seized by striking workers, burning in a sea of fire that seemed to reach deep into the city. They'd tried to raise the harbour master on the radio, but were met with static. With nowhere else to go, they anchored offshore, waiting for further instructions from their contacts in the Popular Front, waiting for something, anything, that might never come. It's been weeks since their arrival in Rosyth, and already Dmitri can hardly stand it.

Despite their escape out the Thames and the exchange of gunfire with loyalist troops, still they could sit out the fighting if they should so choose. Nevertheless, it causes Dmitri to become restless, after their dramatic escape the notion of sitting around and waiting for something to happen settling with him as altogether unseemly. "Are you not yet committed to the revolutionary path?" asks Dmitri of his crewmates. "Do you not see the truth behind what's going on in the annals of power?" he asks them. "Have you not realized the only way forward surely lies under the banner of Elijah and his Popular Front?" he asks again. But all can see these questions are rhetorical; though never given much to theatrics, Dmitri is a gifted and persuasive speaker, something he would've never realized about himself before all this began. It turns out that war has a way of bringing out aspects of all our characters that we'd never known were there all along. The men, they respond to his impassioned speech, the revolutionary committee voting to continue following the banner of the rebel Elijah and his Popular Front, with only two members voting for neutrality. As the decision is reached, reaffirmed not by vote but by the consensus already in place, Dmitri returns to the bridge and begins planning their next move. Still underway, the old cruiser heaves with each surge through the oncoming waves, even in the early summer the North Sea

He's deep in thought when roused to action, the radar station reporting incoming aerial contacts from the east. "Russian bombers," Dmitri says, not waiting for confirmation. Their safe haven is no more. As strange as it might seem, the men aboard can still return to duty under the old command if they should so choose, as they've received an offer of clemency from the Provisional Government; so torn is the country that no one can measure any force, that no one can be sure where to take orders from, or what orders they should take. They must leave, Dmitri reasons, or else they could very well come under fire when the Russian bombers arrive. While the Borealis gets underway, Dmitri remains on the bridge pondering these facts in the back of his mind, still consumed by the basic task of survival. But whenever the crew of the Borealis seem to be set on a course of action, a new set of circumstances must dawn. As they steam from what'd once been the port of Rosyth, they leave behind a firestorm. But a young sailor named Emily White presents herself on the bridge, normally assigned below decks but asked up top on this occasion by Dmitri. Like everyone else aboard, she was staunch in her personal opposition to the war on the continent since even before the crew had mutinied. But unlike almost everyone aboard, White came from below decks with a proposal: accept the Provisional Government's offer of clemency, she says, then use it to convince more ships, more crew to defect to the cause of the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front. Although White isn't in a command position, hadn't even been nominated when they'd elected Dmitri, she's taken it on herself to conjure up this proposal, in so conjuring forcing Dmitri and the others to debate its merits, for however long that might take.

After the imminent threat has passed, Valeri, Tonya, down the street Michael O'Connor, and all the other defenders of the working class liberated zones don't stand down, but stand a little easier, allowing an almost-normalcy to return to the streets which the working men have claimed as their own. But there's a new development in the works, one which will change everything in the time it takes one day to make way for the next. On his cot set up in the lobby (as his suite's walls have collapsed in places, leaving the room exposed to the elements), he has an old, lumpy pillow and a thin blanket, unneeded now but surely to prove inadequate against the coming winter which draws nearer with each passing day. The people who used to be in his life, his old roommate Hannah, his one-time lover Sydney, even the prostitute Maria, they've all dispersed across the country; they could all be dead by now. "I wish they'd just attack and get it over with," Valeri says, speaking with Tonya on a night hot, unseasonably hot even in these times. Valeri's shirt sticks to his back, and his hair is unkempt and dirty. "They know what they're doing," says Tonya. They stand at their barricade, facing down the Home Guard troops on the other side of a virtual no-man's-land. Periodically there's an exchange of gunfire, but through the days there's more boredom than action. "If you want, I can take over your watch," Valeri says, "I'm not going to get any sleep, anyways. You can go and be with Roger." But Tonya seems to almost bristle at the suggestion, saying, "I'm not going anywhere." She pauses, then continues, saying, "I can stay out here just as long as you can." As Valeri's about to reply, by saying what he doesn't know, there's the sound of distant gunfire to draw their attention, the thick, muffled thumping of big guns interspersed with the lighter rattling of small arms. It's far enough away that the defenders of Dominion Courts know they're not in immediate danger, but close enough to keep them alert.

He tries not to think too much about any of them, being as he was never one of those too given to lingering in the past. But after leaving the barricades in the streets without having fired a shot, there's a pent-up emotion in the back of his mind, compelling him to look not only ahead but behind him like a lost man looking back down the road he's driven, wondering whether he's taken a wrong turn. On the screens, when Valeri happens to get one working, there're men in suits angrily denouncing the revolt in the liberated zones, men calling for the Provisional Government to crush the revolt, quickly, brutally, and publicly. "I'm sorry," says Valeri, "I didn't mean anything by it." He's speaking to Tonya, not right after that most recent burst of action in the distance but some days later. It's been long enough since their seizure of Dominion Courts that a routine has begun to emerge, a routine characterised by long periods of inaction interrupted by flashes of terror. "It's beginning to wear on me too, you know," says Tonya, "I didn't think it would take this long." But Valeri says, "I don't think any of us did." They're referring to an exchange they'd had in which Valeri Tonya only nods. She retires for the night, heading back to whatever remains of the little flat she'd shared with Roger. In the time they've been defending their block, and the liberated zones writ large, a routine has come to emerge, Tonya and Roger returning to rest at the same time. Valeri feels pangs of jealousy as he recalls the way he'd taken his lover Sydney into his flat. Although Roger and Tonya won't have each other, as they've come to so rarely have each other in these difficult times, still Valeri feels something absent from his life. It seems absurd to Valeri, that he should think about a woman he fully believes he'll never see again. But as the day recedes slowly into the night, there's the bursting of bombs and the rattling of gunfire once more, signalling not the beginning of a new Home Guard attack on their positions but a gradual tightening of the perimeter as more refugees flow in.

On one video stream, there's a man in glasses and a finely-pressed suit declaring, "the enemy who has taken up arms against Britain in time of war are guilty of insurrection and treason, and there can be only one response." As if to accentuate the point, the man in glasses and a finely-pressed suit holds a clenched fist up, his brow creased, his eyes filled with a fiery rage. But it's all a fraud. The men on the screens are actors of the highest calibre, dedicated to their craft, aware of their fraud even as they've come to believe it. For Andrew Bailey, working at an oil storage facility in Bristol, the uprisings have had little effect on daily life; since the war on the continent began the bulk of his work has continued, unabated. But one night, when he's checking the pressure gauges on one set of tanks, he notices all the gauges are nearing their upper limits. This isn't unusual, as there's been such hoarding since the war began that so little oil has left the facility. It makes little sense to Andrew, as he checks the next set of gauges, then the next, then the next, that there should be such extreme hoarding during times of such extreme hardship. Although the oil he works to keep stored safely and securely is a strategic resource, there's more than enough to let some out to the starving public. "As if there's nothing to spare," he says, muttering to himself. Although Andrew's not a fighter in the Popular Front, like many working class men across the country he's a sympathizer looking for the right moment to act. But the businessmen and officers who run the Provisional Government have no intention of serving the public good, a fact that's become painfully clear to men like Andrew Bailey, men charged with keeping the Provisional Government's lifeblood flowing. Before the night's through, though, Bailey will throw a particular switch, shutting off the outflow in a temporary storage tank that's already full. But he won't shut off the in-flow. The rest, he believes, will take care of itself.

As soon as the screen was turned on back at Dominion Courts, it's shut off, the intermittent connection failing altogether. (The Provisional Government hasn't yet shut off water and electricity in the liberated zones, for many reasons). The young and idealistic man in Valeri would've expected their stand to have ended by now in a victorious overthrow of the Provisional Government, while the old and bitter man in him would've expected their deaths in a suicidal stand. It's only been some weeks, and already Valeri's thoughts are unable to find any middle ground between extremes. It's a foolish line of thought. Men like Valeri are, in truth, utterly confident in themselves, in the path they've chosen, the only path that could've been laid out for them. But for a young woman named Carol Baker, the path laid out for her is coming to its end. She lives in Exeter, and she works at a yard in an outlying area, one of the many yards set up to harvest strategic materials confiscated from the local population to support the war effort. Tonight, one night, she's among the crew present when a new haul's brought in, the smallest haul any of them have yet seen; she's operating the yard's last operational excavator, used for larger pieces, used less and less every week. As they set to work sorting, Carol feels the fatigue and the pain in her sides from the chronic illness she's been secretly battling for months. As she reaches across her machine's control panel, she feels a sharp pang in her side, causing her a momentary pause. But then she fumbles back with the controls, causing the excavator's claw to drop right down, sending out a loud crashing sound. The conveyer belt's damaged; it'll take too long to get the belt fixed before the end of the week. "There's no more work for you here," says her manager, in his office afterwards. In fact, he's reported her to the local government, who's pledged to follow the banner of the Provisional Government. Soon, she's taken away by Home Guard auxiliaries, to be jailed, then hanged for industrial sabotage in time of war.

It's a state of being where there was never any possible choice, where the world has guided the working man inexorably through to this place and denied him any other path, yet, one where the working man has chosen this path to the exclusion of all others, no matter the pain and suffering it's entailed. On his cot set up in the lobby Valeri sleeps in fits and bursts, never more than two or three hours at a time, with his rifle propped up against the wall next to him. Nearly every night there's a call to action, rushing him out to the roadblocks with Tonya, Michael, and all the others, on this night Valeri not even needing to wait for the call, instead the slight rumbling of the floor beneath him enough to rouse him from his restless sleep. But it's not enough. At the roadblock, he fires his gun down the street, prompting an exchange of fire with the troops looking back at them. Still he's in no frame of mind to advance, nor are any of his fellow workers, this, among the liberated zones of London and all the old industrial centres across England the future never more uncertain even as its inevitability is come to be increasingly known. At the next meeting in the old church, Valeri doesn't take to the pulpit, instead listening to the others. One by one, they speak their piece, and when it's Michael O'Connor's turn to speak Valeri listens even closer. The younger O'Connor says, "...when the enemy attacks in force, our barricades will not hold..."

But the process of forging alliances and building consensus will be a long one, marked by much infighting and mutual distrust. On the Borealis, Dmitri is not satisfied with consensus, though, even the overwhelming consensus had by the ship's committee voting eight to two in favour of continued loyalty to the rebel Elijah and his Popular Front; to Dmitri, the only true consensus is unanimity. On deck, he makes good on the first pledge he'd made, ordering the Popular Front's banner flown from the mainmast at all times. In the distance, the rumbling of gunfire and the bursting of bombs seems to never end, with every moment marked by the constant threat of death. After they'd left Rosyth without any certain destination, the crew gathered to debate the merits of crewman Emily White's proposal. But White's proposal doesn't sit well with Dmitri, even as its merits become clear. If they accept the offer of clemency and re-join the Provisional Government's navy, they can access safe medical care for their wounded, find a way to stock up on stores, and get some much-needed rest. For Dmitri, though, the greatest attraction in this idea is the possibility of seeing his family, his young wife and child again. Even after having sent them to live in the country with family, he has no way of knowing whether they're safe, no way of contacting them in the chaotic situation ruling over a country embroiled in a revolutionary war. If granted clemency, he could track them down, perhaps.

But debate soon ends, temporarily at least. When Russian bombers arrive, streaking so far overhead only their contrails can be seen from the ground, the Borealis and her crew are in no position to defend themselves. Finally, there's a burst of action, gunfire, explosions, Dmitri on the bridge when it all happens. He snaps into action, turning to his conn and ordering, "all hands to battle stations!" Beneath his feet the ship groans to life, its engines lurching into low gear while the hull seems nearly to shake and shatter itself apart. "Ready weapons!" Dmitri shouts. The gunner puts his hand on the trigger. "Helm, put her to port and take us out," Dmitri says, "best possible speed!" But there's no chance for the Borealis and her crew to make good on their bloodlust, her batteries searching for targets no longer there. By the time the Borealis makes it out to sea, there's little remaining of that coast guard station which once offered them some small measure of safety and security. While Dmitri scans the skies through a pair of binoculars, though, the Russian bombers have turned and made back for their own base, their long range missiles expended. Acutely aware there might be Russian submarines prowling in the North Sea, he can think of no safe options for his crew, leaving him to consider only one possible course of action.

But the countryside is largely peaceful, the tension broken only by the threat of violence. It's deeply confusing to the ordinary man, both those living in the liberated zones and those living still under the old regime. The constant threat of attack is costly, draining on the strength and endurance of the working men in their liberated zones. But they've yet to receive any further guidance from the rebel Elijah and his Popular Front, for now the whole lot of them content to allow men like Valeri to subsist on their own. It's a deeply confusing time, as it's always been a deeply confusing time, for Valeri to seek to stand on his own even as he must negotiate a careful path through the darkness and on into the light. On the front steps outside Dominion Courts, what remains of them, he thinks of his mother and father, their deaths in the failed uprising fifteen years before this one seeming to point the way to the future, for him, at least. Never fear, Valeri knows, for the righteous should invariably win through, with the corrupt, the indigent, the wealthy men who'd so dominated the old way of things and whose way had coldly and ruthlessly killed his mother and father destined to be cast into the abyss. It's not that Valeri has a religious faith in the inevitability of it all, rather, he chooses to confidently assert belief in justice and dignity for men like him, justice and dignity delayed for not only his mother and father but for all the working men of the world who'd lived and died without ever bearing witness to their own personal liberation. To maintain his own sanity through the hardships of war, Valeri must assert this belief. Without it, he and all the others, Tonya, Michael O'Connell, none of them have anything at all. Too cruel a joke, that'd be. Instead, they insist on the old slogan; 'NO SURRENDER.' They've painted it across the face of Dominion Courts, as have so many others who've seized control of their own homes, even taking white sheets and painting the slogan across them using whatever colour paint they can find, then flying their makeshift flags from their barricades in the streets.

Though we've always lived lives characterized by our tendency to be given to truth, we have always been made to have trouble distinguishing our truth from the truth imposed upon us by a hostile, alien power, a power entirely unlike our own. It's not for the faint of heart. When the power cuts out for the fifth time that day, Valeri and all the others in the liberated zones are plunged into darkness. But before the darkness can give way, the guidance offered by the stars reveals itself, and in the morning there's action, the next strike at the enemy always foretold but never foreseen.

5. Behind the Lines

Elsewhere in England, news from the front arrives, this time the British Army in Poland repulsing a Russian attack but at great cost. Not far from the eastern suburbs of Warsaw the Russians attempted an encirclement, only to find, some days later, themselves threatened with an encirclement by a mixed bag of British, German, and French troops, the Russians forced into a confused and disorganized retreat while the Western allies exhausted their strength in pushing them back. All this took place over the course of a few weeks, in a little box of territory, thousands of young men on both sides having been made to throw their lives away for want of a new line to be drawn on the map. The rebel Elijah knows to expect more wounded troops will return home in the coming weeks, while others will return in coffins. Still some will never return, forever to be listed as missing in action, denying mothers, daughters, sisters of even so small a comfort as a body to grieve over. Although the rebel Elijah recognizes the tragedy in this, he directs his disciples to take advantage of this opportunity. As he says to his disciples, "while we have the chance, let us seize the moment, for it may never come again." Although the rebel Elijah directs the revolution from his stronghold in England's north, throughout the country others continue their own work.

In the northern reaches of Greater London there's Edmund University, a school closed like all the others by order of the Provisional Government's martial law. But at Edmund University, like all the others, students continue to gather, amid the rumbling of distant explosions and the intermittent rattling of distant gunfire the students taking it on themselves to carry on with their studies in their own way. One student's named Harold Goldberg, Harry for short. Another's named Jane Seymour, just Jane. Among a group of others, they take, today, to the university's façade with a sledgehammer, knocking off the signage declaring the date of the school's establishment; the students then mark in paint the current year. Someone's gotten a hold of a flag from the Popular Front and draped it over the side of the car park. The Home Guard hasn't yet laid siege to their university, but they'll come around. While Harry, Jane, and all the rest discuss what to do next, a professor of theirs arrives. His name's Dr. Christensen, and he's come to see the students in action. This war's been raging already for several months in the streets of Britain's cities, and still the students and their teachers inhabit the public spaces in service of the implicit command we all have been given to seize and hold, seize and hold, the public space a territory like any other. "Are you not yet thrown in with the Popular Front?" asks Dr. Christensen, "and are you not yet given to the cause of the rebel? The Provisional Government is not the change you have sought. The people who control it are from the same stock as they who massacred all our people in the streets just some months earlier. I come to you to caution you against resting on your laurels and letting the mass movement falter." It's been some months since classes were cancelled, and still the sympathetic professor takes to these students not as a leader to his army but as an elder to his tribe. "If you don't learn the lessons of past failures—" Christensen refers to the defeat of the last revolution "—then you're doomed to repeat those very failures." As if to accentuate the point, the moment he finishes speaking to the students there's the sound of gunfire rattling followed by bombs bursting in the distance, far enough away to not pose an immediate threat, close enough to give each of the students pause for thought.

"We should form our own force and join the Popular Front," says Harry. "It's not enough to join," says Jane, "we must fight alongside the rebels." They're in the main library, surrounded by half-toppled bookshelves and computers with screens dark and gathering dust. All the students assembled agree they should throw their lot in with the rebel Elijah and his Popular Front, but beyond this a consensus has yet to be formed. Even as they've taken up residence at the shuttered university, the library offers something of a safe haven from the violence raging in the streets. In the distance, there's the bursting of bombs, two, three in quick succession, the library's shelves, walls, its floors rattling gently and continuously, seeming like a mild earthquake rolling across the land. As Harry's about to continue speaking, there's a burst of gunfire, muffled, but sharp enough to punctuate the moment, studding holes in the silent background. "The Popular Front is our future," says Harry, "and we can do our part by taking to the streets anew. If we show that the army's occupation of the streets can't intimidate us, then we'll be invincible." But Jane says, "if you believe that, then you must believe yourself immune to the army's bullets. They'll gun us down just like they gunned down the protestors before. Just like months ago, just like Bloody Sunday." She's referring, first, to the massacre which precipitated the fall of the old British government, and second, to the massacre of Irish nationalists in Derry more than fifty years ago. And there're more examples, they know, of those occupying the streets for some noble purpose instead being gunned down by troops. "If this is the price we pay," says Harry, "then I say we pay it. What good are our lives if we don't use them for a noble sacrifice?" It seems to everyone present in the library they're at an impasse, with no easy answer. Consensus, here as everywhere else, doesn't occur naturally; consensus in all places must be forged.

But Professor Christensen watches the students carry out the same debates he'd carried out in his youth, only these with the stakes higher. A moment of silence sets in as the students pause to gather themselves, the silence making way for another bomb bursting, this one closer, close enough to topple books loosely off shelves and send shards of glass falling from window frames, shattering against the linoleum floors. Finally, Professor Christensen speaks. "There needn't be only one course of action," he says, "there's enough manpower among all the students of Britain to attack the enemy in every way, using every weapon, even those without bullets." To the students, Christensen speaks as if his is some higher wisdom, learned not by the books he's read nor the research he's written but by so many years of experience. But beyond the university's campus, there's a nefarious conspiracy afoot, a conspiracy which should come from some of the very last any of the students could've expected. While the students debate their next moves, across town already some of the union leaders are pledging to betray the burgeoning revolution, and in so pledging they're toying with a conspiracy of forces greater and more evil than any of them could know. At this very moment, while the students at Edmund University work out their next course of action, the unions which've already begun to have in with the hated Provisional Government are themselves working on a collaboration against the Popular Front's rising. It seems an unlikely alignment of forces, for some of the labour unions' leadership to secretly collaborate with the enemies of the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front, but as the conspiracy behind this alliance reveals itself to those on the front lines it'll seem to those very people as if should've been the only possible outcome all along.

Christensen lived through the failed uprising fifteen years ago, yes, but he was already an old man by then, at least as far as revolutionaries go; he likes to say that revolutions are a young man's game. Originally from Denmark, he'd come to Britain as a young man himself, not altogether much older than the students who now should count themselves among the vanguard of this new revolution. In his office, which he can still enter if he should so choose, there hangs a small portrait of a wise man, much wiser than any of them, certainly much wiser than him. It's this small portrait hanging in his office which betrays his leanings, before any could even hear him speak. It's for this reason the students assembled agree to hear this professor speak, this professor to the exclusion of all others. In the war against hierarchical knowledge, their own revolution against the powers entrenched, the students consider Professor Christensen an ally, to what extent none can know. And once each of the students hears the latest news on the Popular Front's gunmen, a murmur sweeps across the university's campus, each of them impressed regardless of the petty divisions among them. In time, this will tend them inexorably towards action, the selfless example of the men in the Popular Front inspiring them. "But that doesn't mean you should rush out into the street and throw your lives away in a blaze of glory," says Christensen, continuing his discussion with the students, "in fact, it means quite the opposite. You should preserve yourselves. You have families, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters." But this doesn't sit well with all the students. "It's not for yourselves that you should plan your next moves, but for them." He continues, even as the students are restless and agitated, eager for a fight.

Still, Harry won't let it stand. "We have nothing left," he says, "and we don't know where our next meal will come from. We need to eat!" Jane nods and says, "we need to eat, and we will eat only by the success of the revolution in the streets. Men are dying right now! Dying for us! Dying for all the working class! What cowardice is ours not to die alongside them?" The students look to Professor Christensen for a middle ground, but a middle ground he hasn't to offer. Instead, he says, "both of you are correct. And you're both incorrect. But while you're here in this library debating the finer points of your ideals, remember there's always something you could be doing, whether fighting or dying, in the streets. Without practice, without practical application, your ideas are nothing more than mere words. Remember that." It's not for the faint of heart, Christensen insists, seeming to step outside himself and become something other than what he is. But even Christensen has his own family, his own personal concerns which he can't bring to ignore, having been caught up like so many others in the country's descent into revolution and war. He survives by the meagre salary he's still paid by the Department for Education, although he's no longer teaching still his salary trickling in. His wife works too, as a mid-level official for the BBC, though the wartime restrictions on the flow of information means he doesn't know what exactly she does.

But Harry persists, standing and pointing at Professor Christensen, saying, "and what are you? In all the classes you've taught, from all the research you've written, is there not one piece of action among them?" There's a surge of flame and fury, in the distance an unseen inferno enveloping a half-standing apartment block, trapping men and women, trapping children inside. But the students at the university see none of it, focused as they are on the narrow debates consuming their thoughts like the fevered dreams rousing the young and the innocent into action. The finer points of these debates make little difference in the early afternoon, the whole group of these students returning to their homes what's left of them, sometimes a dozen of them to a single flat. Harry's taken in with a group of six others in the basement of a bombed-out shophouse. Jane's found refuge in the pews of an old church, once disused and all but abandoned, this war having given it new life. Now, with some time having passed, the students at Edmund University are no closer to a consensus than they were, even as they've begun to form something at least vaguely resembling an organization capable of action. The students here, Harry and Jane among them, form a cadre that's taken over for the defunct student council at Edmund University. With the university administration shut down by martial law, this cadre has become the de facto government here, its authority recognized by hardly anyone, but an authority nevertheless.

In the afternoon, there's a lull in the action, the bursting of bombs ceasing, the rattling of gunfire quieting, an almost-silence invading the city beset by destruction and death. There are others. At a polytechnic in Brentford students have seized their school, to what end they don't know. There're other schools across Britain seized by their students, but the police and the army are too concerned with the rebel guerrillas and with the insurgent workers in the liberated zones to care much. The students have always been the intellectual character of the working class, as the worker is to the manager so is the student to the teacher. Not far from Edmund University, though, there works Bonnie Brown, an old woman who's lived through not only the failed uprising fifteen years before this one but also the boom times that preceded it. When she was younger, much younger, she'd worked in a sewage plant, spending her twenties and thirties seeing the refuse from much of London pass through. Back then, she'd been in love with a black man about her age, theirs an affair which seemed to make the little struggles of day to day life worthwhile. Even during such a time of unbridled, breakneck growth, still people like Bonnie and her lover were made to struggle, living paycheque to paycheque, still the affair they shared making the struggle seem bearable. And then her lover was killed in an industrial accident, a gas leak which killed scores, a disaster not unlike a miniature version of the gas leak which killed thousands a half-century earlier in Bhopal, India. Although the victims' families were offered some meagre compensation through the courts, the company responsible kept on operating, kept on profiting, while people like Bonnie were left to their life-altering misery. Now she works, as best she can, at a clinic, one of the few still-open in the whole of Greater London. Between helping doctors and nurses with patients, she sometimes spares a thought for her dead lover, the last lover she'd had before the cruelty of her lot in life had taken love from her, forever.

But now, with the old regime fallen and the Provisional Government offering little to distinguish itself, the students here at Edmund University, at the polytechnic in Brentford, and all across Britain know nothing of the struggle laying itself out before them, tempting them with the path they must follow. Amid the bursting of bombs and the intermittent rattling of gunfire, the students at Edmund University manage a safety and security temporary, always under threat of attack, even as life in the city seems to carry on. Each of these students, Harry, Jane, and all the others have their own concerns, and all seek to subordinate their own concerns to the greater concerns of their common struggle. But each of these students, Harry, Jane, and all the others can't bring themselves to forsake their own concerns, not even in these times of violent struggle. When the army's patrols come around, the students mass on the side of the road, hurling their voices and raising their fists, a brave few throwing missiles. Memories linger of the massacre in the streets only months earlier, before the Provisional Government came to power, the threat of the bullet enough to cow all but the most radical among them. For Professor Christensen has seen this before, in the failed uprising of fifteen years ago and in the pages of history books read a hundred times over. When this meeting is out, the students look on their grounds and make for the central square, Harry at the centre of one group, Jane at the centre of another, with no clear boundary separating the two crowds, yet their lines drawn like the sharp distinction between night and day. It's known, the unknown, to them. Elsewhere, at a public school a teacher named Ronald Griffin runs an air-raid drill, guiding fifty or so pupils through the halls of their primary school to the bomb shelter in the basement. It's something of an anachronism, a throwback to the days of the Second World War, and Ronald knows it's more for show than an effective drill. After all, he realizes, a dozen nuclear warheads could be minutes away before they'd get any warning, each warhead enough to wipe out the whole of Greater London. As he stands with the door to the basement open, he shepherds the pupils in, his class the last to make it in. The Provisional Government has ordered these drills in every school, but Ronald's is one of the few that bothers. After the last of the pupils files into the basement, Ronald takes one last look around, then shuts the heavy door, locks it firmly in place, and turns in. Between encouraging the pupils, he looks to the screen he keeps in his back pocket, checking for messages from his wife, each time finding none. He realizes her battery has probably run out, but some small part of him can't help but fixate on the possibility, however slim, that she's dead.

But what do the students know? Is theirs a struggle lacking in physical force? Is theirs a struggle so dominated by ideological concerns? After the night has begun, the dogs of war come out, the shattering of glass and the crumbling of red-brick walls accompanying the dimming of the late-summer's light. It's not that the students are uncommitted to the greater struggle; rather, they're uncertain how best to proceed. They're accustomed to forming their study groups, to declaring the intent of the rebel to overthrow the way of things, to laying their own plans for direct action against the old parliament, only to have the police swoop in at the last minute and arrest them all. Now, with the police rarely coming round and the army patrolling the streets, the student has become lost. After living through the failed uprising more than fifteen years ago, Susan Roberts isn't sure she's going to live through this one. In Dartford, she works in an old shopping centre where most of the shops have long since shuttered and most of the rest have little to sell and fewer customers. The chronic shortages the war has produced mean she stands in a shop with little on the shelves, even as there's warehouses full of confiscated goods. Tonight, one night, she mans her post, a kiosk at the front of the grocer's, finding a gaggle of customers coming in over the course of her shift. They find nothing, nothing they'd come here looking for, but none complain to her about the lack of selection. It seems absurd, to her, to keep the shop open and the employees working, as if nothing had changed. She suspects but she doesn't dare say it's out of some perverse sort of habit, that the act must go on, as if to fool someone, anyone at all into thinking there's something left to be salvaged. She's half-right. Even as the strains of war have made the old way of life all but unmanageable, old habits die hard, leaving the old way of life to persist as an imitation of its former self. At the end of her shift, Susan leaves through the rear entrance, on her way out spotting a Home Guard patrol cruising the street.

On Edmund University's main campus, the power fails intermittently, rarely for more than a few minutes at a time, but occasionally the whole night plunged into an eerie, altogether too-natural darkness, lit only by the fires of liberation burning, burning, casting their sickly orange glow on the undersides of the clouds. The group of students Harry leads, they're not ready to die, but they are ready to live. The group of students Jane leads, they're not ready to live, but they are ready to die. It's this distinction, in the darkness of the night, that'll come to characterize the struggle of the student against himself, the dark, decrepit walls of the school's ugly blocks serving as huge concrete monoliths which catch bullets like paint on a canvas. It wasn't all that long ago that a university like this one should've been a sanctuary against violence, but now it remains as a bulwark against the enemy. But further afield, a young man named Terry Ward lives in Croydon, working as he does in a restaurant's kitchen. Despite the chronic shortages, there's still work to be found, the basic outlines of the old way of life persisting. Though much of the restaurant's menu has been pulled for lack of the necessary ingredients, still there's enough left to satisfy the restaurant's clientele. The workers suspect the owner has connections inside the Provisional Government's local authority that allows him access to scarce foodstuffs, but no one speaks up. One night, Terry comes to the front to speak to the manager, and when he looks out the front window he sees Home Guard troops appearing to escort a group of refugees through the streets. They look tired and hungry. Later, when Terry spends his breaks out back, he smokes cigarettes and listens to the sound of distant gunfire rattling into the early evening's sky.

Each of the students is marked by his own personal struggle, by the privations meted out upon each and every member of the working class. Some, like Harry, have grown up in homes of unemployment and drunkenness, scraping by on whatever means they can, filing dutifully into university after completing their A-levels only to find any possible future already taken from them by the onset of the future. In the morning, crisis emerges, news having reached every man, woman, and child in Britain of the Russian attack. Wherever the bombs have fallen, there's columns of smoke rising nearly indistinguishable from those already risen into the sky. For all their posturing, for all their interminable debates on the finer points of arcane and abstract ideas, the students are all part of the changing character of the larger struggle. But the larger struggle will come to seem so distant when the last of the shops and kitchens nearby shutter, and they begin to feel hunger pangs more painful than any pain they've ever felt. The students, Harry, Jane, and the rest all take stock of what they've lost, and they see on their screens only the broken bodies and the spilled blood of Britons, narrated by the breathless voice of the apparatchik who promises swift and decisive vengeance against Britain's foreign enemies. It seems, at a glance, that little has changed since the old government has fallen and the Provisional Government taken power, but for the state of war all the same. The students still have their families, many of them, though, having lost their fathers and their brothers leaving them with little in the way of a home to return to. The university itself has been taken in hand as a home for the hundreds of students there every day, as a refuge for the thousands more who take in whenever they've got nowhere else to go. Nearby, among a column of refugees fleeing the destruction of their homes is a young woman named Brenda Vail. She flees along with her family, her mother and father and her two younger siblings. It's not altogether unlike them to be sullen and distant, left as they are to their own devices by a Provisional Government that's deemed them and people like them surplus to the war effort, useless eaters. They don't know it, but the column of refugees they're a part of is being shepherded into London, funnelled towards the liberated zones, at strategic junctions Home Guard troops there to herd them down the right street, forcing them forward at gunpoint. Along the way, Brenda and her family pass shops still open, restaurants still serving customers, even cafés dipping into their stores of instant coffee for whomever might stop by. It's a cruel joke, that Brenda should feel the pangs of hunger in her stomach even as she sees people filling theirs. Brenda and her family will soon arrive at the nearest war zone, unsure if they'll ever go home again.

For the rebel Elijah and his Popular Front measure carefully the mood among the students, here at Edmund University, at the polytechnic in Brentford, and at every other school across Britain. It's not that the Front has apparatchiks here; they do, but that's not the means by which they achieve their knowledge. The Front is weak, but there's a strength in its weakness. But the Front is also strong, in its strength a weakness clear. In the evening, the Home Guard moves in, swooping on suspected rebel hideouts across Britain, smashing windows and breaking down doors. Their goal isn't to arrest any rebels they find; they're after Elijah, leader of the Popular Front. In the basement beneath a half-bombed out block a team of army men barge with guns drawn and fingers on triggers. But they find nothing. The rebel Elijah hides not in the shadows, not in underground bunkers guarded by gunmen but openly among his people, among the wretched and the pathetic, in the homeless camps and in the bombed-out apartment blocks, the places his enemies in the Provisional Government would suspect but would never look. Amid the shootings, the Home Guard's troopers exchange fire with the rebels, men on both sides falling dead, the familiar sound of gunshots accompanied by angry shouting, bodies hitting tiled floors and asphalt, then silence as the dead are left to rot.

But in one of London's liberated zones, the defenders of the old Dominion Courts survive through the night, through each night knowing full well every morning could be their last. After a particularly restless night, Valeri rouses to confront the day, hopeful this'll be the day when the Home Guard troops finally attack, instead finding only more refugees trickling in. Suddenly, there's a burst of gunfire in the streets, Valeri rushing to the barricade, rifle in hand, only to find two of theirs already dead, cut down in a hail of bullets. It's deeply confusing and disorienting, with Valeri poking his head out from cover to catch a glimpse of the enemy. He gathers himself, then leans out and fires down the street, scattering rounds aimlessly, hitting nothing, making only a furious noise.

In the morning, the students hear of the raids which mark the beginning of a new escalation in the burgeoning revolution, at least for the heroes in the streets killed in resisting the Provisional Government's wave of assaults. The students have reached no consensus on what to do, except for their shared determination to survive the current war. But when Harry and Jane meet, their respective factions with them, Professor Christensen is nowhere to be found. It's just as well, given the distrust brewing in the halls of Edmund University for any kind of authority, be it intellectual or legal. Although the students haven't yet thrown their lot in with the rebels, haven't yet pledged themselves to fight, their hand is soon to be forced.

For Valeri and all the others inside the liberated zones of British cities, the new enemy attack on their positions is only another crisis. After Valeri's shot at the Home Guard troops down the street, he pauses to catch his breath, the metallic taste of blood flooding his mouth, his heart thumping against his chest. Neither Tonya nor Roger are anywhere to be seen. For a moment, he fears they might be dead. He doesn't have much time to wonder, as the Home Guard troops soon resume fire. In the midst of a furious and confused action, Valeri feels as alive as he's ever felt. But it's a feeling that won't last long.

When the army arrives at Edmund University and forces their way in through the school's doors, the factions led by Jane and Harry put aside their differences and stand together. There's gunfire, there's the falling of bodies to the ground and the shouting of voices, this battle to be forgotten among the many other battles committed to our shared memory, to our shared account of a common history. But in the meanwhile, the rebel Elijah watches, releasing his counter-attack only when the moment's right. And the moment's almost right.

6. Alliances

In the old church where Theresa's taken in with the rogue priest and all his followers there's the wailing of voices and the pounding of fists against the floor, the living mourning the dead. The army came here as part of their offensive against the uprising in the liberated zones, thinking the rogue priest might've been Elijah and his parishioners members of the Popular Front's central committee, but they were wrong. Theresa isn't shot, but four of her fellow parishioners are. Three are dead already, the other's going to die soon. There's blood on the vestibule's carpet where the Home Guard's troops fought their way in, the crimson of dried and drying blood seeming to blend with the carpet's shade of scarlet. Theresa's tending to the wounded man, recalling her training as a nurse as best she can, when the rogue priest approaches her side. "You've done some good," he says, "the fault for murder will lie at the feet of the murder, not they who try to save the murdered." The rogue priest has been ministering to the faithful nearly all his adult life, so he knows when to console the faithful. But don't mistake the rogue priest's ministrations for false motives; his is a faith wide as the night's sky, infinite, boundless, drawn out only by the test of courage. This, Theresa can sense intuitively when the rogue priest rests his palm gently on the back of her shoulder, the shared touch making clear all which can't be spoken. But while the troopers may be gone, having left without making good on any arrests, the effect is clearly felt. "Your family," the rogue priest begins, "how are they?" But Theresa doesn't answer right away, her momentary quiet allowing the sound of distant gunfire to stud the silence. Finally, she says, "they're still alive." Although Theresa has only begun to turn to the working class struggle, already she's intimately familiar with weakness as strength and with strength as weakness. In weakness there's the sympathy, the backing of those who would seek to compel justice, which makes it strong. In strength there's the vulnerability to toppling by the masses, which makes it weak. In time, Theresa's own personal struggle will come to embody this truth.

Even off the coast, the crew of the cruiser Borealis know of what's going on. Although Dmitri and his lead hand Mason both seek a way forward, the almost-consensus they've forged among the crew enough to sustain them for the time being. After leaving Rosyth, they'd headed north, arriving at Edinburgh to find the city controlled by Scottish nationalists unwilling to grant safe haven to those loyal to the Popular Front. Dmitri had tried to convince them, but still they rejected the Popular Front as an English movement. Dismayed, Dmitri ordered the Borealis back out, hugging the coast, eventually finding a sympathetic governing council a little further north in Dundee. But they know the further north they travel, the greater the threat from the Russians becomes. Neither Russian bombers nor submarines will make any distinction between the Popular Front, the Provisional Government, or any of the other flags that fly from the masts of British warships, and that fact weighs on Dmitri as he mans the bridge. He uses it to avoid thinking about crewman White's proposal, knowing as he does that it'll be raised, if not by him then by someone, at the next meeting of the ship's committee. (They'd agreed that any member of the committee can call a meeting at any time, but none have yet called a meeting to discuss the proposal.) As Dmitri keeps station on the bridge, though, he can't help but think not about his crew or his ship but his family, hiding as they are in the countryside. His thoughts are soon interrupted by Mason returning from below decks. "Are the engines going to hold up?" Dmitri asks. "Sure," says Mason, pausing to take a swig of water from his bottle before continuing, "for now, at least. Collins can work miracles, but I don't think even he can get blood from stone." Neither say it, but both think the same thing: that'll have to do.

Soon, they receive new messages from their contact in the Popular Front. They're ordered to head south. At first, the orders are to head south immediately, but after a lengthy exchange in which Dmitri conveyed the cruiser's condition, their orders are amended to allow them time to conduct limited repairs in Dundee. The port there is not a military base but a civilian facility, and there's no way for the crew of the Borealis to replenish ammunition. Still, Dmitri's already ordered them to take on fuel oil, the port authority under the authority of the sympathetic local council offering them a supply. Dmitri doesn't ask where they were able to obtain such a supply during times of critical shortages. More pressing is the lack of onboard medical supplies and staff, the ship's doctor having fled when they'd seized their cruiser. As Dmitri leaves the bridge, he passes by the infirmary, and he pauses long enough to look inside. He sees a pair of young crewmen who've been mustered into service as nurses, but more prominently the dozen or so wounded lying in the beds, on the floor, even a couple leaned against the wall. This isn't the resistance to oppression, poverty, and death that Dmitri had envisioned when he'd joined with the others and committed to following the banner of Elijah and the Popular Front. "Brother Malinin," says one of the nurses, a young seaman named Thoreson, "we need to find more medical supplies." Without realizing it, Dmitri's entered the infirmary. He thinks for a moment, then says, "I'll send for some more, anything we can find." But inwardly, he's not confident there's anything to be found ashore, not in these times of extreme shortages. "Brother Malinin to the bridge," comes a call over the intercom. "I have new contacts to the east at high altitude," says the radar operator, "heading west at high speeds. Could be—" the operator pauses for a moment to look at his scope "—Russian bombers, fighters." Dmitri exchanges a glance with Mason, the two knowing what must come next.

But as the Home Guard's new offensive against Britain's liberated zones steadily intensifies, resistance can but rise like the cresting of a wave in the mightiest of storms, tossing about hero and villain alike. The rogue priest was at the head of the crowd facing down the rifle-toting troopers, he no self-serving coward, no keen political operative but a man who meets principle with practice. Now, he ministers to the faithful, their faith not shaken but strengthened by this attack on a House of God. Theresa eagerly looks to the chance for vengeance, and in this the rogue priest doesn't seek to dissuade her. In the church's offices, she rummages through a desk, looking for a gun she'd stored for exactly moments like this, not to defend the church from incursion but to strike out in retribution. Suddenly, the rogue priest's standing in the doorway, seeming to loom over her, looking disappointed, but not surprised. "I have no time for talk," she says. "Nor do any of us," says the rogue priest. "I'm going to do this with or without you," she says, "but without will take longer." The rogue priest says, "in that case we ought to get to work." As Theresa makes her pact with the rogue priest, elsewhere in one of the many liberated zones across British cities Valeri knows Tonya has come to talk some sense into him, but he's still unwilling to listen. They stand in the street, the halls and flats of the block they defend having become unbearably hot and humid in the early-spring. "Don't think I suggest we don't fight," says Tonya. "I don't think that," says Valeri. "Good," says Tonya. "You're no coward," says Valeri, but with an edge to his voice that makes his feelings clear. These are not trained soldiers, their inexperience manifested in the many mistakes they've made since seizing control of their own homes. Chief among them, whether they know it or not, has been their failure to form a single, coherent force. Although they've made some strides—meeting with others in the old church, posting notices announcing their authority—the internal fractions that've already begun to form will prove to be their eventual downfall.

"We won't survive much longer without help from the Popular Front," says Valeri. "Well, you're right about that," says Tonya. They're not at the barricades, instead heading for a nearby shop to look for supplies and tools. They see some of the recently-arrived refugees, whole families huddling in car parks and alleys, seeking shelter from the rapidly warming spring wherever shelter can be found. "There's too many of them," says Tonya, "there's not enough food for them all." Many of the new arrivals wear dirty clothes, and carry a few possessions in rucksacks and suitcases. "They'll be okay for now," says Valeri, "and all we have to do is hold out until the Popular Front relieves us." At the moment, Tonya says nothing, letting the tension build. But at that moment, there's a burst of gunfire, snapping them to attention only for a moment, the ramparts manned while half their gunmen clutch guns without bullets tight to their chests. It seems whenever they must have a go at forging a new consensus from among their rapidly diverging thoughts, there's a sudden attack, not the enemy but the dark essence which guides the revolution applying an ebb and flow to the action in the streets, seeking to bring about the next stage in our liberation by way of skilful and deliberate manipulation of these informal alliances. In the streets, Valeri often finds Gillian Bailey, the quiet young woman, out at the barricades even at night. She watches the Home Guard troops down the road, and she seems to be quietly contemplating herself as Valeri approaches one night. "What's bothering you?" he asks. "Nothing's bothering me," she says, "I'm thinking about..." Her voice trails off. She's a short and slim woman, with plain looks and shoulder-length brown hair, her skin blemished and dirty as everyone's is in the liberated zones. "...I've spent my whole life being looked down on by someone better than me," she says, "and now I've got to wait to give it back to them." But Valeri says, "there's no one better than you, or any of us, no mortal man anyways." They share a firm but warm look. The dark essence is here, now, linking their hearts, if only for a moment before fading into the night.

In Portsmouth, Joanna thinks herself safe, as safe as anyone can be in revolutionary Britain, with the attention of the Home Guard having been diverted elsewhere in the country for at least this one day. When she's sure no one's looking, she steps into the street and walks briskly towards her destination, at the end of the block a designated point where she can hand information to a trusted confidante. But when she's sure no one's looking, she's wrong, a half-block down some troopers emerging from a side street, giving her a quick once-over before carrying on. To Joanna, they seem preoccupied with something else, their rifles in hand, their movements quick and purposeful, their faces bearing a look impassive yet stern. But the war is always present, in the burnt-out streetlights that seem to stand out more than the few that flicker on and off through the night. She recalls one of the last things her husband had said to her before he'd gone off to the war on the continent. He'd said, "although I've never been able to give you much, I'll always give you more love than any other man could." He'd referred to their marriage at such a young age, Joanna having married a young scoundrel who never finished his A-levels, which'd earned her the rebuke of her entire family. All she'd said, after her husband had told her this, was this: "it's all right." And then she'd given him a kiss. Now, as she feels the sharpest of hunger pangs knife through her stomach, she regrets most of all that she'll never get another chance to tell him she'd loved him.

But when she looks back, she looks back a half-moment before she sees, out of the back of the troopers' lorry a man looking sad, with a pained look on his face. She's heard of the roundups, but this is the first she's seen. She doesn't know any of the men brought in; they're all from the working class districts, even from the edges of the liberated zones the troopers barging into not only churches but homeless camps, burnt-out apartment blocks, even the undersides of bridges half-fallen down. Still she keeps her head down, walking down the street briskly, in quick, purposeful strides, in the distance behind her the rattling of gunfire and the columns of smoke rising like some chaotic, infernal firestorm. Joanna's meeting someone, but unlike all the others she's not yet sure of her decided path. In this, her indecision, there's surety, as in the greatest weakness there's strength. In this confusing time, when the army's Home Guard clumsily barges into sanctuaries of the poor, weakness should yet reveal itself as part of a greater tendency to life. "It's getting harder to keep up with it," says Joanna, when she reaches her destination, a small hardware store not far from her flat. "They change their patrol routes all the time," says the man behind the shop's counter. Like all other shops, this one has mostly bare shelves but remains open. They're not conspiring against anyone, but they are about to do something forbidden by the laws imposed on them by the hated Provisional Government. When they're done, Joanna will make off with a bit of cash, a few crumpled-up bills amounting to a couple hundred pounds, and the man will return to his spot behind the little hardware shop's counter.

At Dundee, the cruiser Borealis rests tied to a pier, with Dmitri having found, over the course of a few days, a way to get some basic medical supplies aboard. A pair of doctors from the local hospital even come aboard for a short time to assist in the infirmary. In times of chronic shortages, the local hospital, like all others, can hardly keep things like bandages and paracetamol at the ready, but Dmitri doesn't ask where the head of the local council managed to get his hands on such precious items. The way the man handed parcels over with a stiff but sure look on his face seemed to suggest to Dmitri that the local council considers it a duty to support first and foremost whoever follows the banner of Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front, that very banner flying from the Borealis' mainmast earning them accord here. Still, although Dmitri is grateful for the help, he knows these supplies will be of little help to the more wounded among the crew, whose lives could hang in the balance. But when Dmitri tours the infirmary, each and every one of the wounded men, no matter the severity of their wounds, expresses a firm desire to return to duty as soon as possible. As Dmitri looks over the men, one young sailor, crewman Meyer, reaches for Dmitri's hand, and when Dmitri offers it Meyer says, "I will be back at my post in no time." Dmitri nods, giving Meyer's hand a firm shake. But then Meyer says, "please, Brother Malinin, don't let this crew re-join the navy. We'll all be sent to the gallows." Dmitri nods again, then moves on. By now, the whole ship has heard of the proposal made by crewman White, and most have strong opinions on it. Events should soon conspire, though, to force them to table that debate for now.

In the far south, Theresa returns to the church after a weeks-long absence, having accomplished much in that time. "I'm back," says Theresa, "but I won't be here for long." The rogue priest nods firmly and says, "none of us will be. All life is fleeting, and we must use what time we have to do good works." But for the lost life and the broken spirits, a mutual understanding would've emerged by now. All men and women place their faith in the Word of God, which this rogue priest is faithful to above all else, a word in conflict with the laws of man. Some time later in the day the rogue priest finds Theresa rummaging through his office. He waits a little while before announcing himself to her, whereupon she only looks at him for a moment without saying anything. Then she turns back to her rummaging. He approaches and says to her, "you seem to know what you're looking for." And she says, "I'll do this with or without you," then pauses before continuing, "but without you this'll take a lot longer." The rogue priest takes a moment to consider his words, then places a hand gently on her shoulder before saying, "you're right about that. We are given by God only a short time in this world, and we must use it to do His works. If you wish to stand for the cause of working class liberation, and so long as you are willing to lay down your life for that cause, then I can never in good conscience stand in your way." But this, too, is a charade, the rogue priest already in with the rebels of the Popular Front, in spirit if not in form. Soon, with his help Theresa finds exactly what she's been looking for, and with his blessings she absconds with it into the night.

What the rogue priest has seen here, he'll pass on the information, in the way that he will, of what's happened here today, just as the Popular Front's sympathizers in churches, apartments, and universities across Britain will all feed information into the same hands. Few of these will wear a uniform or carry a rifle, fewer still will be aware of the true character of their complex and convoluted network of allegiances. They'll know in the vague and visceral way they do that each of them opposes the Provisional Government and that they harbour sympathy for the rebels in the Popular Front, but little more. Meanwhile, across town Joanna arrives at an old block of flats, entering through the fire exit on the building's side. "I can't give you a hundred pounds," says the man she's come to see. "What can you give me?" Joanna asks. "Seventy-five," says the man. Joanna sighs, then says, "that'll do," then begins to set her things down on the table in the middle of the one-room flat. "Fifty," says the man. "Fine," says Joanna. She tosses him a look sideways, but only for a moment, before sitting on the edge of the bed. Like Theresa, Joanna has resorted to doing things she'd never thought she'd have had to do to survive through this war. Like Theresa, Joanna won't survive much longer despite having done nearly everything she could've thought to do. Across the counter, the man who trades in more than what he lets on is satisfied with their exchange, in the smug sort of way that he seems to be, his arms crossed and the thin beginnings of a grin appearing on his face as Joanna walks away. Although Joanna isn't in with the rebels, although she isn't a soldier, she's managed to survive as long as she has by her wits. After the day is through, Joanna will come closer to finding her place in the larger struggle unfolding around her, every minute of every day. She's at the mercy of people like this anonymous man in his anonymous block of flats, but women like her needn't be forever.

Not far from Joanna's home, in the city of Farnborough a young man named Justin Coleman works near the airfield at the centre of town. Repurposed by the Provisional Government as an airbase, the airfield hosts a Royal Air Force fighter squadron, whose planes Justin sometimes sees flying overhead as he walks between work and home six days a week. But he notices they're seen flying overhead less frequently these days; but for the word around town he might've thought the squadron had been deployed to the war on the continent. He works at a machine shop, whose sole customer is the Home Guard, their vehicles in a near-constant state of disrepair. One day, some months after the local council pledged to follow the Provisional Government, Justin's at the shop when one of the Home Guard's armoured cars is brought in, having been worn through many months of heavy service without an overhaul. The Home Guard draws on every shop, every mechanic to keep its operations running, commandeering everything there is to be commandeered. While so many others struggle to make it through the day, Justin works to keep the apparatus of the Home Guard running, even as he tightens the bolts on the car's engine mounts at the end of the day still the thought making his stomach turn. In truth, men like Justin aren't sure what path they ought to follow, the war in the streets seeming hardly distinguishable from the distant war on the continent. And men like Justin work much closer to the rebel Elijah than anyone could know, even they, among his most trusted agents unknowing of his precise whereabouts. For the rebel Elijah makes his sanctuary not in the liberated zones but under the thumb of the Provisional Government, hiding openly among the homeless in their camps, with the dead and dying, with the prostitutes and the insane finding his people. It's written that the rebel Elijah comes from a long line of the most pathetic and wretched among us, and it's on the very streets the enemies of the Popular Front consider the safest that such wretched and pathetic masses can be found.

After manning the ramparts, Valeri points his rifle right down the line, picking out targets from among the incomprehensible mass of black and blue, only feeling Tonya's hand on his shoulder to ground him in the moment. "Valeri," she says. There's the bursting of gunfire and the rumbling of the ground beneath their feet, the dark essence choosing this moment to intercede. "I'm hungry," says Valeri, "and I know you are too." Tonya crouches next to him, she feeling the rumbling of the ground beneath them as acutely as he. "I miss my family," says Tonya, "they're all dead, or they may as well be. I don't accept this, but I choose to imagine it anyways." Her voice has softened. "But I don't have to imagine," Valeri says, "everyone I've loved is killed or missing, or just gone. And I don't regret it." It's true, the fervour brimming in him, radiating out from his heart through every point in his body confirming every instinct in him. This is a moment which, once bridged, can no longer separate them, the two having arrived at a silent accord even as there remains a vast chasm separating them in which future moments can hide. But while Valeri and Tonya struggle to survive inside one of London's liberated zones, Theresa continues some days, perhaps a week or so after having been given the clear by the rogue priest to take what belongs to him. His permission means Theresa is no longer guilty of an act of theft, but the receipt of an act of charity. As the late-summer's light dims and the night sets in, all becomes lost, the dead mourned and the dying honoured. "I'm ready to stand with you," Theresa says, not to the rebel Elijah's apparatchiks but the unemployed and the homeless huddling under a bridge not far from the church she'd come from. "And I've realized my place," she says. With the rogue priest passing information along, she's expected, here, in the darkness of the night shadows concealing their true intentions from all but their own selves. Theresa's almost ready. Elsewhere in England, Joanna finds herself roped in by the Labour Brigades once more, this time building fortifications across a motorway leading directly into the heart of Greater London.

It's far from home. She has her firearm, and she's ready to use it on command, if only she should know where the command might come from. This church wasn't the only House of God raided by the army in the futile search for the rebel Elijah, nor was the newly re-opened Edmund University. The Home Guard's troops have taken prisoner many rabble-rousers, many malcontents who would later count themselves among the rebel Elijah's converts, but this was expected by the rebel Elijah and the disciples of the Popular Front. In these raids, there're exchanges of gunfire, pitched battles between isolated elements taken in with the cause of the Popular Front, leaving bodies broken and blood spilled but only the unarmed supporters caught up in this wave of arrests. But this is by design, not of the Home Guard's troops but by the rebel Elijah himself, he and the rest of the Popular Front's leaders seeking to lull the enemy into a false sense of security. In the days that'll follow, this task will be achieved at some great cost. As the Home Guard's war against the liberated zones of Britain's cities sees fresh blood flowing through the streets of Britain's cities, the rebel Elijah knows no matter how many die the war for the working man's liberation is not yet reached its climax. This act, this invasion amounts to a desecration of the temple, Theresa's church having been targeted more than once in the months since the working class districts of British cities rose up. And it's taken place in the weeks before Theresa made the decision to join the rebels, not by taking up arms and hurling herself at the Home Guard, the armed wing of the hated Provisional Government, but at last she's arrived at the decision. Theresa is a microcosm of how the Popular Front recruits some of its soldiers, a long, slow process that, in her case, is far from over.

Meanwhile, in the Midlands where there's the most intense fighting between the Popular Front's gunmen and the Home Guard's troops, a middle-aged woman named Annie Campbell survives by her wits. She looks after her three children, each of them having been returned after spending some months out in the countryside. But she's one of the lucky ones. In the confusion and rapidly deteriorating situation at home, not helped by the ineptness of the Provisional Government's apparatchiks, many families remain broken up even after the enforced evacuation of children is ended. (Many families more weren't broken up at all, the Provisional Government taking some children and not others). Annie struggles to feed her children, succeeding as she does by working at a nearby storehouse. Sometimes she hears the nearby rattling of gunfire even as she works through the day, with her boss instructing the workers to keep working even through the fighting. She could lose her children, or they could lose their mother, at any moment, and this knowledge is what terrifies Annie more than the threat of death itself. But women like Theresa are no heroines. In the night, she visits her family, those that haven't scattered across Britain or fled the country outright. The rogue priest has told her that she must make good with her own before casting her lot in with the struggle, and so she must. Amid the broken glass and collapsed walls of the working class apartment blocks, her elderly parents live in the shadows, venturing out only at night to secure scarce supplies. "Things have gotten a lot harder these days," she tells them, "but I think things will get worse before they get better." Her mother and father worry, but they have so little control they tell her they trust her to do the right thing. All that's happened so far, in only the recent weeks, has amounted to a gradual intensifying of the war in the streets, the tightening of the Home Guard's grip around the liberated districts off Britain's cities while the Popular Front continues its attacks.

Caught in the middle of a war zone, a young man named Carl Nelson is among those who bear witness to the gradual intensifying of the war in the streets. If the Provisional Government was meant to bring stability, then Carl knows as well as anyone it's failed. But, as Carl knows, the hopeless poverty and desperation of the old way of life have salted the earth from which the Provisional Government is trying to grow anew. Although Carl isn't a member of the Popular Front, like so many disenchanted youths he views them favourably, which has led him into the trouble he's found himself in. Today, one day, he throws in with a crowd of youths gathered in an open square, defying the local authority's attempts to enforce the state of emergency. Home Guard troops appear. Like most Home Guard troops, these don't wear any official uniform, having been conscripted into the service only recently; instead, they wear green caps and black armbands which look so out of place against their civilian clothes. But what Carl and the other youths don't know is the orders the troops have been given, the things the troops have been told about those who would defy the orders of the local authority. There's the hurling of stones at the troops, along with voices shouting abuse, the troopers responding by beating the youths with the butts of their rifles. The youths fight back, Carl among them, but these youths are no match for soldiers. But Carl, like so many other youths in mid-twenty-first century Britain, has little to look ahead to, little but degradation and death. Soon, Carl and the other youths are being driven across the city, funnelled along with so many refugees into the nearest liberated zone, told only to remain there. In the distance, there's the sound of gunfire cracking, of voices screaming, faintly, muffled, as the Home Guard carries out the last of its sweeps through the working class districts, leaving only the liberated zones untouched. Theresa's family lives not in the liberated zones but right up to the edge, close enough to be bombed out, riddled with bullet holes, burnt in places. They know what's coming, in the basic, instinctive way they can know, word having already spread through hushed tones and whispered voices of the rebel's next offensive. But they don't know what will be their daughter's role in it. The students, the unemployed, the impoverished masses will take to the streets at exactly the same moment, recalling the tactics which brought down the old United Kingdom and fostered its replacement with the Provisional Government. In this, Theresa's parents only wish her well, telling her, "we hope your life will be spared." They know Theresa's no heroine. But after a lifetime of arduous struggle, she's beginning to stand.

Nor is Joanna any heroine. Across town, she's secured her own arms, leaving her to fight and die in the streets alongside her brothers and sisters, millions of them. In the Labour Brigade, she works under the watchful eye of the Home Guard troops, even in the night putting up fortifications around an intersection. As she reaches for one piece of razor wire, she misplaces her hand, cutting herself, draining blood along the curve of her arm. "You," says the trooper, "don't you ever mind yourself?" But her mind, this night, is preoccupied. After all she's seen, after having lost her father, her brother, and her husband all to the guns of the enemy, one enemy or another, she knows only anger and resentment at still being forced into the Labour Brigades like so many other Britons. After patching her wound, the medic sends her back into the street, and she picks back up where she'd left off, stringing razor wire across the tops of metal barriers. And she already looks ahead, in her flat that old rifle stored safely, waiting for use. "I'll mind myself as soon as you get at it," says Joanna. She just can't help herself. "You useless whore," says the trooper, before giving her a whack across the back of her head with the butt of his rifle. She falls forward, stunned. The next thing she knows, she's being thrown out of the worksite, her whole body in pain.

The thought of holding in her hands and using it for its intended purpose gives her the will to work through the days, no matter how tired, sore, or bloodied the work makes her. It's exactly people like Theresa and Joanna who will come to form the core of our future's movement, already given to the cause of working class liberation, lurking, waiting in the shadows for their time to strike. Our history, our struggle has neither hero nor villain. But alliances are formed, in the night the disparate factions meeting in the church basements, the lecture halls, the pubs and the old, disused factory floors to vent their anger. No one seems to like the Provisional Government, even as its forces seem to draw from every element of British society. Lastly, in Scotland and Northern Ireland, nationalists are already brimming with a discontent entirely unlike the working class rage vented on the streets of English cities, in the latter the Popular Front almost non-existent while the old paramilitaries are gathering arms and trading shots once more. But it's a sideshow, for now, the bulk of the action here, in the southeast of England. In the southeast of England, not far from the city of Ashford a young woman named Diane Anderson works in the local engineering department, keeping the motorway that runs through the city in working order. Ashford's deemed a city of strategic significance by the Provisional Government, located as it is on the motorway out to the Strait of Dover. As she works, one day, she's in the middle of marking an old section of road for resurfacing when there comes the order to make way. A convoy of lorries comes through soon after, packed with refugees, heading into Greater London. There're so many movements, so many transfers going on that people like Diane can't make sense of it all, the Provisional Government seeming to consume itself in executing its plans, in cementing its rule. As Diane stands by and watches the lorries drive past, she catches the glimpse of a small girl, the girl looking forlorn. Though Diane can't know it, there're elements within the Home Guard, within local governments who are using the Provisional Government's plans for deportation into the liberated zones to settle old scores, to clear people out, to remove the undesirables. Over the next several weeks, Diane will personally witness the deportation of many more undesirables to London. When the inevitable finally comes and the Home Guard attacks, Diane will have already been pressed into service, but she'll never forget the look on that little girl's face.

Soon enough, though, the war at home will see its inevitable escalation, leading to confusing alliances between unlikely parties, all in pursuit of a history that should never have been. But neither the Home Guard's increasing pressure on the liberated zones nor the rebel Elijah's immediate response to it should prove to be the war's inevitable escalation; when true escalation comes it'll so shock the conscience of each of us that only Elijah himself should know what to do. Both the forces of the Popular Front and the Provisional Government deliberately avoid direct confrontation, either concerned for the tentative state of their forces. The rebel Elijah withholds from all his true plans, even as he makes them clear as the summer's rain. In his hideouts, he points his disciples to their next targets, standing over a table on which there sits maps of various British cities, these maps laid around an even larger map of all Britain. The rebel Elijah holds these same briefings in every rebel hideout. On these maps, red circles mark the liberated zones, and slashes of red ink point towards targets, the whole of it a confusing, disorienting mess. But it's meant to be this way. The only true plan lies in the rebel Elijah's mind, concealed as it is openly among the pages of history. But not everywhere do these deportations run so smoothly. In London's outer environs, well outside the liberated zones there lives a young man named Drew Hill hides from the Home Guard's raids, only to find the Home Guard troops never come around to gather him in. Although Drew doesn't know why the Home Guard troops come around some areas and not others, he can't be sure they'll never come around here. He used to work in the warehouses and on the docks, picking up a shift here, a shift there, whenever he could. But there's no work here now, and there hasn't been for a long time. As the shelves at the local shops seem to grow barer with each passing week, Drew knows, in the vague, instinctive sort of way he can, that he's got to leave soon or he'll die here, one way or another. But so long as his mother, father, and his two younger cousins remain, he'll remain. It's not that he doesn't think they can survive without him; after having spent the better part of his misspent youth at odds with them over the little things in life, he now feels as though he should stand by them, no matter the cost. But when he's killed in a fire that's to rip through his neighbourhood, allowed to spread by the Home Guard who control emergency services, the family will have nowhere to go, turning them into refugees in their own country.

The rebel Elijah finds himself in a curious position, where he's charged with bringing about the inevitability of history, an inevitability that cannot proceed without the conscious action of him and the men under his command. It used to be said by the preachers in the streets that history is never assured even as it is inevitable, and this is a sermon the rebel Elijah has heard many times, enough to know it by heart. As the Provisional Government, the hated Provisional Government struggles to rally its forces, so, too, struggles the rebel Elijah and the Popular Front. But the struggle of the rebel Elijah and the Popular Front is the struggle of the people, and theirs is a struggle destined to be won. Seemingly a setback in the long and arduous revolution, the urban uprising in fact a step forward, each bullet fired, each bomb set off, each body broken and each drop of blood spilled in Britain's streets moving the Popular Front closer to victory. A young man named Terrence lives in Liverpool, but he's been out of work too long. His youth is squandered knowing hunger, his stomach growling at all hours of the day. Across the street from a bombed-out hall his days are spent on the steps of his crumbling, dilapidated old flat, sometimes the Home Guard patrols rolling past, and sometimes men young as him, men he thinks he recognizes as among the homeless and the unemployed driven into the nearest liberated zone. The anger coursing through his veins, pumping through his heart with every beat is palpable. But he doesn't act, nor could he act, consigned as he is, for now, to languish unemployed in one of Britain's historic industrial centres, his flat not altogether far from the old mills where the industrial age was born. Terrence will become a worker, a soldier as every working man is in the war at home, but for now he's consigned to watch while war goes on. Although he's not yet reached the critical point in his still-developing consciousness where he'd emboldened to fight for what's right, he's like so many other working class men in Britain, not yet given to the destruction of the old way.

Although the streets of London and all the old industrial centres of the north of England are littered with broken bodies and broken dreams, in the narrow alleys and in the darkened spaces there lies hope. Once night falls, the rising columns of smoke blend into the darkness of the sky, with only the fires of liberation burning in patches to lend a pale, sickly illumination to the liberated zones. It's quiet, too quiet, the working man whether inside the liberated zones or out knowing this quiet must surely mean there's soon to come a thunderous storm. Around this time, the calm before the storm seems to have an ebb and flow to it, the streets both inside the liberated zones and out the ordinary men and women struggling to make it through each and every day. What's been accomplished, here, in the weeks since the Home Guard began consolidating its forces, since men like Valeri began hardening their defenses and forging their alliances is that the ground is being laid for the next major battle in the burgeoning revolution, a climactic event which'll let blood flow in the streets like the surging of a flooded river. By the time Valeri's stood his ground and fought until he's got no more fight left, he'll see things he never thought he'd see. But he'll do his parents proud.

Never more assured of ourselves, we, the working class of this country and every country in the world must band together and resist the call for temperance. They who would consider themselves moderate stand against the rising tides of history. No compromise between good and evil is possible; they who would seek such a compromise are guilty of a moral fraud. It's in this spirit that our revolution must seek total and uncompromising victory, using any means possible, justifiable, imaginable. For men like Valeri Kovalenko, the very notion of compromise has always turned his blood cold and roused his anger. But it's only in the past few months, since he and the others seized control of Dominion Courts that he's come to see compromise within as a necessity, the defenders of just the liberated zone he lives in having so many different needs but finding a common cause in this war.

As the rebel Elijah and his Popular Front gather the last of their strength for a grand offensive, the working men of Britain can only stand in league with one another and weather the coming storm. Although the Popular Front has been conserving itself for a renewed campaign, its conservation must soon be unleashed on the country like the breaking of the brightest dawns. For men like Valeri Kovalenko, each day brings the coming battle closer, like the coming of the night.

7. Equinox

At dawn, it begins. After conserving his strength for months, the rebel Elijah and his Popular Front unleashes a new offensive. His targets were carefully selected in the months since the institution of the Provisional Government, selected not for tactical but political value. There's gun attacks on train stations and rifle fire raking across streets. But the rebel Elijah reserves his most violent attacks not for the army or police, nor for the apparatchiks of the Provisional Government, but for the streets of the cities in the liberated zones where men like Valeri and Michael live. The crowds are out in full force, demonstrating in numbers for the first time since the advent of the Provisional Government when it happens, the parishioner, the student, the worker all flooding the streets when the first string of bombs burst across the cities and towns of Britain, scattering debris and human limbs like so much useless confetti. But as men like Valeri and Michael struggle to build a defensive force to withstand the coming assault, young men like Clark Peters face a different struggle. He's caught up in the uprising, although he hasn't taken up arms like Valeri and Michael. He looks to the streets outside his flat and sees the same state of disrepair there's always been, with potholes, cracks in the asphalt, streetlights that never come on, sometimes empty holes in the ground where streetlights used to stand. But he's stuck here, as he's always been stuck here, caught in the uprising when Valeri and the others in Britain's impoverished working class seized their own homes. On this morning, in particular, he hears the distant sound of gunfire and bombs bursting in the streets, but at first he thinks it the same sounds he's been hearing from the same streets for a long time. Then, as the day wears on, Clark begins to notice the distant gunfire and bursting of bombs don't fade away but seem to intensify, the sounds of the rebel offensive a cacophony against which Clark's own personal tragedy must play itself out. While the revolution intensifies, at home Clark watches his elderly mother wither away, on this day her death not from a bullet or bomb but from pneumonia, just pneumonia, for want of some ordinary antibiotics.

But the violence seems to exclude the liberated zones of Britain's cities, an uneasy calm having settled, the Home Guard troops forming a tight perimeter but otherwise content to continue isolated those inside. While Valeri survives, only survives in the liberated zones, he thinks every day on his dead mother and father, their having been killed in the failed revolution fifteen years before this one should try to succeed. At night, he lies in his cot and looks into the darkness, coming to the realization that he must succeed where his parents failed, that his place is to take the working class resistance they created and make it into something more. This is his challenge. But when he and the others meet at that old, disused church to discuss the Popular Front's new round of attacks, they find greater division amongst themselves. "We should use this opportunity to attack," says Valeri, speaking to the assembled fighters. After their work to build a coalition, tentative and limited as their efforts have been, there're more residents attending these meetings than before. Valeri continues to say, "we should help push the enemy to the breaking point. This could be the moment where the Popular Front can seize power and destroy the Provisional Government." But not all among Valeri's compatriots are convinced, Tonya among them. "We have few weapons," she says, "if we attack then we'll all die. But we can continue hardening our positions." There're others who agree with either of them, to varying degrees, and no clear consensus can emerge. They debate in this old church, strewn about as it is with rubble and broken glass, with most of the pews missing, harvested for firewood and construction materials for street barricades. But their debate will be interrupted by a call to action, so much left unsaid as Valeri and the others leave in haste for their barricades in the street.

On the cruiser Borealis, morale has not soured but rather has strengthened, the enforced camaraderie of the old regime giving way to a genuine camaraderie both new and aged at the same time. When men pass each other in the halls or report to their stations for duty, they address each other not by rank, nor do they refer to their superiors as 'sir,' but call each other simply as 'brother.' Even the women among them are referred to as brothers. And when the news breaks of the Popular Front's new offensive throughout Britain, Dmitri heads to the bridge, finding his second in command already there, along with most of the rest of the bridge crew. "What's the word from our brothers in the Front?" asks Dmitri, leaning in to look over the readout. "There's no word at all," says the operator, "not even a repeat of our old orders." The ship remains docked in a friendly port at Dundee, the local authority's loyalty to the Popular Front at odds with the loose coalition of nationalists who prevail over most of Scotland. But there's no fighting here, the uneasy truce among Scotland's various and sundry parties exempting it from the violence spiralling out of control throughout the rest of Britain. As Dmitri considers their next moves, he believes this uneasy truce won't last forever. When fighting inevitably resumes in Scotland, the local authority has too few arms, too few gunmen to fight off a determined assault from the nationalists, even with the Borealis here to help. It's this line of thought that leads Dmitri to surmise they'd be better off leaving sooner rather than later, even if it means leaving their hosts to ashore to their fate.

But the workers aren't on strike, not yet. It's not the war in the streets that deters them; it's the war on the continent that scares them the most. A younger woman named Faye Arrington lives not inside one of London's liberated zones but not far from the nearest, and like many others she's out of work despite the war at home and on the continent necessitating a huge mobilization of manpower by the Provisional Government. Faye is living proof on the perverse and roundabout sort of irony that's governed life in Britain for so many years; with so much industry shuttered and shipped halfway around the world, a sudden eruption of war between powers has left the British war machine enfeebled. But after the Popular Front's new offensive has gotten underway in earnest, Faye works in a local shop which distributes certain consumer goods in accordance with the austerity imposed by the hated Provisional Government. Mostly the shop deals in foodstuffs, receiving shipments daily. If they keep too much on hand, more than a day's distribution, they risk being raided by gunmen or swamped with mobs of looters. Today, she's at the shop when fighting breaks out just down the street, she and the rest of the staff rolling down the shutters at the storefront before taking refuge in the cellar. Huddling among a group of others, she takes her screen out from her pocket, thinking to call her family. But she finds the service network still down, as it's been for some days, as it frequently goes down intermittently. "I could die and no one will know," she says, to herself as much as her fellow workers. But inside one of London's liberated zones, Valeri, Tonya, and some of the others meet again at the disused church, days after their last meeting. "While we debate, people are dying," says Valeri, expressing frustration at their inaction. "We're dying too," says Michael O'Connor, "we're starving. And there's only more people coming in." He's referring to the surge of refugees the rebel offensive has produced, shepherded as the refugees are into Britain's already-overcrowded liberated zones. Even in this old, disused church there're dead and dying refugees lying about, surrounding Valeri and the others with the pathetic and wretched. But then there's action. Though they're not taking part in the attacks against the Provisional Government, they're close enough to hear the unmistakable thunderclap of the first exploding bomb in the streets just outside the liberated zone. Valeri feels the blood in his veins turn ice cold, thinking as he does of the death waiting for them all. The lights in the church flicker once, twice, four or five times, then cut out for good, plunging all inside into darkness. Though they've still not reached a consensus on how to proceed, the confusion surrounding the rebel offensive soon draws them into the fighting, whether they're ready for it or not.

At the seaside Scottish town of Dundee, Dmitri and the others aboard the Borealis continue to consider their next moves. "People are dying out there," Dmitri says, "and we're here. But they're going to die no matter what we do. We've got to head where we can have a decisive impact." They've spent some weeks at Dundee, accomplishing what limited repairs they can. Parts come from a couple of beached tugboats, with a little spit and glue at least a few components proving adaptable to the cruiser's systems. But Dmitri knows the brothers on the cruiser's council won't all agree with his decision to flee, that some will want to fight to the death on shore. In the time it takes the committee to convene its session, Dmitri has already decided on a course of action, and begun to lay plans. Meeting in the mess hall, the committee sits weekly, but most of their meetings amount to little more than a regular chance to affirm their mutual allegiance. This suits Dmitri fine, as he feels re-energized by the venting of anger. The list of current committee members is conspicuously posted on the wall next to the door outside the mess hall. Dmitri, as duly-elected captain, is featured at the top of the list. But as the rebel offensive has gotten underway, Dmitri arrives at the decision to leave Dundee independent of the committee; if the committee disagrees, he reasons, they can vote him out. Soon, it's time. They've come under fire from inland artillery when Dmitri gives the order. Beneath Dmitri's feet, the deck of the bridge heaves as the cruiser's engines groan into gear, scattered shells landing in the sea, a column of water rising port, a column of water rising starboard, the erratic fire missing as if it were meant to miss. This time, though, the crew of the Borealis know theirs is not a moment when death is at hand but life. Looking out through the bridge's windows, Dmitri says, "take us back out to sea," then turns to the helm and says, "give us the best speed you can and damn the repairs." The helmsman nods grimly, then throws the throttle open, as far as it'll go. Still the deck shudders and shakes with near miss after near miss, the enemy, whoever they might be, the bridge blinking with every red light indicator on every console protesting the punishment. But she holds.

While the rebel's offensive escalates, Valeri, Tonya, and many of the others continue to meet regularly at the old, disused church, each time finding more and more refugees from the Home Guard's expulsions packed into the pews. "Are you ready to stand with our brothers and sisters?" Valeri asks. He's become a different man from when the revolution began in earnest, still brimming with discontent but now his discontent given direction, purpose, meaning. It surprises even him, sometimes, the things he's capable of, the mask he puts on to make himself capable of those things. "Are you ready to relieve them of the burden of fighting and dying alone?" he asks, again. "I'm ready," says Michael O'Connor, the younger man apparently ready to assert himself, in ways none could've ever imagined. "It's not enough to declare yourself ready," Valeri says, reciting word-for-word what he's been told by the agent of the Popular Front, "you must be ready. We must all be ready, at all times. And the only way we can prove ourselves ready to carry out the struggle is to throw ourselves into the streets and fight as though we have no concern for our own lives." As he says this, the floor seems to quiver and the sound of a distant explosion carries in through the church's broken windows, eliciting muted screams from some of the refugees, a moment of pause from the members of Valeri's de facto council. But Valeri remains unsure of himself, every time he looks to the streets outside Dominion Courts doubt rising in him. The manner in which he speaks to the younger Michael O'Connor is entirely unlike him, representing a diverging personality he's come to embody. In public, around the others, he puffs his chest out and boldly declares a determination to fight to the death, but inwardly he's never been more unsure of himself. When they'd seized their own homes in a major uprising, Valeri would've thought it the beginning of a decisive revolutionary struggle, but now he's come to believe each day that passes without a major battle is a day that their goal draws further and further from them.

After they'd left Dundee and the local committee there to its fate, Dmitri orders a course that keeps them close to the coast, safer from marauding Russian submarines. He orders a course that'll take them to Scapa Flow, the old Royal Navy base which fell into disuse, reasoning as he does that its protected waters will give them some safe haven while they try to re-establish contact with the Popular Front. But they can only make a slow speed, en route making port wherever a friendly town presents itself. It's slow going. A route that'd normally take less than eight hours is to take them days. "What's out there?" asks Dmitri, while en route on the bridge looking to the radar operator who operates the ship's barely-functioning radar. "I can't see anything," says the operator, "no contacts at sea, no contacts in the air." Dmitri asks, "what about on land?" But the operator only shakes his head. It's an awkward, uncertain moment, so soon after leaving Dundee the moment seeming right to go very, very wrong. Suddenly, columns of water rise and shockwaves rip through the air, and the crew of the free cruiser Borealis throw themselves into the fight once more, never more ready to die so that others might one day live free. But it's not so simple, it's never so simple, in the confused action that follows three rounds landing square on the Borealis' stern, two failing to detonate but the third penetrating her deck before exploding, damaging her engines further, reducing her speed to less than five knots. It seems there's no more luck to be had by the crew of the Borealis, but still Dmitri orders a course steady as the gunner returns fire. Then, a miracle.

In truth, even Valeri doesn't yet believe what he's saying, though you wouldn't know it from his furrowed brows, the spittle coming from his lips, even the redness of his face. For Valeri is still in that between-period of his awakening, when he's vulnerable to his doubts but determined to mask them with an almost adolescent overconfidence. And his younger colleague Michael is vulnerable in the same way. Only the few elders still among them can see through the façade of youthful vigour and into the deep, dark light hiding behind the eyes of men like Valeri, Michael, and so many more around Britain and across all Europe. After their most recent meetings at the church, Valeri and the others returned to their positions to face down an enemy attack that's yet to come. Some of the refugees have managed to smuggle in a handful of weapons and ammunition, which Valeri and the others confiscate and put to use manning their barricades. As he mans their defenses one day, he looks down the street and sees in the distance the same Home Guard troops manning their barricade. Valeri says to himself, "I wish they'd attack and get it over with." But across the city outside another liberated zone, a man named Weston Cleary finds himself caught up in the escalating violence, too. He's lined up to be allowed into a grocer, almost at the door when a gun battle breaks out, the sudden crack of rifle fire sending him and the others in line diving for cover wherever it can be found, behind empty crates and abandoned vehicles, even inside the grocer's doors. But Weston's soon hit in the shoulder by a stray bullet, falling to the ground, struggling to pull himself on his stomach. In the time it takes him to bleed out, Weston's thoughts flash uncontrollably through the last days of his life, focusing on the friends he's left behind, the family he'd already lost over the years. When he hears the cacophony of gunfire fading into the distance, though, there's only an odd, eerie peace. But then, as he dies, the rebel gunmen move on, pre-empting the Home Guard troops who're never to arrive. The rebels staged this hit and run attack to instil chaos and fear among their enemies.

Off the coast, artillery fire continues to crash into the sea around the hapless Borealis, two vessels approaching from along the northern coastline. Against the two vessels bearing down, the crew of the Borealis know they're done for. If not for the mortal danger facing them, Dmitri might wonder why it took the Navy so long to come after them. Soon the crew of the Borealis realize where they've been, but with the ship's main battery having failed suddenly they have nothing to respond with. On the bridge, Dmitri picks up the intercom and says, "to the engine room, I need you to give me all the power you can, right now." He then turns to the conn and says, "take us directly at them. Close to point-blank range and ready the machine guns." The conn nods and throws the wheel hard about, plotting a course directly at the enemy. It's known among the bridge crew that Dmitri intends to use the ship's light machine guns and even small arms at such a range that the enemy can't return fire, but they stand little chance of closing to such a distance. Their lives seemingly lost, their ship all but sunk, the men of the Borealis are consigned to their fate and determined to go down with all guns firing, to make the enemy earn every one of them. The Borealis lurches forward, on the bridge the conn reporting a couple extra knots to the ship's speed. In the time it takes the ships to close, no one can see what's happening in the larger picture, only that the crew of the two enemy vessels seem uncertain what to do next. They're close enough that Dmitri can see through binoculars they're both frigate types, and both fly two flags from their mainmasts, the Union Jack highest, then the flag of the Provisional Government just below. They've stopped firing, but keep their batteries trained on the Borealis, the barrels of their guns still trailing thin wisps of smoke. On the Borealis, the radio crackles, but Dmitri ignores it, watching as the range closes and the deck beneath his feet heaves and rolls with every agonizingly slow push forward the ship makes through the heavy seas. But it's not their time to die, not yet. The dark essence which guides the revolution has grander designs for the Borealis and her crew, at the last moment descending on the seas around them to envelope them in its darkness. At this, the moment in which our revolutionary struggle is at hand, the dark essence has chosen a point of contact through which to infuse itself into the world, as it had once not long ago so chosen working men in the cities of Britain, Europe, the world.

Not yet trusting his younger colleague, Valeri looks on Michael with a suspicious eye. "You must know as I do, that the Provisional Government, which even now seeks to expand the war on the continent, will keep on slaughtering us," Valeri says, "it's all they know." And Michael says, "they'll keep on slaughtering us until we slaughter them first." It's true that Michael's heart is becoming hardened with each passing day and each bullet fired whether at them or at their enemies, but still Valeri remains suspicious. "I want to attack," says Valeri. "Me too," says Michael. Unlike Valeri, who's speaking despite his own quiet doubt, the younger Michael speaks cautiously despite his internal anger. But at Dominion Courts, the residents are far from unified, Valeri knowing as he does that many have come and gone, with hardly any of the original residents left over from before the revolution began. This time, though, they're not meeting at that old church, they're not holding a meeting anywhere. Instead, they're in the street outside Dominion Courts, the early-summer's heat and humidity having forced them outdoors. Even as Valeri rallies the residents to action he thinks in the back of his mind of his mother and father, dead, killed in the failed uprising fifteen years before this one. Where once it'd been an annual tradition for him to visit their grave, now he finds himself so consumed by the fight that he can no more. There was a time not all that long ago that Valeri, Michael, even the others like Tonya were concerned more with keeping the water running in their decrepit flats and earning enough of a pittance from their paymasters to survive just one more day. Now, with no running water and no pittance, they subsist by their collective strength mustered against a common enemy. As the rebel Elijah and his Popular Front slowly but steadily escalate their current offensive, the rattling of gunfire and the bursting of bombs in the streets rises slowly, at first erratic, inconsistent, seeming like the last gasps of a dying movement.

Off the Scottish coast, the cruiser Borealis dodges fire, seeming to have run out of luck. As one last round crashes onto the deck of the Borealis, the cruiser seems to shudder and stall, losing power at exactly the moment Dmitri knows she needs all the power she can get. Just when it seems all is lost, the loudspeakers on the bridge of the Borealis squawk to life. "This is the frigate Nix calling the cruiser Borealis," says a voice on the radio, "we are coming to your assistance. We follow the banner of Elijah and the Popular Front." Dmitri can't believe it at first, nor can anyone else on the bridge, accustomed as they are to soldiering on in isolation and deprivation. But the voice squawks over the radio again, saying, "to the cruiser Borealis, this is the frigate Nix. We are coming to your assistance. Please respond." But Dmitri's momentarily stunned by this turn of events. Mason takes the microphone, pushes the talk button, and says, "we read you Nix. Come quick." By the time the Nix arrives, the two loyalist ships have fled, surprised as they were by the sudden appearance of another rebel ship. The Nix, at maximum range, had fired a few warning shots from her main gun, the warnings having proven sufficient. Soon the Borealis is out of the combat zone, alongside her new sister ship, the first two vessels of an informal navy pledged to serve the budding revolution under the banner of Elijah and his Popular Front.

It matters little exactly how the crew of the Nix came to make the same decisions as those aboard the Borealis, rather, it's important that we all know theirs is a common cause, united by the blood spilled of so many men in the streets fighting and dying not for their own liberation but for the liberation of their sons and daughters. The Nix is captained by a man named Michael Eddington, a former midshipman duly elected by his crew just as Dmitri had been so elected when, months ago, his crew had mutinied. When the two men first meet, they share a firm handshake on the Borealis' fantail, the camaraderie between the crews of both ships already having taken hold. "We had been told that all the rebels are traitors who align with Russia," says Eddington, "but when you fired on those enemy ships without regard for the threat we posed to you, it was proven we had been lied to. That's why we seek to join you." They're out of danger for now, but both Dmitri and this Michael Eddington know they could come under attack at any time. Eddington explained that the crew of the Nix had mutinied some weeks earlier, but hadn't yet come to follow the banner of the Popular Front. This inspires Dmitri to consider there might be more such crews out there, but Eddington squashes this inspiration, telling Dmitri the Borealis is the first rebel-flagged ship they've encountered since their mutiny. As they stand on the deck of the Borealis, Dmitri comes to feel the gentle heaving of her deck, comes to hear the lapping of waves against her hull, comes to savour the stinging salty smell of the North Sea air. Despite the war raging at home and on the continent, in this narrow moment it seems to Dmitri as though their months-long struggle, itself the culmination of lifetimes lived through poverty, unemployment, and despair, is beginning to turn a new page.

But he's wrong. In this new beginning, there's hope, every brother aboard knowing how they've been snatched from the jaws of death by their newfound comrades. Their hope, though, will prove to be ill-considered, failing as Dmitri and the others are to consider Elijah's promise to bring death and not life, struggle and not peace. Even as Dmitri and this Eddington talk on the Borealis' open deck, there's the rumbling of distant gunfire and the soft thud of distant explosions, of rifles chattering intermittently and of bombs bursting in the streets. The two captains agree this is a terrible crime, but without hindrance or let it can never be stopped. And it must, they pledge, be stopped. This small, two-ship fleet now forms the core of the rebel Elijah's navy, the force which should later emerge to become the navy of all Britain, from such humble beginnings into a great armada serving the cause of the most pathetic and wretched among us. As they speak, the distant sounds seem to subside, suggesting the rebel's new offensive is subsiding as well. But don't think these men, with their patched, ratty, threadbare uniforms and their bloodied, bruised, dirty hands and brows are the most wretched and pathetic among us; though they may come from working stock, in fact they're pledged to willingly and enthusiastically enslave themselves to the absolute lowest, if only they knew such a thing could ever be. Still in the distance beyond the coast there's the sounds of bombs bursting and gunfire rattling to fade in, like a rolling thunder making its way across the countryside, washing over men like Dmitri and Eddington like a surging tide.

Inside one of London's liberated zones, Valeri knows in his heart there can be no compromise with evil, no middle ground between right and wrong. Still his head is full of ideas, of conceptions of himself and the working men of the liberated zones as fighting a war noble and pure, even as he stands in the ruins of an old church, its remains decrepit, falling-apart, yet still full of life. "Assume what you know about yourself," says Michael, "and never assume what you know about me." The younger man is slighted, but not wounded by Valeri's scepticism. It's been days since the two had last met, and in those days much has happened. They've traded fire with Home Guard troops, exchanges which've critically depleted their ammunition. It occurs to Valeri the Home Guard has been deliberately provoking these pointless exchanges in order to ensure the eventual assault on the liberated zones is met with a minimum of resistance. But even as this occurs to Valeri, still all they can talk about are the petty differences among themselves. Even as Valeri's been working with the others to build a coalition, forging alliances, holding meetings at that old, disused church, and posting notices around the neighbourhood attesting to the authority of their informal council, still they can only bicker, implicitly distrusting each other, even going so far as to accuse one another of various misdeeds of a deeply personal nature. While Valeri has at it with the younger Michael, others devote their time to more personal affairs, all the while the sounds of distant gunfire and bombs bursting in the streets stud the days and the nights reminding them of the rebel offensive that continues to escalate.

Meanwhile, on the coast, the Nix takes the Borealis in tow, the two ships limping along. At last they've received word from their contacts in the Popular Front, who briefly describe the Front's escalating offensive across Britain. "We should do what we can to help," says Dmitri, after having ended communication with their contact in the Popular Front. He's convened a special session of the ship's committee, with Eddington there as a representative from the Nix. "We can do nothing to help on land," says Mason, who has come to receive a respect from the crew as second-in-command. "What of the Provisional Government's offer of clemency?" asks one crewman. "As far as we know," says Dmitri, "it stands." Crewman White, killed in a recent exchange of fire with Provisional Government forces, lives on through her proposal. In the end, the crew determine to continue North, making their way towards Scapa Flow. Although it's suggested they might encounter more loyalist ships or aircraft en route, they know that's true no matter what course they follow. Their contact in the Popular Front gave them no direct instructions, except to be ready for battle at all times. But it's a foolish endeavour, as neither the Nix nor the Borealis have the means to fight, with Dmitri on the bridge of his ship watching the tow cable dangle from the stern of their new sister ship, hoping it doesn't snap under the cruiser's weight. Still, Dmitri can't help but let his mind linger on thoughts of almost-suspicion, imagining the sequence of events which took the crew of the Nix to join them. It seems incomprehensible, but to him the question of division within their own ranks obscures the larger truth: the Royal Navy of old must necessarily be at war with itself. These thoughts, though, are too disconcerting, as the deck rocks gently beneath his feet and the thick yet salty, smooth smell of the sea fills the back of his throat Dmitri preferring to consider easier if less pleasant thoughts. In this moment, with danger still at hand, Dmitri allows himself a spare thought for the wife and children he'd left behind when this war started, when he still followed the banner of the old Kingdom along with all his brothers aboard. He can still see in his mind's eye the smile of his young daughter in his wife's hands, and if he closes his eyes and tries hard enough he can still hear something so innocent as a child's laughter. It's not enough.

But it's never enough. In the liberated zones there're a vast and disparate array of peoples, speaking many languages, answering to many calls, the whole lot of them not yet heeding to the unity offered by the Popular Front. But when the bombs burst closer and closer still to the liberated zones, Valeri and all the others know it's their time to discard their differences and stand once more. In this old, disused church, Valeri finds a stack of Bibles piled up in a crate somewhere in the offices, each still sealed in plastic wrap. It's a profoundly disturbing moment, the sight sending a shiver running the length of Valeri's spine, standing the hair on his arms on end, raising goosebumps on his every patch of exposed skin. This, he knows, is the Word of God, from all those years in his childhood spent in the pews of a church not altogether unlike this one. For Valeri Kovalenko, you see, is not much of a praying man, nor has he spent much time reading the Bible since his mother and father were killed more than fifteen years ago, but still he feels the Hand of God on him at that very moment, with it an invigoration, like the first drop of water hitting the tongue of a man thirsty for too long. Although Valeri isn't to become freed of his own growing self-doubt, the shivering sensation he feels at this very moment a personal transition, as though he's passed one time in his life and stands on the precipice of the next. This sensation comes from the dark essence which guides the revolution choosing to make itself As the working class are and have always been a spiritual class, seeking to overcome the alienation inherent in their reduction to the level of objects to be manipulated according to the whims of their masters, for Valeri to experience this moment of realization is in fact the only possible outcome. It'd always been only a question of when this moment should occur.

A hand falls on Valeri's shoulder. It's Tonya's, and she gives him a firm, quick grip, as if to reaffirm her faith and the faith in him as the duly elected leader of Dominion Courts. But Valeri knows there can be nothing for their futures if they don't band together, and soon. In only the short months since they seized control of their own homes, already Valeri has become a completely different person, when he looks in the mirror the person looking back unrecognizable to him. But the war soon draws Valeri, Michael, Dmitri, Eddington, and all the others from their meeting-places and into the streets themselves. Arriving at the barricade to find the men and women under fire, Valeri takes up position behind the leading edge. He doesn't know what he's doing; gripping his rifle tightly, he points its barrel down the street and squeezes the trigger, loosing the crack of gunfire at the advancing troops. "Where are they?" asks Valeri, able to see nothing for the thick smoke billowing from a fire on the road. "They're here!" shouts Tonya. As Valeri pokes his head out from cover, the ground quivers slightly in perfect time with the nearby bursting of a bomb in the streets. Valeri shoots again, only for Tonya to pull him back down behind cover suddenly. "What are you doing?" he asks. "They're trying to make us use up all our ammunition, remember?" she asks. Valeri nods, suddenly realizing himself. He then says, "how are we supposed to know when the real attack has come?" But Tonya only shrugs.

It's over quickly. The Home Guard troops don't know what they're doing; they fire their rifles down the street, retreating under a thick blanket of smoke. They, too, scatter fire indiscriminately, loosing rounds without aiming as they fall back. By the time Valeri realizes the Home Guard have withdrawn, the dead have become the dying, while the fires of liberation burn behind them spewing smoke so thick and black as to blot out the sun and cast darkness on the city below. Valeri's no military commander, though he is a soldier, a soldier he's been all his life, as all working men have been through all their lives, in his heart and in his mind an instinct governing him which should prove to govern him well. Turning aside, Valeri tells Tonya to keep watch, though neither he nor she could know what might come next. When she asks what they'll do if they run out of ammunition before receiving any resupply, he looks her in the eye and simply says, "we'll fight with our bare hands." She nods. The rebel offensive continues in the background, set against the sporadic Home Guard attacks on Britain's liberated zones. "I don't know what's going to happen," says Tonya, "but I'm sure we won't have long to find out." Valeri nods. Their petty differences have been tabled, for now, in the Provisional Government's steadily rising offensive against them the chances to air so many minor grievances becoming infrequent.

This is what they've come to. This is what they've chosen. His one-time lover, Sydney, his former flatmate, Hannah, his friend, the prostitute Maria, all gone. Though ours is a story without heroes, it bears mention that this is the price heroes pay, whether they realize it or not. Our heroes only become heroes by surviving, persisting through the deaths of their loved ones, through the loss of all they've come to know. It's this way on the decks of the cruiser Borealis and her new sister ship, the frigate Nix, as well, with heroes found not only in their captains Dmitri Malinin and Michael Eddington but on every deck, in every compartment, from the brothers manning the guns to those brothers working the engines back to life. At precisely the moment Dmitri receives word on the bridge that the engines are functional again, he brings his thoughts back from the deaths of his wife and children into the present, forcing himself to attention, ordering the tow line cut and the cruiser forward under her own power. Their time is almost at hand.

As the rebel attacks don't peter out but slowly and steadily escalate, it becomes clear not only to the leadership of the Provisional Government but to all that this is no last gasp, no futile fight to the death. In the streets, one group of Home Guard troops find themselves set upon by rebel gunmen, caught in a crossfire from three-storey shops on either side of the road. Elsewhere, rebel gunmen assault a hospital, thought by the Home Guard to be well outside the Popular Front's area of operations, firing their rifles and tossing grenades into the crowded hallways, indiscriminately slaughtering anyone they can find. Still elsewhere, teams of gunmen attack a railyard, happening upon a shipment of fuel, shooting dead the scattering of troopers who rush to stop them before setting fires that soon become thunderous explosions which produce columns of thick, black smoke rising into the dim of the early-night's sky.

These are only examples; the Popular Front's offensive strikes at targets all across Britain, in areas they control, in areas they don't control, at exactly the moment it might've seemed the Provisional Government could reassert something resembling normal life the Popular Front, instead, plunging the country into chaos once more. Near the docklands, still another string of bombs explode in the street, first one, then after troops have responded another, and another, and another, the latter three within a few moments. Limbs scatter and blood spills, voices shout and then fall silent. Across Britain, these attacks bring civil society, what's left of it, to a halt. Failing power stations plunge whole cities into darkness at night. Fires burn unfought among the ruins of old apartment blocks. The dead and dying lie together on the floors of hospitals. Women and children go hungry. This is what a revolution looks like, not the idealized image committed to memory but the price that must be paid in blood and tears and sweat by they who would dare not to dream but to reach for a better way of life.

But not all is well for the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front. Even as this current offensive erupts, the division created by the formation of the Provisional Government just months ago remains on full display for anyone privileged enough to see it. You see, the rebel Elijah and his disciples have their enemies, they who would seek rapprochement with the Provisional Government even as the latter commits all Britons, working class or not, to the continued slaughter in Eastern Europe. While Elijah lives and works alongside the working man, inside the liberated zones and out, still his attacks continue to mount. In the shadows of a disused motorway three trucks of Home Guard troops come under fire from rebel gunmen, troopers falling to the ground, clutching raw, bloody wounds in their shoulders, stomachs, in their arms. Across the street from a closed-down polytechnic, rebel gunmen rake a loose formation of troops with fire, dropping bodies to the pavement and scattering blood and bone across the road. But the worst is reserved for the enemy themselves, in the car-park of an old hotel repurposed by the Provisional Government's local apparatchiks a bomb going off, then another just down the street outside a café, then a third just up the street in an alley behind a pub, scores of unarmed men and women killed or maimed beyond recognition. But among the carnage there survives a greater truth, the discriminate slaughter never concealing the nearly-indiscriminate poverty of the old regime.

No, among the fallen-in apartment blocks and the old, disused factories left to rust, a spirit survives, an essence that persists in the hearts of all working men. Although the rebel Elijah and his Popular Front have won only the support of a portion of the working men, the essence which persists in all should prove him all he needs in his war to deliver good from evil. This new rebel offensive, launched after the intensification of the urban uprising, derives from the declaration of the rebel Elijah to his disciples that the blood shed by martyrs should be avenged without delay. Not long after this current offensive has begun in earnest, the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front move quickly to consolidate their strength.

From place to place they move, so quickly flitting from shadow to shadow, under the cover of darkness seeming to be everywhere at once. Their rivals, those who would seek to challenge Elijah's leadership in the Popular Front, lack a centre, any kind of cohesion, condemned as they are to following the political currents. This is by design; the rebel Elijah must ensure, now, a constant action, a constant, breathless stride forward in assailing the enemies of the Popular Front, lest he be seen to surrender to the powers so much greater than any of them. But while Elijah's rivals jockey for control of the liberation of working class Britons, his offensive continues, with each passing day marked by a steady, calculated escalation, no single attack, no one moment signalling any sudden or dramatic intensification. This is by design. This is by discipline. This is by constant struggle not to unleash the full force of his strength and to wait until the time is right. But the rebel Elijah and his Popular Front are in the midst of their own struggle for a unity that ought to never be.

8. Upheaval

On the continent, an ill-advised offensive on Russian lines leaves the British Army's own lines a shambles, with only the Russian Army's severe losses and crippling fuel shortages to keep them from exploiting this strategic misstep by Britain and her allies. As news of this defeat reaches Britain's restless cities, within hours of the British Army's offensive stalling, a chorus of voices seem to cry out in the streets, after many more thousands of British soldiers have been killed and wounded. It's a tragic episode, one of many inspiring workers across Britain to walk away from their jobs in an impromptu strike. And this, this development in the war on the continent is used by the rebel Elijah, who declares to his disciples the deaths of so many young men on foreign soil a tragedy which can only be avenged by overthrow of the hated Provisional Government and the establishment of working class rule. Although the Home Guard, the police, and the nationalist militias emerging across the country have drawn the ire of the working class, the troops in the British Army are largely from the working class themselves. As the ordinary workers refuse to work, and as the rebel continues to steadily escalate his attacks, no one can know when it'll all come together, no one except the dark essence which silently guides the working man's budding revolution. In the streets, people like Joanna and Theresa realize a next, crucial step forward in their own personal accession to the cause of the working class. But even as people like Theresa and Joanna begin to assert a collective destiny, forces in the background gather strength in preparation for the final showdown between good and their evil. Among the striking workers is a woman named Carina Byers who walks away from her job at the cement plant in Tilbury, braving the sweltering early-summer's heat and the threatening rifles of the nearby militia to join in the strike. Although some of the others working at the plant join her, most keep on working. "I've got so little left to lose," she'd said, speaking with another worker who wound up not walking out. "You've still got your job to lose," her fellow worker had said. "I've got a brother in the Army," Carina had said, "losing him would be a bigger loss than if I'd lost my job." After walking out, she notices the sizeable crowd of workers who'd walked out with her, the whole lot of them marching together towards the plant's main gate. As troops guarding the plant ready their rifles, it looks, for a moment, that a massacre might break out.

It's unsettling to her, but not unexpected, listening as she's been to the secret broadcasts of the rebel Elijah's Popular Front, from these broadcasts she and so many others coming to know the voice of Elijah as if he was there with them, guiding them in their common war for their own future. And after Valeri and Tonya have agreed to a truce, still they must put their minds and their bodies towards the task facing them even as they compete with one another in the ideological struggle which surrounds them both. Inside the battered, rubble-strewn halls of Dominion Courts, Valeri waits impatiently for his time on watch. He's supposed to be sleeping, but he can't manage sleep for more than a half-hour at a time. Though he's tired from the Home Guard's attacks, still he thinks of the lasting legacy his mother and father left him when they died, at once Valeri considering himself fit to inherit their deaths. It's hard to pinpoint the exact moment during their occupation of Dominion Courts when he came to see himself this way; there might not've been any one moment. "I don't hate the men who wear that uniform," says Valeri, speaking of the Home Guard troops, "I shoot at them because they've got to be shot at. But if they'd only throw down their arms and agree to fight for us instead of against us, then I'd take them in." He's back at that old, disused church, with a few others of their liberated zone's informal council, surrounded by an even greater mass of people who've taken refuge here. With the water cut out, the thick, swampy stench of the unwashed pervades every breath. The wailing of hungry children and their desperate mothers emanates from the crowd. Word of this strike, limited and improvised as it is, reaches Valeri, Tonya, and the others in the liberated zones almost immediately, prompting the fighters to rush to their defences. Valeri's at Dominion Courts, in the little flat he'd used to share with the nurse Hannah. He's listening to the radio, tuned to one of the underground broadcasts aired by the Popular Front. "Well," says Tonya, with Roger at her side, "they're dying out there." But Valeri says, "they're dying in here, too." He refers to the refugees flooding into the liberated zones, the elderly, the infirm, the very young proving prone to diseases already spreading.

As we'll all come to see, Theresa and Joanna are only two women among millions clamouring for their freedom. Their own personal concerns, their sons and daughters killed, conscripted at gunpoint into the army to die on the battlefields of Poland and eastern Ukraine, for their stomachs growling and for their bodies wracked with unending pain and fatigue, for all these reasons they can articulate in words and for all those reasons they never could, they fight until there's nothing left in them, then they keep on fighting. Looking down the streets of Southampton, Joanna can only see the ruins of the old way, the debris littering the street and the still-smoldering ruins of old shop houses marking the exact spots where an errant Russian missile struck during the last air raid to reach as far as the cities of Britain. Although Joanna isn't working, she takes to the street in search of an opportunity to join in the unrest. Quickly, she comes across a man who'd been particularly cruel to her only a few nights earlier, still the bruises on her face and arms discolouring her skin a deep purple. He seems to recognize her. He approaches her, and says, "are you caught up in this?" But she says nothing. "You know," he says, "I could've strangled you to death and no one would've noticed." Then, he turns his back to her, and Joanna briefly contemplates turning around as well, to make off. But Joanna takes advantage of the opportunity, a wick of anger curling up from inside her, compelling her to pick up a nearby piece of wood with a rusty nail sticking out. She strikes him on the head, then after he crumples to the ground she strikes him again, and again, and again, each time driving the rusty nail into his back. He stops moving, except for the shudders when she keeps on striking him. "We'll see if anyone notices you," Joanna says, her pulse pounding and her thoughts clouded by the surge of adrenaline coursing through her body. "You there," comes a voice, just down the street a policeman noticing her. She turns and begins to run. The policeman shouts, "stop!" But she keeps on running, as fast as she can. Soon, she's escaped her pursuer, her first taste of bloodlust past.

At Dominion Courts, Valeri checks the block's flats for anyone who might be in need of immediate medical care, as if there's anything that could be done for them. On his patrol through the halls, he turns round a corner and comes face to face with Roger, who says to him, "I know what's been said," then pauses a moment before saying, "but I'm not here to quarrel with you." But at that moment the walls quiver and shake their dust, reminding the two men there's a war on beyond these walls, too. "If you look too far ahead of yourself then you'll never be able to see clearly," says Roger. "You don't know me," says Valeri, "and you never have." This is the manifestation of their implicit rivalry, unspoken but acutely felt. The reason for this is unknown to the residents, now occupiers of Dominion Courts, but set into motion by the dark essence. On finishing his patrol, Valeri finds himself with a spare moment, but chooses not to spend it with anyone. It's at this moment that Valeri fortuitously turns to his screen, pulling it out of his pocket and switching it on at just the right moment to see his old mentor, Mark Murray. The old union leader, who'd taken Valeri in as a troubled youth following the deaths of his mother and father, stands just to the right of a man speaking at a podium, announcing their union's condemnation of the unrest in the streets. Watching this video, it takes Valeri a moment to understand what's happening. He considers briefly whether it's not really Murray on stage, betraying them. But then it's Murray's turn to speak, the elder taking the stage, vigorously denouncing the current wave of unauthorized strikes. It's that voice, that same bombastic voice Valeri had used to recognize, but which now seems so foreign, so alien to him, as though there's some part of him that simply refuses to believe in such a stark betrayal. As Valeri begins to feel rage hotter and whiter than he's ever known, Tonya enters the room, pausing to look Valeri up and down before speaking. She says, "come quick," then turns to head back out the door. Valeri's right behind her, in the time it takes him to leap from his seat managing to compose himself, suppressing his white hot rage through a superhuman effort, keeping himself from rushing out on an attack impulsive and futile. He doesn't know it, but the dark essence which guides the revolution chooses this moment to grant him a renewed strength, knowing as it does that he's destined for a higher purpose.

At the docks in Plymouth, a man named Clarence walks off the job, defying the Home Guard troops who feebly point their rifles at Clarence and the other workers. But Clarence and the other dock workers know the troops won't, can't bring themselves to shoot, not here, not now. For Clarence, like the others, has his own reasons to fight, his father and his grandfather before him having been thrown out of work and into poverty like the millions of others who'd suffered the indignities of the old regime. It's a humiliating thing to have your livelihood shipped off to some other country to be done for a pittance. It's emasculating. It's reason enough for the middle-aged Clarence to take to the streets, never mind the slaughter of thousands of his friends, colleagues, brothers and sisters both in the streets of Britain and on the battlefields of the continent. But the unions have betrayed the workers, their leaders calling for an immediate end to the wildcat strikes, changing tacks to denounce the rebels. Though his hands are calloused and his muscles lean and sinewy, Clarence marches off the job and onto the streets with many others, with each step forward cheating death. "It'll be fine," his father had said decades earlier, "we'll be fine." His father had said this to him and to his mother when news had broken about the closure of the factory his father had worked in, leaving hundreds of workers unemployed. "We'll find a way to keep a roof over our heads," his mother had said, "we always will." Back then, they'd never stood for themselves, never fought beyond the odd demonstration, consigning the next generation, and the generation after that, and the generation after that to a life much worse. Now, with the chance to defy the hated Provisional Government upon him, Clarence won't let it pass him by as they had.

For Joanna the British Army's failed offensive serves as a stark reminder on the costs of war, thousands of men killed, husbands taken from wives, fathers from sons and daughters, brothers from brothers, sons from mothers. After having killed that man in the street, she finds herself roped into the Labour Brigades again, the sudden and unexpected wildcat strikes having resulted in a new wave of roundups. A Home Guard convoy passes through town, its lorries rolling through the street right past Joanna and the rest of her Labour Brigade at exactly the right moment. "I have been through it all," she says, speaking with two of her fellow labourers, "and I know what must be done." In the streets Joanna struggles to survive still, her first taste of bloodlust having earned her no relief from hunger. When the lorries carrying Home Guard troops stop at a rail crossing, Joanna and the others know it's their time to strike. But Joanna isn't in charge, neither of their Labour Brigade nor of the loose, informal gathering of workers they've formed among themselves. She is one voice, only one among many, the many still yet to form an indivisible whole which should capitulate only to freedom for all. "You might've been through it all," says Willard Scott, a younger man who serves alongside her, "but not all's needed now." Others, men and women with names like Orson, Miriam, Christopher, even Moira all serve among them and look to the two and to a few others as a leadership of sorts, an informal consensus beginning to form along many lines, the many to become the few, then, later, the one. In this fashion, across Britain improvised committees take form, as they've been taking form off and on since the failed rising which preceded this war by more than fifteen years. As the British Army abroad gathers its strength, again, for another charge against enemy lines, Joanna and the others in the Labour Brigade turn in their implements of work and try at the streets, she thinking only of her husband lying dead in some muddy rut on the battlefields of Poland as she marches. Still Joanna can't help but wonder if the Home Guard troops would come for her, if that policeman had seen her take her anger out on that vicious and sadistic man, and it's this wondering that causes her much anxiety, much grief as the days turn to weeks and as the weeks turn to months.

Inside Dominion Courts, Valeri can't find anyone to feel much sympathy for his anger at Mark Murray's betrayal. "If they were really looking out for us then we'd never have had to do this in the first place," says Tonya, referring to their occupation. "You don't understand," says Valeri, "they—" Suddenly the walls shake and the muffled sound of distant gunfire breaks the silence. Tonya leaves, and Valeri lets her be. But once the walls of Dominion Courts have stopped quivering and once the clouds of dust shaken have settled again, Valeri and Tonya see each other again in the lobby. Tonya says, "I know you have got a personal history with that man but you've got to forget it." Valeri asks, "how could I ever forget it?" His stomach growls, but he hears only the sound of its growling, feeling nothing where once he'd felt a sickly sort of churning. "Are you prepared to die here?" she asks. "Are you?" he asks. But it's all a fraud, an elaborate sham meant to deceive themselves, the dark essence which guides their struggle choosing this moment to withdraw from them, leaving them at the mercy of their own petty divisions. And it's in this state when they're vulnerable to the most insidious attacks of all. Still, Valeri, for one, is thankful that at least this one moment is free from the terror of the old regime, even if they've exchanged one terror for another. This, after Valeri's had his say with both Tonya and Roger, while the dozens of others sheltering in this decrepit, falling-apart block each have their say. Although they may not realize it, the dark essence above interacts with them, infusing itself into them only to withdraw in the same instant, leaving each and every one among them dazed and confused. As the wildcat strikes by hundreds of thousands of workers rage throughout Britain, still Valeri, Tonya, and all the others inside the liberated zones are as impotent as ever, their bold and impassioned uprising having only consigned them to a long, slow death by starvation. Leaving the building, both Valeri and Tonya encounter more starving people in the streets, some sheltering in the rubble which'd once been an apartment block across from theirs.

A little further in, Theresa learns on the fate of her family, what few family she'd had left when this war began; her father, brother, dead, killed at one time or another. The grinding poverty, the food so expensive, the chronic shortages of petrol, the electricity that's out more than it's on, and still Theresa sees the Provisional Government's apparatchiks on the screens of the nation declaring the virtues of the war on the continent. During a day of hard work, she stops for a moment to mop the sweat from her brow, a fellow parishioner named Bruce offering her some water from his bottle which she gratefully accepts. But in the distance there's the rattling of gunfire and the thud of bombs bursting in the streets, seeming to draw nearer and nearer, all the while half a continent away the British Army, confused and rudderless, gathers its strength along with its allies and launches a half-hearted attack square in the middle of enemy lines. Death visits many homes, many families on this day, without care for creed, colour, or commentary, at home and abroad all consumed in an orgy of violence that seems never to end. Though neither Theresa nor Joanna know anyone still serving in the Army on the continent, both women look on their screens whenever a spare moment presents itself, looking for news from the front. But it's never that quick nor that easy, and although both women know the news will never be good they hunger for it anyways. It's what they do. But as the wildcat strike ends its first week without having brought the Provisional Government to its knees, slowly some men return to work, Theresa among them. "I'm not going to die here," she says, as she feels the same hunger as anyone else. "You don't have to die," says Bruce. It's after their twelve-hour work day has ended, and they're speaking from a spot outside the church, a place they've both come to spend much of their time. "My family's all dead," says Theresa, "and what've I got left?" Bruce says, "you've got your life." Although Theresa might not know it, might not believe it, Bruce is right; every day she survives is a victory, for her and for everyone else who's already lost more than they can bear to lose.

It's the sight of so many desperate, starving people that moves Valeri the most, their figures becoming emaciated, their faces covered in muck and grime. Valeri's own stomach growls, and he relies on a store of food in his flat, shared with a few others. He rationalizes this by judging himself and his fellow fighters essential to the defense of the area from an attack that almost seems as though it'll never come. But the streets outside Dominion Courts are the edge of hell. Bricks lie strewn across the street, while cement crumbles and chunks are scattered. For Valeri, this lull in the action arrives at exactly the worst possible moment, with the intermittent rumbling of the floor and the dust in the air marking the exact time when beyond these walls there're men dying, men Valeri might've once known as friends. After he's reached his new accord with Tonya and Roger, the three have only deferred their momentum until the near-future forces them all into a single strike; their differences will not be reconciled but annihilated at a moment of the dark essence's choosing. Although we focus on these men, Valeri as having become an avatar for the working man's struggle, know that there're working men across Britain, all over Europe like him. During this lull in the action, during this between-time when the working man's war of self-liberation could go either way, the essence above seeks its own path through the ebb and flow of the action. After the current wave of wildcat strikes has taken hold, Valeri and the others in Britain's liberated zones face a slow and painful death by starvation, the thought gradually dawning on Valeri that their end may be inevitable. After Valeri's had at it with some of his fellow defenders, Tonya and Michael among them, all he can think to do is wait for it to come.

But work in the Labour Brigades quickly becomes scarce again. In the alley behind the old church, Theresa and the others have seen the same blood spilled as anyone else, and they've come to expect the smell of raw flesh mixed with the pungent stench of spent shell casings still smoking whenever they step outside. But when news filters back home of the British Army's failed attack, even before the names of the dead are reported to their families already so many mothers are suddenly without their sons, brothers without sisters, children without fathers. "If you can think of something to do, then I'm all ears," says Theresa, lingering as she is at the church. "It's only a matter of time before they come back here," says the rogue priest, "and when they do we may not get another chance after." Theresa pauses for thought, then says, "do you mean—" "I mean they're going to come and take us away," says the rogue priest, "they'll stuff us in the ghettoes they're creating like all the others they've taken." Theresa stands over the rogue priest as he kneels to tend to a crying child without a mother. Theresa says, "I won't let them." The rogue priest looks her in the eye, but says nothing. Theresa says, "I'll fight. Will you?" But while they talk, events at large continue to mount. Still the Provisional Government and its apparatchiks remain steadfast in their commitment to the war on the continent; on the screens of the refugees sheltering in the old church, Theresa sees the faces of some of the more well-known speakers, their voices half-muffled as they denounce the revolution as the work of terrorists and bandits. But Theresa doesn't know this is the way the Provisional Government should be turned on itself, the ordinary working men, put out of work, made to be refugees inside their own homes and still watching their screens now in trepidation and distrust. Although there're many working men who've thrown their lot in with the rebel Elijah and his Popular Front, still there're many more who only seek shelter. But our future lies in the hearts and in the souls of the most pathetic, the most wretched among us, in they who would seek judgement against their wealthy masters. For Theresa, the moment of truth has come, when she's finally reached a personal epiphany. No more a lost cause she's become than the lost cause has become her.

During the rebel's slowly but steadily escalating offensive, the nights are marked by the same simmering heat mixed in with the sweltering humidity of an unseasonable dry spell. Not yet ready to give herself wholly to the struggle, Theresa looks through the congregants and searches for something more. For Theresa, you see, once had a family of her own, never any children nor a husband but a family all the same. And Joanna, too, once had a family, with her husband's death the children they were to have together. Both Joanna and Theresa are still consumed by their own struggle to survive, to make it through each and every day, to put food in their stomachs and to keep a shirt on their backs, but don't make the mistake of thinking them unlike the rebels in working for a better tomorrow. This is lost amid the carnage unfolding in the streets, with bombs bursting all through the day and night. Still, something happens to Theresa which should change her life forever, setting her on a path bound for her own personal hell. Already having lost her family, she struggles through the day just to keep herself alive. But what makes up the characters of each of these women is not their losses but their gains; Joanna has spent her whole life working one thankless job after another, serving food and drink she can't afford, answering telephones, cleaning grease traps in cockroach-infested kitchens, hauling freight, even digging out graves for people she'd never known and never will. "It looks bad," says Theresa, speaking not to the rogue priest but to another parishioner outside the front of the church. It's late at night, and the springtime air in a time of a dramatically warmed climate has become thick and swampy, like a stew, clinging to every patch of exposed skin, sticking shirts to bodies. "Are you going to stay?" asks the other parishioner, an elderly, almost infirm man. Theresa's bothered by the question, in a way she knows she shouldn't be. "Of course," she says. "I'm too old to fight," says the old man. But he's been taken in, welcomed by the rogue priest and the rest of the ministry even though he couldn't be of any use in a fight. The old man says, "I'll never live to see whatever it is you're fighting for. But I hope you carry on the fight long after I'm gone." At that moment, a burst of gunfire rattles out, distant enough to be muffled a bit, close enough to mark the episode like a firecracker in the rain. In the end, Theresa will make the right choice.

But for Joanna, the struggle to survive while Britain teeters on the edge of full-scale revolution takes on a different character than it'd had before. Now, she forces herself to step forward through each and every day, on this day reminded of the hunger she feels in her stomach like the pain of a sharp blade twisting about in her guts. When she steps unknowingly into a hole in the ground, she tumbles and falls to the sidewalk, striking her foot sideways and twisting her ankle slightly. It may seem odd to fixate even for a moment on such a minor injury, but this even momentary injury means Joanna must be cast aside like some useless piece of machinery. She checks behind her everywhere she goes, worrying as she does that she could be wanted for murder. Stepping into a still-open shop, not far from the nearest liberated zone, she finds little on the shelves, but approaches the shopkeeper anyways. He cruelly sends her off as he realizes she's got no money and only come to ask for work that isn't there. In the midst of all this, the skies above southern England fill with contrails, dozens of white strands swirling, dancing, the air force's pilots in a pitched battle with the enemy's long range fighters and bombers. At any given moment there might be twenty, thirty, fifty or more planes locked in mortal combat, with wreckage falling to the ground like a deadly rain. But rarely does one see parachutes; in this war, those who go up often don't come back down. Whenever Joanna's roped into the Labour Brigades, as she inevitably must be, she looks on it as an opportunity to be fed, the slop served in the Labour Brigades' kitchens to the workers better still than a long, slow death by starvation. But the gruel is becoming increasingly thin and watery, and there's not enough work in the Labour Brigades to keep her fed. For this, she must rely on theft and scrounging in dumpsters like the street urchin she has always been.

After being stood down from her duties in the Labour Brigade, Joanna encounters Willard Scott, the two walking along the same stretch of road for the same block of flats. A half-step behind her, the bursting of bombs and the rattling of gunfire seems to stop momentarily, lost amid the silence of the night. "You make choices and you live with them," says Willard. "Do you always have to talk like that?" Joanna asks. "Not always," says Willard, "but often." Though Joanna doesn't know it, Willard's parents gave him his name because they wanted him to take to an image of someone more refined and respectable than them. Joanna's parents, on the other hand, always looked down on people like him, people of ordinary stock who'd deluded themselves into thinking they were to be allowed a chance. "You should make this one of those times when you don't," Joanna says. But before she can turn away, Willard interrupts her train of thought and says, "not such a good beginning we've had, but it could be worse." By the time she can think of what to say, he's gone, while the rattling of gunfire and the bursting of bombs seems to fade back in from the distance, rolling over the apartment blocks like a smoothly undulating wave. In the countryside, far away from the city of Portsmouth, the game's afoot, the unavoidable menace of death leaving in its wake many crushed and mangled lives as it makes its way slowly along the hills. When dawn breaks, all is laid bare, all is made clear, even as the fog of war shrouds every man, woman, and child in its deep, craven mists.

Above, the contrails tighten, in one morning dozens blending into a single mass of whiteness high above, from the mass trails of black smoke reaching for the ground seemingly pulled by some invisible force. it's not the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning, in this, the moment of our reckoning, men die one at a time far, far above. Though Joanna sometimes pauses to look up at the intricate dance playing itself out in the skies, she knows the real war is down here, in the streets of Britain, among the working class flats both inside the liberated zones and out. If she should never see men like Willard again, then she'd be able to sleep a little easier at night for all the bombs bursting and gunfire rattling in the darkness and on into the morning's light. "I'm not a slave to anyone," says Joanna, not that day but the next during a lull in the action. "Maybe not," says Willard, "but you're still stuck in the same place as all the rest of us." Joanna looks him in the eye and asks, "aren't you hungry?" But Willard doesn't understand, saying, "every day I'm hungry. There's not enough food for anyone anymore." And Joanna says, "I don't mean about food. I mean about freedom." It's a small moment, but a seminal one in the development of Joanna's revolutionary consciousness, and although we'll stop following her here, we'll keep on following her people, picking up threads just as we're dropping others, the whole tapestry of our shared history woven from so many little threads. In the distance, the rattling of gunfire and the bursting of bombs punch holes in the night, seeming to punctuate the silence. Sometimes, in this early, confused time, Joanna thinks she should join in the workers and their wildcat strike, along with the rest of the virtual slaves roped into Labour Brigade service. She's not yet ready to take that final step, but she's close. The Home Guard troops have orders not to shoot anyone in the Labour Brigades unless it's absolutely necessary, but the troops supervising her unit aren't very disciplined, taken as they were from a local militia. If she dares it, she'll die before her time.

Lingering in the night, the ghostly visage, the dark essence seeps from every open manhole, every grating, every crack and crater in the pavement and every slope on the roads leading through the smoothly undulating hills of England's countryside. The lights flicker on and off throughout the night, only to stubbornly refuse to quit for good, on this night even in the midst of the rebel Elijah's offensive somehow the power keeping on, the workers who man the old, decrepit power stations finding new and creative ways each night to keep the electricity flowing. But then, the contrails above disappear, fading into the summer's sky, the enemy's foray into our airspace suddenly stopping for now. It's been this way not since the war started but since the war entered its current phase, the enemy's air raids stopping and starting, fluctuating in time with the ebb and flow of the troubles inside the enemy's own borders. All across Europe cities are aflame, the revolutionary fervour pushing the continent to the brink of destruction, leaving the forces on all sides crippled by shortages and losses still on the fields. The Russians face their own disorder, their own insurrections from among the workers left to languish too long in the grips of unemployment, poverty, and despair. For women like Theresa and Joanna, every day they survive is a victory, enough of these little victories to be cobbled together by the rebels in the Popular Front to form an overwhelming tide. But it won't come soon.

As it is written, the same columns of smoke rise from the same fires of liberation burning, the dark essence guiding the working class paying little mind to imaginary lines drawn on the map by men long-dead. But still the armies of nations clash on the fields and swamps of Europe, the line following a winding path from Kaliningrad to Kharkov, on either side hundreds of thousands of young men poised to slaughter each other at any moment, dying by the scores every day for a few metres of worthless ground only to lose it to the other side again the next. But the rebel Elijah's offensive that preceded the current wave of wildcat strikes is soon to reach its fever pitch. Unleashing a new wave of attacks at dawn, the gunmen of the Popular Front strike out at the foundations of the old order, attacking not the Home Guard's troops nor their bases but the public square itself, blowing up shops, setting fire to schools, raking train stations and airport tarmacs with gunfire, inflicting carnage with an indiscriminate precision, the rebel Elijah strikes fear into the heart of the enemy, the hated Provisional Government, undermining its authority in his own way by making clear to every man, woman, and child in Britain that the Provisional Government is incapable of providing even a modicum of safety and security to the people it would deign to govern.

And while these rebel attacks are mounting, mounting steadily, there's talk of a general strike among the workers, in neither the union halls nor in the churches nor even in the homeless camps does the Popular Front's apparatchiks intercede. Never forget, the rebel Elijah says, never forget the mass unemployment, the poverty, the despair of the old regime, still persistent under the new regime, and never lose sight of our goal, difficult though it may be to see sometimes through the carnage and the bloodshed in our streets. Sometimes, when women like Joanna and Theresa are caught up in the heat of the moment, enraptured by the tyranny their anger holds over their thoughts and feelings, they see no way forward. It's in the darkness of the midsummer's night when these moments seem to seize them, pushing them to the brink of insanity before pulling them back from the edge. In the cobblestone streets some places seem almost untouched by the fighting, isolated spots of calm where the old order persists. It's these spots where the rebel Elijah seeks next to deploy his arms, not to bring every part of Britain under his control, not yet anyways, but to leave no city, no town, no isolated stretch of road winding through the countryside untouched by the present war. When all who remain loyal to the old way of things realize his power to touch every part of Britain, then the rebel Elijah will be ready to seize not only his destiny but all our destinies. No, women like Theresa and Joanna are but the latest in a long line of women coming around to the notion of casting off the shackles of the wealthy man's oppression, who are made to be deprived of all but the bare minimum needed to keep them passive, submissive, compliant. Already as Britain is in the grips of a budding revolutionary movement, women like Joanna and Theresa are in the midst of their own personal transformation, soon to be completed.

For each day seems to bring news of some bomb bursting, of gunmen storming offices of the Provisional Government, the Home Guard powerless to stop as they're forced on the defensive. This, the rebel Elijah realizes, is the essence of the revolution, the constant assailing of all that makes possible the way of things. It matters little to the rebel Elijah how many men must be sacrificed in these attacks, for he knows all history is at stake. It'll take some time before a general strike can be organized under these circumstances, but the rebel Elijah knows this task will be made easier by the masses of unemployed this war has filled the working class districts throughout the country, both inside the liberated zones and out. If a series of crippling strikes brought down the government of the old United Kingdom, then a single general strike, well-coordinated for maximum effect, should bring down the Provisional Government all the same. But, the rebel Elijah knows, this can only be possible with his Popular Front continuously assailing the very foundations of power, not the Home Guard's troops nor the offices and old apartment blocks repurposed as offices for the Provisional Government but the very means through which the way of things carries on, the exchanges through which power is imposed and profit is extracted even still in these uncertain times. No, Elijah realizes, the time for a general strike is not yet at hand, but he'll consult the dark essence for guidance. Through all this, work must go on, in one of the few remaining British factories still running a young woman named Dorothy earning her pittance for one more day. Nicknamed Dot by schoolteachers, classmates, bosses and co-workers nearly all her life, she's a stout, stocky woman, and she's got an attitude that only comes from having to fight tooth and nail for everything she's ever had. And on this day, when the rebel's attacks peter out, she turns up at the factory again, looking for a shift to earn her a pittance one more day.

But the power's knocked out, with no word when it'll come back on, crippling fuel shortages meaning the old generators on site have nothing in their tanks. She tells the boss man, "but I've got children to feed," but he doesn't have any of it, telling her, "there's nothing I can do about it." Like so many of her working class brothers and sisters, Dot doesn't curse the rebels for this, rather, she's too consumed with the hunger pangs in her stomach from giving the last bits of food in her cupboards to her two children, with nothing left for the next day.

At an assembly of striking workers in the North of England, the rebel Elijah addresses the crowd. "...But still the wealthy men of the old order remain in power," he says, "still living in their palaces surrounded by opulent luxury, the Provisional Government having acquiesced from its very beginning to their continued hoarding of wealth." In a little while we'll see the true nature of this, laid bare by the passage of time eroding at the hidden clock like sand disappearing into the wind. "...And it is because the wealthy men of the old order still hold this country and all Europe in their grip that the war on the continent continues, working men made to slaughter working men so the wealthy may preserve their grip on power. But I tell you this: the time is near when the first shall be made last and the last shall be made first." Although the assembly of striking workers seems to swell with a passionate anger every time the rebel Elijah raises his fist, there are a few in the crowd who may yet turn against him. And this, the rebel Elijah knows, even as he receives the inspiration provided by the dark essence on this day anew. While the working men of Britain, of Europe struggle to survive, while they fight and die in their own homes, the work must go on, and in so going it can only advance the wealthy man's cause of hoarding his own ill-gotten wealth. But in this confusing time, when neither hindrance nor let seems possible, there's about to emerge a sequence of events that should set us all on course with the inevitability of our own destiny.

9. Enigma

A bomb strikes outside Edmund University, rattling buildings and scattering debris into the main hall. Although it may not be readily apparent to the students, this bomb strikes even as the wildcat strikes across the country begin to peter out, the Popular Front's attacks continuing as the ebb and flow of war dictates. Neither Harry nor Jane are there when it happens, nor are any of either of their factions, but among the students still in attendance there's a palpable anger brewing, with fists clenched and voices hurled. Professor Christensen has become like an authority, taking refuge in this university even as he dispenses knowledge. From the pulpit in each classroom he looks very much like a priest preaching to his congregants; Harry notices this when he comes in. Already among his faction of students there's talk of arming themselves like the rebels in the streets, but Harry's faction of students agree to a man that their place remains here. This, they reason, is because their role is as part of not the armed strength but the intellectual rigor of the budding revolutionary movement. "We don't have long until they attack," says Harry, "and we've got to be ready, no matter how many policemen they show up with." It's agreed all around, Jane saying, "if they attack—" "When," Harry says. "—When they attack," Joanna says, accepting the correction, "there won't be any fight we could put up without suffering a lot of deaths and injuries. But this is our university, not theirs. They want to come and take us, then I say we make them pay for every inch they take." A roar of approval surges across the room. Professor Christensen, though, watches silently, looking on the two student leaders at the head of the room with a blank, impassive stare that seems to suggest he thinks they're about to make a mistake. And he's right, the mistake they're making a classic mistake made by so many would-be revolutionaries on the cusp of realizing their purpose but not there yet. Harry's the first to notice the Professor, and thinks, briefly, to say something, but chooses not to. It's a wonder, to Harry, why the Professor hasn't left yet, why he remains with the students at Edmund University despite the mounting evidence of an impending Home Guard attack. Beyond these walls, the wildcat strike is beginning to peter out, losing strength as more and more workers return to work, either by force or by bribe, heeding the call of the union leaders to abandon their own cause.

Still stumbling about, still in dire need of guidance, the students at Edmund University must struggle to assert an identity many years in the making. But today the Russian bombers return in force, the skies above the university again filling with contrails white as snow. At altitude, bombers burst into flames and missiles streak across the sky, drawing the looks of the students, the homeless, all the others taking refuge at Edmund University. A distraction from the chaos gripping the streets, the ballet above signifies the current stage of the war on the continent, a stage when the powers seek to strike at each other from a distance and bypass the front lines. It makes little sense, though, to the refugees clustered at the University, such a pathetic and wretched mess of homeless, and when Harry walks past the open door to one of the classrooms in the university's main building he spots a young man named Johann, on his way to a meeting of concerned students. "Sooner or later the fighting's going to come here," says Harry, at the meeting. "Not unless we go to the fighting first," says Johann, the two friends among a group assembled in a classroom on the second floor of one of the university's buildings. Even within their factions, the students can't help but debate, all the while in the back of his mind Harry thinking he should want to go home. But Harry has no home to go back to, his father having disappeared from his life years earlier and his mother in prison for drugs. In truth, he's been looking for a fight all his life, finding them in all the usual places, in pubs, with girlfriends, only sometimes at home throwing punches and raising voices with whoever he happened to be living with at the time. Soon, there's Home Guard troops at the university's gates, not the few troops who'd made up infrequent patrols around this part but a sizeable force, armed to the teeth, standing across the road as if to form a blockade. What Harry doesn't notice, though, is the side of the university left open, the significance of this to become apparent soon.

A bomb strikes in the streets a couple of blocks away from the university, in the back of a lorry in front of an old, disused storefront, a thunderous explosion bursting with such intensity that the tremors felt at the university seem more like a minor earthquake. Actually, students at the university are now outnumbered by the homeless, those made refugees within the borders of their own country, the budding revolution leaving no section of British society untouched. Families come, often missing a father, a mother, sometimes both, here and there a group of children showing up with a fifteen or sixteen year old seeming to make it look as though he's in charge. These students are an example of early self-government, primitive, barely coherent, still beginning to coalesce into something more. Although Jane has long ago noticed this, it's only now, with this current rebel offensive underway that she's resolved to do something, anything at all about it. "We can't wait any longer," she says to a group of sympathetic students, "we must join the rebels. If they don't get every man they can, then there may not be a rebellion left to join soon enough." But inwardly she's concerned for her own friends and family, having heard from so few of them since the Provisional Government was formed. Another student says, "we're not soldiers—" But Jane interrupts, saying, "we are all soldiers. We all work to advance our own interests and to limit the interests of someone else, whether they realize it or not." You see, Jane is a young woman from a broken home, like so many others living and working at the university in these troubled times. Her mother was a rubbish collector and her father was a sometimes-employed retail worker. She'd spent her childhood bouncing between them, all the while dodging drugs, crime, and sexual predators.

In the working class neighbourhoods afflicted by the horrors of a post-industrial decline, Jane learned from a very young age to trust no one and earn everything for herself. Then, just as she'd gained admission to the old Edmund University it all fell apart. But she thinks it at least some small blessing in disguise, as it meant the chance for her to fight a worthy cause for the first time in her life. A bomb strikes in the streets a couple of blocks on the other side of the university, rattling windows and scattering debris into the air like so much useless confetti. Although the Edmund University's main campus lies outside Britain's liberated zones, still a current of radicalism and passions inflamed courses through the halls, along the courtyards and open spaces outside, still the university a hotbed of radicalism and dissent. As the power switches off and on at random intervals and no one has more than a day or two's worth of food in their cupboards, the ability of the local populace to carry on with daily life is strained almost to the breaking point. "I haven't had much time to think about it," Jane says to Harry on a rare moment when they've gotten together, "but if they come around looking for conscripts, whether they're officially conscripting or just forcing people into service at gunpoint, I won't hesitate to fight, even if you do." Harry looks her right in the eye and says, "I don't hesitate to fight, you and I just have slightly different ideas on how to fight." At that moment, Professor Christensen is elsewhere, granting the students a chance to fashion a plan of their own. But the students don't realize they are no longer the primary tenants of their own home, the university which they've so boldly seized and proclaimed anew. It's a fruitless endeavour, but one which should lead them each to their own place in the greater struggle for liberation. Eventually, the students will pledge themselves to follow the banner of Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front, but much is to happen before they reach their inevitable rising. "They're coming!" shouts a young man from down the hall. Harry and Jane both turn to the window, with a clear view of the main square, the university's gates to the north. At the same time, they see the Home Guard's troops forcing their way through the gates, using an armoured car as a battering ram. Quickly, Harry and Jane agree to set aside their differences, forming an ad hoc alliance between their two factions of students, united as they are by a determination to fight.

Still, the students at the university must survive for the moment, as the power shuts off and the lights flicker then fall dark in the middle of Harry's and Jane's meeting either of them reaching the same decision to pledge their informal factions to the common cause. It's easy to talk, though. It's something else entirely to put ideas into action. Elsewhere, in the university's old cafeteria a family takes refuge, led by a middle-aged man named Len. Born of an industrial family, Len's father was emasculated when the factory he'd worked at closed and put him out of work. Len will never forget the look on his father's face, the look of a sad man who can no longer provide for his wife and children. Now, Len imagines the same look on his own face, and can no longer look his wife and three children in the eye. He goes out every day and finds what work he can in the area around the university, but with the war on there's little work to be found for even the healthiest, ablest of men, never mind a middle-aged man. After the massacre of demonstrators touched off the most intense riots Britain's ever seen, their apartment block burned down, leaving them to seek shelter in the university, a place none in their family had ever a reason to come before. But after so much talk, the students at Edmund University must, themselves, learn to form their own way. Filled with refugees, those made homeless in their own homes, the university has become a shelter, a city unto itself, without a council to govern its shuddering, teeming masses yearning to breathe free, craving a liberation from the unceasing violence meted out upon them but neither willing to tolerate a return to the oppression of the old way of things. Confusion reigns as the Home Guard troops succeed in knocking down the university's gates, a section of soldiers enter, rifles pointed menacingly, scowls on their faces. "Attack them!" shouts Harry. "Fight them back!" shouts Jane. But their voices are drowned out by the chorus emanating from the crowds, a mix of frightened screams and righteous anger, coming in waves. "Don't you—" says one man. There's the crashing of nightsticks against skulls. "It can't—" says one woman. There's the stamping of boots across pavement. "But this isn't the—" says another man. There's the first gunshot cracking through the air. It's begun.

In the university's main square, Harry doesn't know what to do, how to act, but he must put on a brave face and keep up the pretence that he does, just like all the others. Work still goes on, here and elsewhere in the country, across Britain some of the factories, the warehouses, the power plants and the railyards. But these places, men like Harry and women like Jane know, are among the few, the many closed mills and factories across Britain taunting the working man with their ghostly, darkened shells, even in a time when the British Army is fighting a war on the continent still the vast abandoned industry crippling the nation's ability to fight. This is by design, though. When Harry and Jane meet again, this time they meet not to argue the finer ideological points of some esoteric debate but rather to find common ground in their work to fight through to the new day. "We stop them here!" shouts Harry. "Or die trying!" shouts Jane. Along with a mob of students they assail the troopers, but they're easily swept aside. Soon, their efforts to resist degenerate into chaos, with the attacking troops brutally lashing out at anyone in their path. Although this attack had been intended to expel the students and the other refugees from the university and force them into the liberated zones, it becomes little more than a massacre. Janet's killed, shot dead, but Harry survives by happenstance. By the time the Home Guard troops withdraw to their positions in the streets outside, many are dead, many more dying, the screaming and the shouting replaced by the crying and subdued moaning of the injured. The Home Guard will try again, then again, then again, over several weeks succeeding in dislodging the students and refugees out, then setting alight the university's buildings. But conspicuous in their absence are the gunmen of the Popular Front. Though the Front had promised no support to the students, nor even established contact with them, but some of the students, Harry among them, had expected the Front to show. It wasn't to be. In time, Harry and the other survivors of this and the next attack will come to see why.

It's work, it's all about work, it's always about work, despite the hardships and despite the degradation somehow the essence of the country's spirit falling through as if under the influence of an insidious evil, the dark essence which can sometimes be sensed, sometimes felt but never seen. Still among the crowds huddling at the university is a middle-aged woman who wears American clothes, all-denim, that're too small for her but which she wears anyways for having no clothes of her own. She sleeps each night in a different spot, sometimes on a couch, sometimes in a second-floor alcove, still sometimes just curled up on the floor, every night finding some newly-homeless refugee in the spot she'd spent the last night sleeping. Never more among the destitute, this woman's name is Claudia, and she's fled the violence which established the liberated zones in the cities of Britain for the relative safety of the university. In the morning, one morning not altogether long after the rebel offensive has reached its apex, she searches through a bin not for food but for clothes, anything she could take back to the university to give her only child to wear. She finds a pair of men's pants, too large for her young daughter but which she thinks she could remake. When she returns to the university, again finding the place she'd staked out the night before occupied, her young daughter nearby with a family friend they'd run into by happenstance after arriving. Her daughter is still young enough that Claudia can do no wrong in her eyes, and when Claudia picks up her daughter there's a moment when it seems to her that all's right in the world. But then there's the rumbling and rattling of a distant bomb bursting somewhere in the streets, shocking Claudia as if it'd gone off right in front of her. But when the Home Guard mounts their first attack on the university, Claudia doesn't join in the fight to repel them, instead taking her daughter by the hand and frantically looking for an escape, any escape. In the confusion and the chaos Claudia becomes separated from her daughter. They'll never see each other again, even though they'll both live through this first assault. Her daughter will die of an unknown but entirely preventable disease in a few months. Claudia will live longer, to spend the rest of her life looking for her daughter, never to find her.

At the university and at other universities all across Britain, there're forces at work, people taking refuge who'd never before seen the inside of a university's classrooms. All the old way is fallen aside, the fraudulent way disappearing when confronted with the new order. At night, tonight, a young woman named Sylvia looks ashen, tired as she is by the long nights and the longer days. She works, one of the few to still have gainful employment in the hardship of the war years, at a local arms stockpile, but has lost her home when the Home Front fired artillery at a suspected rebel position. Now sheltering in the university's square, she looks ragged and haggard, but still she clings to her life, to what's left of her life like a religious zealot faithfully holding on to the very end. In the night, it always happens in the night, her life is caught in a moment of panic, at the warehouse where arms are stockpiled she falling prey to a delirium, a passing insanity that can only come from being forced to work so hard for so long, sleep-deprived and stayed-alive as she is. But no one knows this episode, confined as it is to the heart and mind of one woman, one young, working class woman, when Sylvia returns at the end of the night to her impromptu shelter at the newly-christened Edmund University an essence infusing itself into her spirit like the descending of a Holy Spirit down onto its people. Sylvia herself won't be alive much longer; she'll die when she gets caught up in a Home Guard attack not here but on a liberated zone not far. But the essence which possesses her can never die so long as the struggle carries on. But when the Home Guard attacks the university in force, she'll flee, in with a crowd of refugees. But she'll never forget the way circumstance had forced her to become unwanted in her own home.

But off the coast the cruiser Borealis and her newfound sister-ship the Nix manage to pool their resources and survive in spite of themselves. After banding together, they immediately came under attack, not by Russians but by their countrymen still loyal to the old flag. Limping along after an inconclusive battle, the two ships are as vulnerable as they've ever been. For his part, Dmitri looks ashen and decrepit, having been awake more than seventy-two hours. He would've expected the sudden emergence of an ally to engender confidence in him, but it hasn't. "Are you coming to look at the engines?" asks Mason, approaching Dmitri as the two mill about on the bridge. "Yes," says Dmitri, "but in this state I don't think I'll be much good." On the Borealis, the crew has depleted some, each death given a brief burial at sea, lacking as they do the luxuries of pomp and circumstance. But on the way down to the engine room, Dmitri can hardly feel the deck beneath him for the numbness that's set in. This is not to be melodramatic, nor is it to create the impression of Dmitri as given to the self-indulgence of introspection. Rather, as he and his number two Mason Smith inspect the ship's damaged engines, the intuition is to cast him as from the same mould as any other. Standing above a panel, Dmitri looks on as an engineer walks him through the damage and the painstaking repair process already underway. But Dmitri is no mechanic, rather a gunner by trade.

"We'll be in port soon anyways," he says, "in less than an hour. We'll see what spare parts we can scrounge once we're there." At his side, Mason says, "and the crew of the Nix has something to help us with, too." It's only been some weeks since the frigate defected to join them, and already their brothers on the Nix have helped them immeasurably. But elsewhere in Britain, events are afoot. In Northern Ireland the old sectarian tensions have been simmering since the failed uprising fifteen years before this war began, and now the province is in crisis again, with governments falling in Belfast and strikes crippling the economy. This time, though, there's no central government to step in and impose order, no single body in Westminster to impose direct rule. In Scotland, the nationalists have seized control, but have stopped short of declaring independence, fearing a decisive intervention not by the British Army but the still-neutral Americans, for reasons we've not yet gotten into but will start exploring soon enough. In the lives of ordinary men and women, like Harry and Jane, and the many others we've yet to hear from but whose lives we'll examine in just enough detail to gather the essence of their struggle, there's an essence which binds us all to the same spirit. Though the wayward provinces will soon erupt in their own conflicts, already we'll see the Provisional Government's authority challenged by the day-to-day discord and dissent bubbling like a pot of water simmering, about to boil over. The Borealis and the Nix will take refuge in Scapa Flow, a destination they've been seeking for weeks, and it's there they'll be when the war for the future changes irrevocably.

With loose pieces of concrete and cinder block littered across the road and the knocked-over streetlamps still not erected again, the neighbourhood around the university bears the signs of the protests which once seized this area but which have now died down. No one knows when, or if, the crowds of disaffected workers, students, and parishioners should take to the streets again, but the time will soon come when we'll all have at it once more. There're no more examples to be seen, not now, difficult as it is to pick one or two or three people from among the pathetic and wretched mass huddling for shelter at this university cum refugee camp. From the windows shattered, shards lying on the ground here and there, it seems nothing is ready for the coming winter, rainy and miserable as the winters are in Britain. And as the cruiser Borealis and her sister ship the frigate Nix reach the relative safety of a harbour controlled by a sympathetic local magistrate. It seems to Dmitri they've spent the last few months steaming in a long, slow, painful circle, still having failed in their directives to penetrate the English Channel. But when Dmitri returns to the bridge to see the two-ship formation into port, he's reassured by something his number two had said after their inspection of the engine room. "Don't worry too much about whether we all live through this," said Mason, "because there are always others out there to carry on in our place." Although Dmitri doesn't know it yet, in fact the vast bulk of the armed forces are still among those whose loyalties could be won. "I hope you're right," says Dmitri, as he looks out from the bridge across the water, to the sun slowly setting over the island of Hoy, Dmitri's thoughts compulsively drawn to his dead wife and daughter. He wonders, as the day's last light yields to the encroaching night, whether they'll see each other again, whenever it's his time to follow them.

As the Borealis docks and some of the men start to put ashore, Dmitri remains behind, looking on the Nix as the latter vessel anchors offshore. Still that vague, almost-suspicion lingers in his mind, as he turns in for the night that suspicion fading, allowing him a moment of peace. In truth, the revolution has acquired a new character, one which has been there all along even as it comes to emerge for the first time. The rebel leader, Elijah, the dark essence, and all working men each comprise an equal portion of the revolution which has seized Britain, all Europe, and which should soon enough seize all the world in its passion. It's in this simple truth that the key to the next step in our struggle lies, the three forms which the working class struggle chooses to grant itself expression all pointing the way through to the future.

But it's not for the faint of heart. Though we fight, though we've always fought for the meek, the helpless, the most pathetic and wretched among us, our success must depend on those who emerge as disciplined, united, willing not only to carry out the working class struggle but to see the working class struggle through to its necessary end. But there's no end, and there never will be. In this struggle, there lies freedom. As the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front press on with their plans, there aligns a conspiracy against them, the conspiracy forging its own plans. At Dominion Courts, there's more death, people dying of starvation and disease throughout Britain's liberated zones, but still people flood in. There's action, there's always action, the Home Guard provoking an exchange of fire, the undisciplined fighters defending these blocks depleting their ammunition. After another exchange, Valeri comes to realize it's a matter of days, perhaps a week or two, before they're finished. And still he hasn't seen, hasn't heard from the rebels in the Popular Front. None of them have.

The wealthy conspiracy which carries on even in the absence of a world of plenty, from within their hardened estates protected by Home Guard troops the whole lot of them pledging their considerable holdings to this one fight to the finish. But all good things must come to an end. In the night, it always happens in the night, the Home Guard troops come around in force, barging through doors and breaking through windows, the sounds of shattering glass and angry voices shouting, hurling abuse echoing through the darkness. In the streets outside Dominion Courts there's another exchange of fire, another few moments of terror to interrupt a torturously long and slow decay, Valeri fighting not only the enemy but also his mounting urge to lash out at anything and everything around him. He's tired and he's hungry, more tired and hungrier than he's ever been, but still he sustains himself by calling on some unknown reserve of energy, a reserve granted unbeknownst to him by the dark essence which guides him and all others fighting in the ascension of the revolution in Britain.

Still, in the calmness of the night, Valeri can't help but ruminate on the betrayal of his long-time mentor, Mark Murray, and all the others who would posture themselves fraudulently. Valeri'll keep on thinking about it, until the wealthy men who've been served by this betrayal are called to account. But, for now, all is well, in the eyes of the governing class, the wealthy men who had once so hoarded their wealth and dispensed only unemployment, poverty, and despair now plotting to engineer a coup d'état of their own making. It's all a confused, disjointed mess, even the wealthy men unsure of what to do next. But at the heart of the new Provisional Government's apparatus there lies a distinct strain of evil, an undercurrent which is hardly distinguishable from the deluge flowing through the annals of power like a surging river after a torrential downpour. In time, we'll see the end result of this conspiracy of evil, but only after pain, suffering, and death much greater than even what we've seen thus far.

10. Lying in Deceit

Not altogether far from the liberated zones of London there's a place where the leaders of the Provisional Government meet to plan their next moves. A hodgepodge of men are here, representing the various and sundry interests that make up the new government that's become so hated in only the months since its formation from among the remnants of the old Britain. For Nathan Williams and Douglas Schlager, though, this motley assortment of interests gathered around a table represent the malleability of the old way of life, given as these men are not to act but to react against the inexorable flow of our history towards the liberation of those whom these men seek to repress. They are the real seat of power in the Provisional Government, whatever apparatus has been put up around them rather emblematic of their influence. But the demonic force, the angel of light is here, too, exerting its influence over these men by feeding itself into their lust for power and wealth. Neither Williams nor Schlager are aware of this angel of light, consigned as they are, for now, to manipulation by a force they can't see. From the head of the table, Williams presides over the meeting in a manner that clearly suggests his steadfast belief in his own greatness, succumbing as he does, as all wealthy men do to the persuasion of the demonic influence radiated by the angel of light. Williams stands, his back upright, his chest puffed out, with one hand seeming to gesture as a means of punctuating every third or fourth word he passes over his lips. Now, he's fully given over to the angel of light, whatever his own thoughts may be. This becomes abundantly clear when Williams rises in the midst of this confused, disjointed action and seeks atonement for his crimes. "The last thing we need right now is an election," he says, "which would be impossible to carry out under the circumstances. But if we can smash the rebels and re-establish control of the cities, then we can carry out an election with little or no interference. It's what we need at this juncture." He speaks, of course, not from experience but from instinct, seeking a mandate for the Provisional Government to lay the groundwork for Westminster to rise again. Left unsaid but implicitly understood by all present is Williams' designs on remaining at the centre of power; each of these men lend their support because they see him and his regime as a way to advance their own interests, varied and disparate as they are.

Though Williams and Schlager commit themselves to their path, they follow only the vaguest of impulses, that of the powerful seeking to retain their power at all costs. Not here, not in this old manor repurposed as a command centre but throughout the country there're those who would seek not to throw their lot in with the rebels but with the various factions already beginning to coalesce around the men assembled by Williams and Schlager. Consciously aware of this, both Williams and Schlager believe they must act now to seize the moment and concentrate power in their own hands. They are but the villains in our history which is lacking in villains, just as the rebel Elijah is but the hero in our history which is lacking in heroes. As Williams and Schlager lead their co-conspirators in government through their plan for the next months, neither Williams nor Schlager can escape the smell in the air of rotting flesh and burning petrol wherever they go, even as they sequester themselves in this palace far removed from the slaughter in the streets. "We must crush the rebels," says Schlager, "once we've crushed them, we can put down any further revolt with ease. This is an essential precondition to winning the war. Some of you have it backwards. A victory on the continent, however improbably, won't mean anything for the disorder at home. The rebels don't trade in nationalism. Focus our efforts here, and we will win here. Focus our efforts elsewhere, and we will lose everywhere." Some of the men assembled are still in doubt, but most voice their assent in turn, without needing much in the way of convincing. This could be a dilemma we face in attempting to fashion an historical narrative which can account for all that we know; it may be the case that what's happening here is a passionate debate by men who all have divergent opinions on how to proceed. If this is the case, then it must be true that Williams takes it on himself to rally these divergent opinions around a single plan.

"These rebels, they are only criminals bent on enslaving all people to their whims," says Williams, "and they want to take away from us everything we have worked so hard to build. They would take away your homes and force you to live in squalid poverty along with the rest of the rabble. They would have us all turn our backs on hundreds of years of tradition and the legacy which Britannia has bequeathed to all the nations of the world. The Provisional Government stands to inherit this legacy, and only you, the men charged with carrying out its work stand between the ravenous hordes and the complete destruction of all we hold dear." In truth, Williams is consciously aware this is all lies he's feeding to those whom he thinks are receptive to them, even as he fully believes these to be truths that must be defended to the fullest extent honour would permit. This was the genesis of their campaign to drive refugees into the liberated zones of Britain's cities, something which the conspirators at the heart of the Provisional Government have all agreed on. But some continue to doubt the way forward which the angel of light has laid out for them, laid out not by direct instruction but by creating in these men a craving, a natural lust for wealth and power. Some among these men have been considering their path, and the angel of light chooses this moment to lend its power to Williams so that he may use it to persuade them. But when Williams looks across the room at Schlager, the two men exchange a knowing glance. The conference hall is full of quiet exchanges and hushed words, looking as it is very much like the annals of power where the old order had led inextricably to this. In his heart, Williams feels lust for power growing, even as the war in the streets refuses all his demands on its course. It's this lust which has become apparent to his old friend and co-conspirator, Colonel Douglas Schlager, that will soon enough lead to a decisive fracture in this tenuous alliance.

"And although our industries may be crippled, still our country has the wherewithal to win through," says Williams, "because there are forces at work which we can hardly understand. If you look too far ahead into the future then you won't gain any greater understanding of the forces at work in the present. I have little regard for the despicable rebels who would plunge us all into misery and despair, and I'm sure you all share my view. With all that's at stake, you see the ravenous hordes at the gates, both here in Britain and on the continent. They who would turn the people against us—" but Williams says this even as all the people have turned against them, if not to the cause of the Popular Front then to someone "—are the very character of evil." There's agreement again, a murmur of voices broken only by the rattling of distant gunfire bleeding in through the open windows. But it's by design those windows have been left open, albeit partially. If you stand in one spot long enough, anywhere in Britain, you're bound to hear gunfire burst the silence. Williams knows this, Schlager knows this, each of the men assembled knows this, but no knowledge can compare to the visceral experience of hearing the bursting of gunfire anew each time. They know that somewhere not altogether far from where they meet someone's pulled the trigger on a rifle, shooting at something, anything at all, shooting to kill. Even in the halls of the manor now occupied by the Provisional Government, there can be no escape from the horrors and the degradation of a civil war that's about to erupt. In the little hall at the mansion outside Greater London where these men meet, the marble floors click and clack beneath the light, rapid footsteps of the servants rushing to cater to the whims of men like Schlager and Williams, and there're moments, even during this very meeting, when it almost seems as though there's no war at all.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" asks one conspirator. "I've never been more sure of anything," says Williams, "but don't make the mistake of thinking I or anyone else can assure you victory. There are too many variables in play. Instead, we must push through this current crisis and re-establish order. This is a necessary precondition to arriving at our final goal." But Williams is no master operator, no grand conspiricist skilfully manipulating history to his own end, though he may think himself that. No, he's a man, and history is not led by men but by forces so much greater than any man. This is why they'd hatched their limited plan to force so many refugees into the liberated zones; they are controlled by forces which compel them to act, whether they realize it or not. The time is drawing nearer for their final offensive against the liberated zones, and they discuss this, between discussing other concerns. The recent wave of wildcat strikes have given all but the most confident of these conspirators—Schlager and Williams among them—such doubts that both Williams and Schlager have agreed to move up their plans to attack the liberated zones. "And what of the King?" asks one plotter. "He'll remain under house arrest for now," says Schlager, "until we figure out what to do with him and the rest of the royal family. Too much has happened for us simply to go back to the old way, but neither can we rid ourselves of them right now." Thus far, the King and the rest of the Royal Family have played only a minor role in the war at home, appearing shortly after the formation of the Provisional Government to endorse it, then seemingly faded into the background. This is the consignment of empty tradition and ritual, although there're those in Britain, even in the very room in which our conspirators meet who would seek to make empty ritual and tradition the centre of public life once again. All should see, soon enough, the rise of forces greater than the motley assortment of rich men here today, still coalescing the anti-revolution as is the revolution itself. As the angel of light withdraws its demonic influence from these men, their true cowardice is revealed by the sudden shaking of their confidence, by the turning of their blood ice cold. The angel of light's withdrawal is strategic, in that it induces these men to pursue even harsher measures, even greater and more barbaric acts of cruelty in order to restore that feeling of confidence.

In the end, it's agreed: the Provisional Government will call for elections to be held in six months' time. This, they tell each other, will be enough time to retake the liberated zones and in so retaking largely pacify the cities. Still, after this meeting Williams and Schlager meet alone, neither trusting the other to tell the truth. In another room adorned with luxurious fittings, such as the finest of ebony desks and a gold-and-crystal chandelier, they poke and prod at one another, eyeing each other with the vaguest of suspicions laid bare. "I don't know what you're thinking," says Schlager, standing in front of the desk which Williams sits behind, "because this will not end well for any of us." But Williams only scoffs at the suggestion, pausing to pour himself a glass of cognac and take a sip. "You know," Williams says, "you really ought to indulge every now and then. Especially in these times when a good brandy is so hard to find." Schlager looks away, briefly out the row of windows on the room's side, taking in the sight of the still-finely-cut lawn outside. Then, still looking away, Schlager says, "unlike you I'm concerned with something other than indulging in my own pleasure." Williams puts down the glass on his desk, then says, "I'd hope you'd know me better than that by now, after all we've been through." Schlager looks back at Williams, looking his co-conspirator right in the eye, and with a sharp intonation infused into his voice says, "you don't know me at all and you never will." Their argument is had while men are dying in the streets by the scores every day, ordinary men who know nothing of the luxury Schlager and Williams surround themselves with.

This hall is brightly lit even as fully half of Britain has no electricity at any given moment. They leave caviar and foie gras uneaten on their dining room table while millions of Britons struggle to silence pangs of hunger intense as a knife to the gut. In their dressing rooms they choose every morning from a selection of suits for which they'd paid more than an year's worth of wages to an ordinary worker, at least back when workers could still expect wages in return for labour. "Still," says Williams, "I find it curious that most of the army has not yet rallied around the Provisional Government as you'd promised they would. I would assume it's not the fault of the men in the army. Would I be correct in making this assumption?" The slight grin on Williams face makes his point clear even to Schlager. "I promised you six brigades," Schlager says, "and I've delivered six brigades. The men in those six brigades are the only reason you're able to sit here and safely question my competency." But Williams only shakes his head before saying, "my friend, Colonel, I don't question your competency. I question your commitment." Schlager, barely able to conceal his contempt, says, "I may be a Colonel but I'm not your friend." After what's transpired here today, it may seem as though the decisive battle in our war is in the offing, but it's not to be. Not far from the palace where Schlager and Williams scheme, the streets and the skies are filled with the blood and screams of working men slaughtered for want of a new tomorrow, in this, the time of our rising, it seeming so hard to recall that it was only a short time ago, hardly over fifteen years that men and women had something vaguely resembling peaceful lives. "But after all that's happened," Williams begins, momentarily sobered, "will you still support our puppet?" You see, Schlager and Williams have designs on a particular man, a man we haven't yet met but will soon. He is a pawn, a figurehead. Williams plans to use this figurehead to enrich himself. Schlager plans to use this figurehead to restore the military to its former glory. But what neither man knows about this figurehead is his purpose as an agent of an evil even they could never understand.

No, for Schlager and Williams, or Williams and Schlager, impossible is the idea that someday soon those very men and women should turn their backs on the old way forever and embrace the dawning of a new age. From the smoking craters in the streets and from the fires of liberation burning bright into the night one can pick out the exact spots where dreams of an old generation are burnt to ashes, cast into a funeral pyre which, now, all can see, from the hopeless causes to the stars of our time. It's not our time, yet, but our shared history is building, mounting inexorably to that critical moment when we should seize the day. But as the night dawns, Schlager doesn't answer Williams' question, the angel of light choosing this moment to strategically apply itself, inspiring Schlager to turn away, leaving a small but steadily growing doubt in both their minds. In the night, it always happens in the night, while conspirators sleep, the wretched and pathetic among us lay their plans for the day. As the rebel offensive subsides across Britain, the ebb and flow of the war in the streets seems to provide exactly the opportunity the conspirators behind the Provisional Government's gambit have been seeking. But they're wrong. At exactly the moment when the ebb and flow of the war in the streets seems to leave the revolutionary forces, within the Popular Front and without, vulnerable, in their moment of weakness a strength taking hold. Inside one of London's liberated zones, Valeri, Tonya, and the others are about to realize strength in their moment of weakness. On the street, they see the surge of deportations slow to a trickle. Valeri says to Tonya, "they're going to attack soon." Tonya nods, then says, "whatever happens, we've done the right thing." But neither know what morning will bring.

For across Britain there're factory managers still managing their factories, bankers still hoarding their ill-gotten wealth, merchants charging prices for their wares that seem to climb every day as the vaunted Pound loses value anew in perfect time with each bomb bursting in the street, with each bullet fired at the Home Guard's patrols, with each soldier shot dead on the battlefields of Poland and Ukraine. It's not time yet for the final revolution to occur, for the old order to be tossed into the historical trash heap, but we're drawing nearer and nearer to that time, that critical moment with each passing day. In some way, men like Nathan Williams and Douglas Schlager and all those with whom they conspire must know this, if only in the vague, instinctive way they can. But outside this meeting hall, the working men of Britain prepare, each in his own way, for the next step. Neither Valeri nor Tonya had expected their uprising to end as it seems about to, with a fight to the finish. Still on the street when night falls, Valeri says to Tonya, "do you regret anything?" Tonya doesn't look him right in the eye, instead choosing to let her gaze wander past him as she says, "there are lots of things I regret, but fighting like this isn't one of them." Valeri nods, and the two share a moment of understanding set against the chaos and the suffering unfolding before them.

A woman named Emily works at a power station, still up and running, still supplying power to Greater London. In the day, she works feverishly along with the others at the station to keep the lights on and the heaters running, their efforts never enough. With the constant shortages amid the civil strife and the war on the continent, today as with the other days Emily must come up with haphazard solutions to unexpected problems, today the generators threatening to shut down altogether because the control valves are on the fritz. But today, standing at her station she works to keep the power on only so it can be shut off soon enough, she and the others secretly committed to adding their labour power to the wildcat strikes already losing steam. But inside London's liberated zones, Valeri can hear the moaning and the crying of the dying waft through the night, as if these noises are carried aloft by the gentlest of breezes. The distant rattling of gunfire and bursting of bombs has quieted, from where Valeri stands on the edge of the roof of Dominion Courts the city's darkness making the moaning and the crying seem to emanate from a gaping black maw threatening to consume everything they've all been fighting and dying for.

If the power fails before the strike begins, then Emily's chance at taking part will pass unfulfilled. "...Keep it going," she says to the other engineers, "use a little spit and glue." Emily has two children, but she used to have three; her eldest son, only sixteen, was killed when Home Guard troops put down the protest he was taking part in. Each of the workers at the power station have their own reason for committing to the wildcat strike even in its waning days. Emily's heart hardened the moment she first looked on her son's cold, lifeless body lying in the street. She no longer cries, her body having exhausted its grief in the months since. At Dominion Courts, Valeri has the perfect vantage point from which to view suffering worse than anything he'd ever imagined. Walking through the street on his way to the old church, he sees the dead already falling where they lay, bodies swept off to the side, some in alleys, others in trash bins. It seems, to Valeri, as though the Home Guard doesn't need to attack at all, even as the Home Guard continues to mass its forces just outside the boundaries of this particular liberated zone. He thinks they ought to simply continue their siege now that they've stopped flooding refugees in, that they ought to content themselves to blockading this and other liberated zones until every last person inside has died a slow and painful death by starvation. But Valeri doesn't know the full breadth of considerations weighing on the Home Guard's masters, the hated Provisional Government, considerations that should soon force their hand.

In the night, it always happens in the night, the fires of liberation keep on burning so bright in spots the night's indistinguishable from the day. Though Douglas Schlager may think of himself as an honest patriot and Nathan Williams may think of himself as a shrewd businessman, they are only thinking back, not forward, concerned as they are with petty matters, with the trivialities of passing history like nation, religion, King. This motto, 'Nation, Religion, King,' is emblazoned on the wall by the front of the palace Schlager and Williams use as their de facto headquarters, but meaning little more than decoration it can't stop the rapidly-mounting sequence of events which should turn against them all like the rising of the tides. In a small city in the docklands not far from the old shipyards in Liverpool, there works an older man named Phillip, or Phil as his friends have always called him. He used to see the businessmen who owned the city strutting about in the streets, speeding this way and that in their limousines and luxury sedans, but now he scarcely sees them for their having holed up in fortified districts. Although his sympathies lie with the rebels, Phil is too old to take up arms, which is why he's committed himself to the general strike. Working at the motor pool for the local transit authority, he works, today, to keep the buses running despite the shortage of spare parts and fuel. He and his fellow mechanics work to keep the buses running only so they can be brought to a halt when the strike begins. Although Valeri, in one of London's liberated zones, has no direct knowledge of the wildcat strikes, he's vaguely aware of what goes on, listening as he does to the testimony of the refugees who've flooded in over the past months. (All networks have gone down long ago, leaving their screens useless for those purposes). At the old church, Valeri arrives to find fewer refugees than there'd been, but he quickly surmises this is only because some of them have died, mostly from a lack of medical supplies for their chronic problems. At the head of the church's main worship hall, where the pulpit had been, others, Michael O'Connor, Tonya, and some others he doesn't recognize are already having at one another, passionately debating the next course of action. But Valeri only watches, knowing as he does this debate has been superseded by larger events. The Home Guard has seemingly stopped massing forces outside this particular liberated zone, stopped forcing refugees in, which Valeri deduces must mean an attack is imminent.

Working at the engine of one bus, Phil says, "this one's no good," holding onto one part while trying to jostle it free, "see if you can't pull one out of a van in the lot." All the repairs have to do is hold for a little while longer, he knows, and then their time will be at hand. Like many others Phil has his own reasons for planning on joining the strike, his whole family knowing nothing but poverty all his life while the businessmen who own the city strut about arrogantly, flaunting their wealth with their luxury cars and suits that cost more than he makes in a year. That's reason enough to have at them, he believes, never mind the murders of innocents by the Home Guard. At the old church in one of London's liberated zones, Valeri receives time to speak, and he uses it, taking to the pulpit as if he were a priest. What he says isn't important; everything that he could say has already been said, not necessarily in this church but in the halls of Dominion Courts, in the streets and alleys outside, in little half-conversations and brief exchanges held whenever spare moments presented themselves. What started as an impassioned uprising has turned into a slow and painful death for them all, and Valeri has come to realize his place may not be what he'd thought it was. In this, he's not alone.

Wherever anyone looks, there's little sign of the old regime, the old way of life immediately visible, but still it's there. Beneath the rubble there's still the records kept somewhere which parcel out the land into private fiefdoms, the records surely waiting for someone to happen upon them and either destroy them or give them form again. In the afternoon, when Williams and Schlager separate again each returns to their respective operations, Schlager to a secure base at the old Naval Air Station Yeovilton, Williams to that old warehouse outside Greater London where once the two had met to finalize their plans. But at the old church in one of London's liberated zones, it now seems to Valeri that death is a foregone conclusion. As he speaks, in the back of his mind he fixates on the notion that he's following in his mother's and father's footsteps. As they'd been killed in a hail of bullets during that failed uprising more than fifteen years ago, he considers the possibility that his fitting end is to sacrifice himself in this uprising, whether this uprising turns out successful or not. It's a thought as chilling as it is invigorating. After he's finished speaking, he receives a perfunctory handshake from Michael O'Connor, then takes his seat next to his neighbour, Tonya. She seems to know what he's thinking, as they'd spoken before, here and there, about his mother's and father's deaths. But after reaching for his shoulder and giving him a firm pat on the back, she says nothing, letting the moment play itself out.

Meanwhile, in Manchester a young woman named Lydia walks the streets more cautiously than she used to, each step measured carefully to cover the greatest ground without drawing attention from the Home Guard troops lurking behind every corner, in every alley. Lydia arrives at work this morning, as with every morning, and finds the waterworks serving Manchester only just running. The days see her fixing leaks and swapping out broken parts with parts broken but in different ways, keeping the water flowing only by the grace of God. On inspecting the works, she finds the repairs from earlier in the week holding, in the control room telling her fellow workers, "if you see any more loss of pressure there won't be enough time to restore it." But she doesn't say what for, keeping the open secret from their managers, knowing as she and the other workers do that they must keep the water flowing only so it can be shut off later. Like the other workers, their moment is almost at hand. But for men like Nathan Williams and Douglas Schlager, this war must be won to preserve their own power. Neither Williams nor Schlager take the rebel Elijah and his Popular Front seriously, not in the way they should. At the church, no agreement is reached on any particular strategy or goal. The only agreement that emerges on this night is over their shared determination to fight. When Valeri returns to Dominion Courts, he takes to the roof and looks over the street, watching for the moment of attack to arrive. Still the only sound is the moaning and the crying of those still suffering long and slow deaths. As he listens, Valeri takes some solace in the knowledge, the certain knowledge that he's not got much longer to wait until his final battle begins. He's right, but in ways he can't possibly imagine, no matter how he tries.

11. Flicker of Hope

After the rebel offensive and the wildcat strikes have all but ended, men like Valeri are pushed to the brink of starvation. There's no food left in the cupboards of Dominion Courts, forcing residents to reach out in search of something, anything at all to sustain them. But whenever Valeri's stomach growls, he continues to think on the death of his parents in the failed rising fifteen years before this one began, and he pictures in his mind's eye their grave still untouched by the war. Though, when the lookouts on the roof spot some rebel gunmen making up the street towards them, Valeri snaps out of his reverie, taking to the roof to look on the street himself. "It can't be," he says, looking through binoculars at the ragged men hurrying along towards them. "It's them all right," says Tonya, at Valeri's side. "Call the others," Valeri says, "it's time." Valeri knows, they all know it's much too soon for the rebels to be joining in with the people living in the liberated zones, and he's sure this'll lead the Home Guard to lay waste to what little they've struggled to win so far. Soon there's the fevered sound of gunfire rattling off here and all throughout London, all across Britain, the working men and women in the liberated zones taking to their ramparts and defending their homes with all the ferocity and tenacity of religious zealots waging an apocalyptic battle in defense of their holy land. But soon their end will come. In their deteriorating condition, their slow starvation and their inability to break out from encirclement, there's weakness. In the Home Guard's massing of superior forces in the urban barricades surrounding them, there's strength. But in the rebels' weakness, there lies the unmistakable threat to the way of things, which makes their weakness strong. And in the Home Guard's massing against them, there's the insecurity of the Provisional Government, the knowledge of the mortal threat posed to the way of things by the revolution, which makes their strength weak.

A sudden escalation is all it's taken, all it ever could've taken to push this revolution into its next phase, its deadliest phase yet. But as Valeri rushes into the streets, rifle in hand, he finds a moment of exhilaration mixed in with danger and despair, soon ducking behind a makeshift barricade and gripping his rifle tight. "Keep firing," says Valeri, "and don't stop!" They've been saving ammunition, and they've got enough to give a good account of themselves before they die, or so Valeri thinks. Though it may be difficult to imagine now, this is not yet the decisive moment of our revolution, nor is it the coming general strike which should bring all Britain to its knees. "Where are they coming from?" asks Tonya, after firing at the Home Guard troops coming down the street. Although Valeri knows of the coming general strike, he knows, too, that they who have taken up in the liberated zones cannot, must not vacate their struggle here. "Everywhere!" says Valeri. To his right, one young soldier takes a bullet in the forehead, falling back, dead before he hits the ground. Soon, Valeri and the others see the armoured personnel carriers making their way slowly up the street, and realize the arms they have are useless against the vehicles. They withdraw, falling back into their homes, where they'll make their stand in places no treaded vehicle can reach. In the ruins of the old apartment blocks they make their stand. It's been only four months since they'd seize their own homes in an impassionate uprising, and one by one those zones have fallen. For the first time, it seems to Valeri and the others as though the Home Guard is organized, its attacks still haphazard and disjointed but seeming to have a rhythm to them. Just as Valeri and the others at Dominion Courts have repelled an attack, there's another, the Home Guard's troops gathering to have another go at it. Across the city, across the country, the same scenario plays itself out, liberated zones falling to Home Guard assaults one by one. Each sees a massacre, the indiscriminate fire of the Home Guard's troops killing so many of those forced into the zones over the past four months, exactly as intended.

As the cruiser Borealis links up with the frigate Nix, the two ships form the beginnings of a naval armada for the Popular Front. But crippled as they are by fuel shortages, they have only limited fighting ability, but it's an ability Dmitri, Smith, and the others intend to push right to its limits. Although the crew of the Borealis have little, they share freely what they have with the crew of the Nix, a brotherhood already making them as one. But their new refuge at Scapa Flow can't remain a refuge forever, in the weeks since they've begun making repairs the enemy gathering, which enemy they can't know. Both the loyalist Royal Navy and the marauding Russians gun for them, and Dmitri, Smith, and the others know it's only a matter of time before one or both attack. Soon the enemy must come, in the morning one well-placed shell crashing down on the bow of the Borealis just forward of her main gun. But it doesn't detonate, instead lodging in her deck plating, threatening to explode any moment. "Keep firing," Dmitri says, "and don't stop for any reason." His crew on the bridge all nod their grim assent, knowing the threat they face is death, whether they die by the enemy's fire or by the hangman's noose. Far overhead, the enemy's aircraft fly at high altitude, penetrating British airspace with ease, seen only by the white contrails they leave as they streak across the sky. No one knows who they're fighting anymore, not the men aboard the navy's vessels nor their enemies in the sky, flying another flag, but when the deck of the Borealis heaves with another near-miss the whole bridge seems to shudder under a wave of disarray sweeping throughout. "They're not responding," says Mason, "they must have lost communications." They sail out of Scapa Flow under fire, the larger Borealis ahead of the smaller Nix, with loyalist vessels in the distance and Russian bombers far overhead.

Thinking quickly, Dmitri says, "then get someone out there on the bridge wing to man the signal lamp." Mason says, "he'll die out there." But Dmitri says only, "then he'll die for his brothers and not for his enemies." Mason nods, but rather than relaying the order chooses to go out on the bridge wing himself. Dmitri lets him, turning back to the scope, peering for a target, any target at all, looking for something or someone to shoot at. But with the sea rising at his feet and the air filled with the screams of men dead and dying, all he can do is keep on barking out orders until the enemy gives up. In the heat of battle, Dmitri loses sight of his suspicion for the Nix, feeling the heated sensation of rising passions. They're under attack from the Royal Navy's vessels, even as the Russians take action against Britain still the Provisional Government's attention directed against the rebels. As the Borealis swerves to port, a missile traces a path through the sky, correcting its guidance to home in on the cruiser's exhaust. The cruiser's radar-directed guns spit out fire, in the seconds it takes the enemy missile to arch towards them Dmitri reciting a silent prayer that each of them should survive through this battle and on to the next. Out on the bridge wing, a shell explodes on contact, and for a moment Dmitri's sure his comrade Mason Smith is dead.

At Dominion Courts on the edge of the liberated zones Valeri and the other residents are under attack once more. Valeri says, "keep shooting even if you can't penetrate the armour." Tonya says, "but why?" And Valeri says, "make them fight for every inch." Erratic fire keeps on ringing out, stray rounds clanging harmlessly off the car's armour, men scattering, confusedly searching for a target they can't see. The thick, acrid stench of burning fuel fills the air, above the blades of a helicopter chopping through the sky from behind a row of apartment blocks. And once Valeri peers through the smoke he sees the army's helicopter tracking around in the distance, working its way over to his position. "I don't think we've got anything that can take down that," Tonya says. "We don't need to take it down," says Valeri, "just shoot at it and worry about the rest later." Meanwhile, less than a kilometre away Valeri's counterpart Michael O'Connor is under fire too, but without hindrance or let from the enemy above. If Valeri would only pause and listen to the sounds of death he'd surely hear the walls crumbling in, the floors giving way, the beams splintering and shattering as this confused and disoriented offensive hits a new stride. Valeri, Tonya, and all the others, they're not trained soldiers, rather ordinary men and women relying on instinct, fighting back like cornered animals, lashing out at anything that comes at them. Already there're bodies in the streets, mangled and lifeless, with blood flowing along the gutters, as though the skies had opened and unleashed a torrential downpour of crimson red.

In the confusion, Gillian Bailey is killed. Valeri doesn't see her. She's killed in the streets, taking a stand where so many others flee. She gives a good account of herself before dying, shooting dead a Home Guard trooper and scattering fire across the street before the attack overtakes her. Although Valeri will spare her no more thought, he won't ever forget the peaceful image of that lone figure at the ramparts, looking into the night. But inside the halls and rooms of blocks like Dominion Courts, the fighting soon reaches a fever pitch. The Home Guard troops advance through the streets, and kill everyone they find, driving the scores of refugees down every alley, into every building, along the streets like cattle into the slaughterhouse. Not all is lost. In firing on the enemy, men like Valeri, Michael, even Tonya all force themselves onto the struggle, smashing their names into the history books with such violence and ferocity that there should be no one who could ever forget them. From his vantage point inside the main entrance of Dominion Courts, Valeri shoots into the street, the glass doors and windows having long since shattered. He doesn't know if his bullets are finding any enemies, but he shoots anyways, until his rifle clicks empty. "They're coming!" says Tonya, at his side. "I've got nothing left!" says Valeri. "Here," says Tonya, handing him a pistol, "but make it count!" They can hardly hear their own voices or each other's above the din outside, the heavy thumping of cannon fire as the Home Guard's troops methodically demolish the area, block by block. And when there's a break in the line, it matters little, for the working men in the liberated zones score an impossible victory simply by virtue of their continued resistance. Whether the general strike that's in the works comes to serve as the death blow against the hated Provisional Government, men like Valeri, Michael, and Tonya must will themselves to keep on fighting, no matter the cost.

Under fire, the cruiser Borealis shudders with each shell crashing into the sea, sending columns of water reaching over her masts. On the bridge, Dmitri says, "coordinate our attack with the Nix tactical officer. Concentrate fire on any shell impacts." The Borealis bow gun spits out rounds erratically, falling silent, then spitting out rounds again. But Dmitri spares a thought in the back of his mind for Mason, his comrade, who's surely dead, without even a body to be committed to a burial at sea. "Targets," says the radar operator, "due south, ten kilometres." It's a confusing, disjointed action, on both sides communication quickly breaking down. "What about those bombers?" asks Dmitri. But the operator says, "not coming for us. They're heading west." In the distance a bright orange flame bursts amid the darkness, the gunner enthusiastically shouting, "it's a hit!" But in the confusion of the dark no one can tell who's hit who, on the bridge the only certainty it's not them. "Helm, hard to starboard," says Dmitri, and the deck heaves as the helm throws everything she has into the turn. For a moment it seems she might tear herself apart, the whole of her hull groaning, grinding in protest, while in the water outside shells crash all around, throwing up columns of water, in the time it takes a radio to crackle and a life to be snuffed out all the moments we've been through together blending into one great explosion of bright orange flame.

In the night there's the twisting of metal and the bursting of water in through buckled hull plating, Dmitri listening, seeming helpless as the radio crackles, the Nix's conn declaring the frigate having lost an engine, the smaller ship soon falling behind. With enemy ships closing and bombers in the distance like vultures circling a dying beast, it seems all is lost for the dissident's fleet. But as that missile tracks in towards the cruiser's bow, Dmitri orders a hard, sudden turn to port, the missile's guidance momentarily confused, plunging the missile into the sea just metres from the cruiser's hull. "There's too many of them," says Mason, suddenly appearing at the door to the bridge. He's bloody and bruised from being knocked back by the concussive force of a shell's impact, but looks to be all right otherwise. Mason says, "we've got to withdraw." "Where?" Dmitri asks, then says, "there's nowhere to go!" Mason approaches, and steadies himself against the heaving deck before pointing out the window at the enemy ships, saying, "full attack! Give it everything we've got! It's our only chance!" In this moment, in the fraction of a second between the missile striking the water and the sudden rupture of its warhead, Dmitri feels a surging passion in his body, in the heat of battle memories of all that's been lost, all he's lost flooding through his mind like the bursting of water through a ship's broken hull. But in the fraction of a moment time seems to suspend itself and allow the thoughts of a thousand-and-one emotions free reign through him. It's as though his entire being has become in an instant a vessel through which the revolution has chosen to grant itself expression. But the expression so chosen isn't left for him to understand, rather to lose sight in the midst of a terrible cacophony of noise and a blinding light the moment choosing to turn from one to the next, marking exactly the point the world changes forever. "Signal the Nix," says Dmitri, "and tell them to follow us at full speed! We're going in!"

A burst of fire erupts in the street immediately outside Dominion Courts, Valeri looking to the danger, gunshots cracking here and there all up and down the thin line separating the liberated zones from the authority of the Provisional Government. Valeri's edges towards the entrance to the building, popping up to shoot at the government troops advancing towards him again. But Tonya's not at his side in this moment of overwhelming attack, not this time, having gone to rally some more men to the ramparts. It's all a confusing, disjointed mess. But when Valeri feels his screen vibrate, he instinctively knows it's Michael O'Connor calling in with bad news. And so it is, Michael's voice is on the line as Valeri's younger friend says, "we've found a way through the sewers, we can't hold the line here. There's too many of them. We're retreating." And then it hits Valeri, the sudden realization this is his not to be his only chance to live up to the legacy his mother and father had left him, even if he doesn't realize it in exactly these terms still the thrust of it hitting him full force. With the Home Guard's troops running amok through the streets, massacring everything they find, Valeri can't bring himself to let this chance pass him by. But Valeri is only a working man, young and ignorant, with only the limited vision of a working man, and for a moment he ignores the call and turns his gun back towards the street, firing at the still-advancing Home Guard troops. "Valeri," says a voice, which in his heightened state of anxiety and distress he can only barely recognize as that of his friend Tonya. She's reappeared at his side, there to rescue him. "Valeri," says Tonya again, prompting Valeri at last to turn back to confront her. "We must withdraw," she says, "we can't hold this place, not without help from the rebels. And they're not coming, not right now. We'll attack them again but we need to find a way out." An explosion outside rattles the walls, the building seeming about to collapse as the Home Guard's heavy guns turn their attention to Dominion Courts. It makes little sense to Valeri, but neither does it make much sense to Tonya, both of them confused and disoriented among the working men and women committed to a war in the streets, a war for the streets, a war neither of them can fully understand but which they both will fight through to the death. As Valeri draws back, he looks towards the street, with many of his brothers and sisters dead and dying, this current enemy offensive bound to halt at any moment but which moment none could tell. It's all so confusing, so disjointed, with only the feeling in our bodies and the welling spiritual essence in our souls to guide men like Valeri during these dark moments when death seems the only path forward.

During this action, a deep confusion sets in, Dmitri unsure what to do next. Still on fire, the cruiser Borealis needs repairs, now more than ever. But Dmitri can only order the conn to duck and dodge, to weave erratically through the enemy's fire, the Borealis' own batteries depleted of ammunition or knocked out by battle damage. Ordering hard about, Dmitri quickly plots a course through the battle area, along the coast, and into a friendly port, the only question remaining whether the Borealis has it in her to hold together long enough to save them. "She's not going to make it," says Mason, "we're taking on water." But Dmitri says, "we'll make it." He then asks, "what's the position of the Nix?" In the confusion, they've lost track of the frigate, and until they've made it out of the combat area they can't spare the fuel to turn and look for what mightn't be there. Dmitri is relieved that Mason hasn't survived, in the few months they've been fighting as brothers an unspoken bond having formed between them, a bond that supersedes even the camaraderie between all aboard. But this bond is only felt, instinctive, as they fight for their survival the dark essence which guides their revolution choosing this moment to make itself present in them. "There!" says Mason, looking through binoculars, pointing to port. The Nix is on fire, smoke pouring from a gaping hole in her deck amidships, but looks to be turning to follow the Borealis. "Turn around," says Dmitri, "tell the Nix we'll cover her escape. Take us right at the enemy ships. If you can, fire any weapons. Get our men ready to abandon ship." It's a small moment, but a significant one, for every man aboard the cruiser knows there's surely little fight left in the Borealis anyways, should the vessel survive so many months of hard action and battle damage having left her little more than a hulk. This is a suicide charge, but one which should save hundreds of lives on the Nix. All are ready to die. But it's not to be. It may not be immediately obvious to the men aboard the Borealis, but the turning point comes at exactly the moment when all seems lost.

At Dominion Courts, the walls begin to groan and crack, part of the block beginning to crumble outside. If Valeri and the others remain much longer, then they're sure to be killed by the demolition of the building, if not enemy fire. Gunfire cracks and blood spills. "Where's the shooting?" he asks. "Don't know," says Tonya. "They must be coming for us," Valeri says. "Stand your ground," says Tonya, before turning to the others. So much more is at stake here than only the lives of a few people, a few working class people who would take the burden of all our futures on their shoulders, and it's in this spirit that Valeri considers himself fully ready to die. But in the skies over the North Sea, the Royal Air Force's Mobius squadron flies at speed, headed West, followed closely by a squadron of Russian fighters chasing them all the way. Closing to firing range, the lead Russian fighters lock on and let loose. "Hit!" shouts one fighter pilot, Linda Parker, "I'm hit! Starboard stabilizers not responding!" Her fighter trails smoke and flame, and she fights with the controls as her fighter begins a shallow dive. Her cockpit fills with the sound of the alarm blaring. While Parker struggles with her fighter's controls, in the last of London's liberated zones Valeri Kovalenko stares death right in the eyes. Turning to face the action in the street, Valeri grips his pistol tightly and aims square in the middle of the Home Guard's troopers advancing steadily towards them, squeezing the trigger, loosing rounds at the enemy without care for where his rounds might land. The Home Guard aren't sending troops in to claim the building, but fire on it from a distance with their heavy guns. Before it's over, all will tremble in fear of one thing or another, whether death or deadening, whether hunger or satiation, while the streets are aflame coursing through them is that very same dark essence which has looked down on the budding revolution with a watchful eye from the beginning.

Over the North Sea, the Russian fighters follow Pilot Parker as she loses altitude. "Platter here," says another pilot, "I'm on 'em!" He flies above and behind the Russian fighters trailing Parker's fighter, and he manoeuvres into position for a shot. He waits until his scope gives off the tell-tale ring, then squeezes the trigger, loosing off a pair of missiles. Both hit their targets, downing the two Russian fighters. "Yeah!" shouts Platter, "two down!" But then fire from more Russian fighters behind him strikes, tearing his fighter's tail to pieces, breaking one wing off, a last hit exploding his main fuel tank, bursting his whole fighter into a brilliant explosion. His death buys Parker's life. But in the last of London's liberated zones, there's no one to buy Valeri any time. When Valeri rises to his feet and steadies himself against the onslaught, the moment seizes him, filling his veins with a raw electricity, an energy, the metallic taste of blood flooding his mouth. Here, in the working class districts in London, the real war is fought, won not by the flanking of armies on a battlefield but by the triumphant will of the working man not only to survive but to win through, no matter the cost. By the time the dust clears and Valeri gathers himself up off the pavement, a moment of clarity emerges from the chaos.

"Malfunction!" shouts a third pilot, Judy Harris, "Malfunction! Rear guns inoperative! Dover's gone, they're on me!" Harris struggles to keep her fighter level as she draws the attention of more Russians, two, three missiles soon locked on and fired at her. "This is Hatfield!" says the squadron captain, "don't fight, run! We're outgunned!" But there's nothing he can do for Harris, whose fighter is struck by one, two, all three of the missiles, bursting into a thousand little pieces. After watching Harris go down, the Russians shift their attention back to Parker, meanwhile in London the Home Guard's troops pressing their own attack on the last of Britain's liberated zones. The sky is filled with columns of smoke rising, the fires of liberation burning across Britain's cities and throughout the countryside. Forever condemned to struggle against some malevolent enemy, the rebel Elijah and his Popular Front gather strength even as he sends scores of men to die in the streets. As he is always seemingly on the edge of death, Valeri thinks on the deaths of his parents in the failed uprising fifteen years before this war began, some part of him imagining them looking down on his struggle with pride. In between bursts of action, Valeri considers himself carrying on their legacy, in a curious, roundabout sort of way, the family having long ago been committed to the revolutionary struggle not by force of law but by their common lot in life, passed down through the generations, his family labourers since there was labour to be done. The walls at Dominion Courts shake, the building coming down around him, still Valeri remaining in his determination to fight to the death. But it's not to be.

Over the North Sea, Mobius squadron's almost home, almost within range of friendly missile coverage, but still not close enough. Parker's fighter takes more fire, a Russian closing to spit cannon shells at her, scoring hits. Parker shouts, "laterals are out!" Her fighter starts to turn lazily to starboard, her only option left to try and stay in the air until over British soil again. "Hang on, grandma!" shouts another pilot, the young Walter Wright. He takes a position along the line of sight right behind Parker, squeezing the trigger to fire the last of his cannon's shells. But Wright throws the thrust to full, closing on the lead Russian fighter, forcing him off Parker's tail. They're almost home. And while Mobius squadron speeds towards safety, in the last of Britain's liberated zones to fall Valeri's determined not to run. But the skies, now, are grey, greying still with each passing day, on this day of action threatening to let rain fall on London at any moment, the summer's heat well and truly gone, replaced by a simmering coolness that must inevitably coerce these grey, greying skies to let rain at any time. If Valeri should die, he thinks, then let it be. He's ready. But now is not his time; now there are larger forces at work which have designs for people exactly like him. All throughout his life, made to strain and work for a meagre sustenance, Valeri sees in this moment a final deliverance from the shackles of death, as though his mother and father are watching as he throws his life away in a blaze of glory. But it's not to be.

Still over the North Sea, the remaining pilots of the Royal Air Force's Mobius squadron draw closer to home, closer by the second, still not close enough. Pilot Kowalski fires on one Russian, scoring a kill, but draws the attention of three more Russians, the last of the Russians brave enough to follow them this far West. "I'm hit!" he shouts, "electrical failure! Ejection system doesn't respond!" At the head of the formation, Winfield turns and loops back, following the three Russian fighters on Kowalski's tail. "Pull out, Kowalski!" shouts Winfield, firing at the lead Russian, shooting down one, then another. But his guns run dry, with his missiles already expended his only choice to follow the Russians on Kowalski's tail. Trailing smoke, Kowalski's fighter slows as it falls, the three Russians ceasing fire while closing range. Kowalski shouts, "sorry, Captain, no can do. You'll have to keep one for me!" And Kowalski yanks back on the stick, jerking his fighter's nose up abruptly, catching the Russians too close. One Russian crashes into him, exploding both in a brilliant fireball, fragments of metal striking the other two, bringing both down. "Kowalski, I won't forget you," says Hatfield, before turning back for home. The remaining Russian fighters disengage, leaving three surviving British pilots to fly home, out of eighteen flown off on sortie. Parker makes it over British soil before she ejects, landing close enough to the nearest base to permit easy recovery, while Wright and Hatfield land back at base. Though the pilots of Mobius squadron are safe, for now, in the last of Britain's liberated zones to fall Valeri is fully prepared to fight to the death. But it's not to be. "Valeri!" It's Tonya, at his back. She says, "the enemy is on us here, but we still have plenty of places to fight." But Valeri sees only surrender and humiliation in retreat, and still vows inwardly to fight to the death. "You go die in the sewers," he says, as the building comes down around him, around them both, "I'm going to die here!" It wasn't all that long ago when Valeri had his place in the way of things, his job at a factory, his little apartment which kept him warm in the winter and too hot in the summer, when his life was filled with characters colourful and courageous. In this, his moment of weakness, images flash through his mind of his loved ones, women like Hannah, Maria, even Sydney, all still alive, then his mother and father, dead over fifteen years ago as he almost wants to die now. But it's not to be. The dark essence which guides their revolution chooses this moment to make itself felt in Valeri, inspiring him to go with Tonya, retreating into the sewers through a manhole in the alley behind Dominion Courts. He makes it out of the building just as the last critical parts of the structure give way, turning the block into a great pile of wood and dust.

After having returned to base, the surviving members of Royal Air Force's Mobius squadron give a debriefing to the base commander, then return to their bunks for a few hours rest. But they can't rest, not one of them. Hatfield, the Captain of the squadron, says to the other two, "they sent us right into a trap." Park and Wright agree. Hatfield says, "next time we'll be sent to die, if we can ever get in the air again." They hatch a plan. They've been sent out on their last suicide mission, sent out by a command doubtful of their loyalties to the hated Provisional Government. Now, they agree, the remnants of Mobius squadron will give them a reason to be doubtful. Though Hatfield is an officer, he's no more loyal to the hated Provisional Government than any of the men. As the pilots of Mobius squadron scheme, in the last of Britain's liberated zones Valeri Kovalenko flees, clutching as he does the side of a wall and shields himself from a barrage of bullets, turning his back on their home. He wouldn't have it any other way. This is only a pause in the fighting, to last hours, and only here, in the streets near Dominion Courts. Elsewhere in London and across Britain the Home Guard's troops keep on pushing, the whole country caught up in a maelstrom of death and destruction from which it seems there can be no escape. It's all so confusing and disorienting, with the defenders of these liberated zones defeated and the refugees massacred, one by one. Those who surrender are killed on the spot. But in certain defeat theirs is a victory assured, their struggle fully encapsulating the essence of the revolution, as in death there's life, in cold there's heat, in the darkness there's light. Thus ends the uprising that began four months ago, in a decisive moment of defeat many made into martyrs of the revolution.

As the last of Britain's liberated zones fall on this day, all seems lost. Now, in this moment of crisis, men like Valeri face a reckoning of their own. Reluctantly, he takes Tonya's hand as she pulls him out of harm's way, the two withdrawing along with the rest of their brothers and sisters still alive, not many after a spirited defense of their homes. In the confusion they escape, into the sewers, even the underground stations shuttered by the war, surviving to fight another day. From defeat, they realize the next step towards total victory, in defeat achieving a decisive victory.

II

12. Everlasting

A few weeks pass. After the Home Guard has reasserted control of the formerly liberated zones, all seems lost to men like Valeri Kovalenko. Forced out of the apartment block he'd once fought alongside his brothers and sisters in arms to liberate, now he must navigate a complex network of sewer mains beneath London's streets in a bid to escape detection. But it's all a fool's endeavour. With Tonya leading the way, he and the few others who'd escaped Dominion Courts soon find themselves poking their heads up through a manhole on some street they don't know, one by one each of them checking the street first, then climbing out, each of them dirty, smelly, tired, and sore all over. This is not how any of them expected their revolution to fare, seemingly brought down in the time it'd taken the army's troops to muster and attack. A moment presents itself for the group to catch their breath, and they lean against the wall of an alley, safe, for the moment, in the darkness. "It's not over," says Valeri, "we'll be back there." But he says this to reassure himself as much as the others, exchanging a quick glance with Tonya, his friend of many years. If he expects her to offer some platitudes in agreement, he's disappointed, receiving from her only a slow, grim nod before she looks away. But then she says, "we need to get out of London. It's too risky to stay here but if we make it out to the countryside we can find the rebels and join their forces." And Valeri thinks to object, knowing as he does that there's nothing left of the old hall but a half-collapsed auditorium and some offices long looted of anything valuable or useful. But she knows that too. Some have already gone to the hall, leaving only a few of the residents of the old Dominion Courts still in arms, taking refuge in the sewers and the alleys where darkness even in daytime permits concealment. "If we don't find a way to keep moving we'll be found," says Tonya. "But where are we moving to?" asks Valeri. Tonya doesn't answer, not right away. Besides the need to get out of London, this is a question none of them have an answer to. But it's very slow going. Over the last few weeks, they've evaded Home Guard troops, scavenged food wherever they could find it, and slept in shifts. It all seems so anticlimactic to Valeri.

Forced into hiding, they debate the notion of returning to their old place, even as Valeri strenuously argues against it some small part of him wants to return to the hall where he'd attended not only votes and rallies but where he'd been raised by the man who took him in after his parents were gunned down in cold blood. But he won't, not yet. The union hall has been shuttered, unbeknownst to the group of rebels left shut out of their own makeshift bulwark, and in the days it'll take them to wade through sewers they'll have much time to think about their next move. They're no trained soldiers, although soldiers they are in the revolution they've committed themselves irrevocably to. But events are soon to overtake them. Valeri keeps a quick pace, as quick as any of them can manage, but as they must avoid all contact with the Home Guard until such time as they can find themselves among friends again. Behind him every step of the way, the young Michael O'Connor keeps pace, matching Valeri stride for stride, as if to show that he can follow wherever Valeri follows. But neither he nor Valeri make conversation, the younger Michael still the object of some suspicion in the back of Valeri's mind, although Valeri can't quite articulate it, can't even know it's there. For all their posturing, for all their petty, internal divisions and debates, the beginnings of their attempts at governing themselves all came apart in the time it took the hated Provisional Government and its forces in the Home Guard to roll those armoured personnel carriers up the street. As Valeri follows Tonya and the others through the sewers at night, he ruminates on their defeat, feeling very much helpless, as though he's being pushed and pulled by forces even he can't understand. This vague feeling, this intuition is part of the dark essence gradually revealing itself to him. But he's not alone. As Valeri is an avatar for the struggle of all working men, his revelation in the dark essence occurs among the revelation of the dark essence in millions of others. As Valeri follows Tonya and the others through the sewers, he is among the first of his generation to receive this revelation, the significance of which will become apparent to him only with time. And while he follows Tonya and the others, every now and then the walls of the sewer shake gently, the thump of distant explosions transmitting through the ground like an earthquake.

After leaving Scapa Flow, the cruiser Borealis and the frigate Nix staged a dramatic escape out to sea They form an impromptu, two-ship flotilla, pooling their resources to make what repairs they can en route. In the engine room aboard the Borealis, Dmitri surveys the damage to the ship's turbines, finding them completely unworkable. With one of their diesels already shot, they have only the other diesel to limp along under. It makes little difference to Dmitri, though, as they have nowhere to go. In the weeks since they've escaped from Scapa Flow, the Borealis and the Nix have received new communication from their contacts in the Popular Front, directing them to proceed to a safe haven off the coast of Norway. There, the government has been deposed and replaced with an authority sympathetic to their cause. To Dmitri, it sounds little better than the haven they'd found at Dundee, except the authority in parts of Norway is safe from attack. On the Nix things are a little better; the frigate's engines are all in working order, more or less. Dmitri's lead hand, Mason, interrupts the inspection to make an announcement over the intercom, saying, "all hands to your stations! Dmitri Malinin to the bridge!" At once, Dmitri suspects the enemy is back to finish them off, but when he arrives on the bridge there's no enemy in sight, only a four-engine prop plane flying at low altitude, working a slow circle around the area as if to watch them. "Do we shoot them down?" asks Mason. "No," says Dmitri, "they've got a British roundel on the side. If they start to take hostile action then we'll fire a warning shot. We don't have much left to shoot with anyways." Mason nods, and says, "I hope you're right." Dmitri stands over the radar operator's shoulder for a little while, gripping the man's shoulder while watching the screen intently. It's enough to make Dmitri recall the last few months of his life before all this began, before the protests in the streets gave way to open warfare, before the open warfare in the streets inexorably led the old United Kingdom's government to collapse. But still Dmitri can't help but devote his thoughts, whenever a spare moment presents itself, to the deaths of his wife and young daughter, a guilt gnawing at him as he thinks himself responsible for their murder at the hands of the Home Guard.

Although Dmitri tries to suppress these personal concerns in devotion to the banner of the rebel Elijah and the Popular Front, there are times when he can't help but imagine she, they might still be alive. It's a foolish endeavour, he knows, and as the war has already taken so many lives both at home and abroad. And he knows, too, as every other crewman on board knows their loved ones must already be dead. Little does he know this four-engine prop plane will introduce them to the next stage of their own personal war, by virtue of its surveillance of their position provoking the enemy to look on them as a point of weakness, weakness where there's only a vast, immeasurable strength. But elsewhere, events are afoot. After the recapture of the liberated zones, an older man named Chris Whitten sees in the streets a re-enactment of the grisly events he'd witnessed in the failed uprising more than fifteen years ago. Like so many others, he'd seen in his lifetime factories shuttered, shipyards closed, mills left derelict as the entire country seemed to rot from the inside. He'd lived and worked in Bristol most of his life, where he remains to this day. He didn't take part in the failed uprising fifteen years ago, something he's come to regret. He remembers this current revolutionary wave as having no particular beginning, as simply blending out of the struggle that evolved from the failed uprising more than fifteen years ago. Now, he's too old to join in the revolution, as he was on the cusp of being too old during the last one. He's in Bristol's only liberated zone, having been scooped up by the local authority and deported in with them by mistake. (The Home Guard troops thought he was among the workers engaged in their wildcat strike, simply because they'd happened upon him while he was in the area of the striking workers and had a look about him). Now, after the Home Guard launch their assault on Bristol's liberated zone, Whitten's forced to flee, chased by the Home Guard's troops who move slowly and erratically through the city centre. Running down the street, he trips and falls, turning over in time to see a Home Guard trooper raise his rifle and point it right at him. Whitten says, "please don't—" But the trooper shoots him dead, putting a three-round burst into his chest. In the fraction of a moment it takes Whitten to die, he fixates on the image in the back of his mind, the face of his wife, herself killed some years earlier. Then, the ragged, jagged line of troops move past his lifeless body, a wave of death that consumes everything in its path.

Across London, all around Britain the same scenario plays out time and again, the Home Guard troops impressing themselves on the barricades, forcing their way into the liberated zones, seizing the cities and towns where once the working man lived, leaving bodies and limbs strewn across the streets like so much useless confetti. Some of the liberated zones last longer than others, but all inevitably fall. In the neighbourhood there're men like Valeri who don't know what to do next, who can never know what to do next, and among the group there're few who could offer any leadership. But they still have their weapons, some only their guns without bullets, along with a knife someone's gotten their hands on, somehow. In the sewers and in the alleys, though, they're safe, but only for so long as the Home Guard doesn't think to follow them down. After having strenuously argued against heading to the hall, Valeri listens to his colleague, his friend, the younger Michael O'Connor, only half-listening as the better part of him recalls not the future but thinks ahead to the past. "We can rest here for the night," says Tonya, "we'll all move in the morning." She looks to Valeri, as if expecting an argument, but Valeri only looks past her and nods glumly. They've come across an old, disused shopping centre, long shuttered. Michael finds some tins of food, expired but edible. As he forces the food down, Valeri feels a gently rumbling beneath him, but thinks it from the bursting of bombs. But while he eats, Valeri can't help but look at Tonya with his brow slightly furrowed and his eyes slightly squinting. His body betrays his true feelings of antipathy towards her, even as he hardly knows her, even as they fight on the same side.

"You don't have to come with us," says Tonya, appearing at his side. She sits next to him. "Where else could I go?" asks Valeri. He goes on to say, "if the Home Guard gets their hands on me, they'll kill me." But Tonya says, "any Home Guard troops that find you wouldn't know you from any other person." Although Valeri knows it's not quite so simple, he doesn't want to argue the point. In his lifetime, hardly three decades long, he's seen times of unprecedented growth, of an unbridled and unrestrained pursuit of wealth give rise to a resistance that sacrificed his mother and father over fifteen years ago. Now, Valeri stands ready to follow in their footsteps, wishing in the aftermath of his own failed stand for the chance to join his mother and father in a blaze of glory. Ten of them made it out of Dominion Courts together, but one's already died. As Tonya talks with the others about their plans for the future, Valeri still feels uncertain about having survived. But he listens, sitting with a dozen others in an unknown room hidden among the sewers beneath the streets of London where he continues to plot the next move. In the day, it's in that uncertain time when the working man's budding revolution hangs in the balance, when the next move could win his freedom, put him back in chains, or change nothing at all, rather leave him still to look ahead and work toward a fight that may never come.

But soon, Valeri speaks. "I want to attack," says Valeri, "and I don't care if I have to go all by myself." Tonya says, "don't be a fool. We've all lost our homes, our friends and loved ones. You're not special if you think--" But Valeri interrupts, saying, "you don't have the right to speak to me that way. You don't know--" And Tonya interrupts, saying, "I know that if you were to go attack on your own in some blaze of glory you'd have gone by now." Valeri would respond, but for his being paralyzed with rage. In his heart, though, he knows Tonya, the woman alongside whom he fought in those very streets they now hide underneath, is right. It's this knowledge that quiets him, for now. In the end, the whole lot of them move, slowly making their way through the sewers for the union hall, none sure whether they'll find its still-smoking remains or something else altogether. But elsewhere, not altogether far from the spot where Valeri and the others put down for the night, a woman named Astrid Pruitt sifts through the rubble of what'd been her home. Living in a flat on the edge of the nearest liberated zone, she'd been trapped outside while her husband had been trapped in. At first, she'd made contact with her husband so long as the screens were still connected to the local network, but soon after the uprising began the Home Guard cut the liberated zones off from network access. She'd been on her screen, speaking with her husband when the link was severed. It'd come so suddenly that she'd been in the middle of telling him, "I'll never leave you," when the screen suddenly flashed to black. She'd tried so many times to call him, only to find the networks down for good. Still she remained in the flat they'd shared, right on the edge of the nearest liberated zone, so close to the barricades she could see Home Guard fortifications on the street outside. The months went by, and still she'd held out hope that he'd survive through the uprising, caught as he was in the middle of it even though he'd not joined in. But then came that day when the Home Guard finally moved in, liquidating the liberated zones, murdering most of the people inside. Her husband was one of them. She'll never find the body. She'll never know for sure. She'll always wonder.

Though the cruiser Borealis is still under surveillance from that four-engine plane, Dmitri and the others assume they're not under attack owing to the Provisional Government's unwillingness to violate the new Norwegian government's neutrality. The skies overland burn a dull orange, laced with streaks of deep, dark smoke trailing from spots, pinpricks of bright, almost-white light. On the bridge, Dmitri eyes the looking glass with a mounting enthusiasm not for the future but for the past. He's got the repairs to worry about; sometime in the night Mason reports on the damaged engine, reporting it, "damaged beyond repair." With the dogs of war closing in once again, Dmitri can only make good with what they've got. It's only been a few months since Dmitri learned his wife and daughter are dead, and it doesn't matter much how he found out, how any of the crew found out their loved ones have been killed. All that matters now, to them, is the burning hatred Dmitri and all the others have for the enemy, unconcerned as they are with the trivialities of who personally pulled the trigger. No, the enemy bears collective guilt, manifested by the actions of a confused few. Steaming at three or four knots, so slow they might as well be disabled and pushed along by the currents, the crews of the cruiser Borealis and the frigate Nix could fall under enemy attack at any moment, whether by men following the banner of the hated Provisional Government or by Russians. They arrive at the Norwegian port of Stavanger, and Dmitri orders the crew to stand down, with only a skeleton watch. He knows there's going to be a meeting of the ship's committee, where they'll debate the merits of crewman White's proposal one last time. They don't know the offer of clemency has already been withdrawn; they can't know it.

But when the radar operator announces contacts, the crew soon face their next test. "What do you make of it?" asks Dmitri. "Looks like," says the operator, pausing to gather his thoughts, "looks like a group of contacts at high altitude coming in from the east." Looking over their shoulders, Mason says, "they're more Russian bombers. And we've just got the anti-aircraft array back online." Dmitri turns and looks back, saying, "do we have any long range missiles left?" Mason looks over the weapons station nearest to him, then says, "four." There's a pause, before Mason adds, "there's no way to tell if they're carrying nuclear weapons." All seem to be thinking the same thing. "We'll be expelled from this port if we take action," says Dmitri, "the council here is determined to safeguard their neutrality." Already they've spent themselves defending their own lives from attack and fighting to overcome the degradation and exploitation of the working men of Britain, and now they have a critical choice to make, whether they can allow a hated enemy, their foreign adversary have at their countrymen or whether they can sacrifice their own struggle to resist. It matters little to the men on the free cruiser Borealis whether they can successfully blunt the Russian attack; in fact, they know their four missiles can shoot down only four Russian bombers, a small fraction of the strength the Russians have amassed for this attack. No, with power vested in Dmitri as the free cruiser's duly-elected Captain, he is acutely aware of the drive in his ship, his heart for the coming storm, and he watches the contacts on the radar's scope as they track across the sky. "So what do we do?" asks Mason. Dmitri doesn't reply, not right away.

Despite the many thousands killed in the streets of Britain since all this began, it's only now that we're reaching the turning point in the working man's war for liberation. Still in that early, tentative time when the working man's budding revolution could collapse in a heap of smoldering wreckage, the cities are filled with the scattered debris of the old way, chunks of concrete littering the streets along with the loose scraps of sheet metal and splinters of wood. Still this revolution, this budding revolution hangs in the balance, given as the working men of Britain are to their own toiling in the shops, on the floors, along the lines of their still-operating factories and mills where work goes on. Beneath the surface, under the roads where once blood was spilled, Valeri still thinks on the past even as he must confront the future, his stomach growling, his feet sore, every muscle in his body aching for relief even as he fills his mind with thoughts on his parents, on the others in his life, all he's left behind in taking to the sewers as a refuge from the hated enemy. After discussing their situation, the ten fighters among them agreed to march out through London and into the countryside beyond, then to make contact with the first Popular Front unit they can find. Valeri thinks it's strange they've not seen any Popular Front men since fleeing their homes, but he doesn't say it. In fact, the Popular Front has suffered such a catastrophic defeat in its last offensive that it has little strength left to wander about, much less to take to the offensive again, and has been all but expelled from Greater London. But he doesn't know that. None of them know it. Still Valeri thinks on his old friends, on his one-time lover, Sydney, his roommate, Hannah, his friend Maria, wondering as he does where they might've gone, how they might've died.

Little does Valeri know that all of his old friends are still alive, each of them having scattered to another part of Britain in a futile search for safety. Each of Sydney, Hannah, and Maria are still here with him, their images lingering in the back of his mind like a lucid dream remembered long after he's woken up. On the way through the sewers Valeri's in the middle of the pack, Tonya having taken to leading them even as there's talk of taking back to the streets. Some want to return to the street and make their way to the hall on the surface, reasoning they can cover distance much faster which will make up for the added danger. Some want to stay underground the whole way, reasoning the relative safety offered by the sewers is worth the longer trip, ensuring they'll all or almost all survive to join whoever might be, must be waiting for them at the hall. Valeri, still the duly-elected leader of the Dominion Courts garrison, emerges from within his self-imposed stupor to decide between the two on a third path. Still in danger, the men and women seek shelter when in fact they should be seeking danger, for soldiers like them must willingly immerse themselves in death if they are to win through this day and on into the next. "You know," says Tonya, "whether any of us want to go back or not, we can't. We chose this path. Now we've got to follow it until we're all dead or we've won." But Valeri asks, "when did you become such a disciplined rebel?" Tonya sighs lightly, then rises from her seat to pace while she talks. She says, "I never told you where I came from..." And then she starts to explain.

Aboard the Borealis, the ship's committee doesn't convene right away. Its members get some much-needed and much-delayed sleep, except for Dmitri, who takes to the bridge. He recalls the last moment of action, when they'd shot down enemy bombers while en route across the North Sea. "Give me a firing solution on the lead bombers," Dmitri had said, "and prepare to fire." All on the bridge had known their quest had been leading to this point, and they all believed themselves compelled act to defend their homeland from attack. Actually, it wasn't that simple, wasn't that clean, the overriding fear that those high-altitude, strategic bombers could've been carrying nuclear weapons the concern that pushed them to fire. As the range dialled down, Dmitri recalls, the men on the bridge looked to Dmitri for the next order, the moment infused with that camaraderie and brotherhood sorely tested but never broken. Finally, Dmitri gave the order, in a voice so low it could've hardly been heard above the din he says, "fire." Dmitri recalls hearing the rush of four missiles flying out of their tubes, the sight of those missiles trailing thin wisps of smoke into the distance, hardly visible against the deep, blue sky. Dmitri had watched through binoculars as the missiles disappeared far above. For a moment, it seemed all might miss and their display of valour might've been in vain. "A hit!" shouted the gunner. "Confirmed!" shouted the radar operator, "four hits. I see four enemy bombers going down!" Around the bridge a cheer had erupted, a cheer which Dmitri realizes now he recalls as more vigorous and spirited than it'd been, but only for a moment before the operator made his next announcement. "Enemy contacts changing course," the radar operator had said, "they're heading right at us." Her last missiles used, the Borealis couldn't defend herself from this attack, except with short-range point-defence guns that couldn't possibly have been of use against high speed bombers. Their sister ship Nix had no anti-aircraft battery of her own, designed as she was to hunt submarines. It'd seemed to Dmitri that the crew of the Borealis must meet their demise, in a blaze of glory sacrificing themselves so that at least some of their brothers and sisters might live another day, anonymous faces in the country behind them.

But it wasn't to be, not yet. With trails of black and grey smoke reaching for the horizon, the exact spots where the Russian bombers crashed into the sea were marked by columns of water rising, columns thick and stout, tombstones made of white chop that faded into the distance as though they were never there. Dmitri, Mason, and the others on the bridge believed, it was their time to die, with only their short-range cannons left, those limited armaments useless against the high-speed fighter-bombers then bearing down on them. Still Dmitri ordered the guns manned and the engines up to full power, or at least the best power they could've managed, while shouting at the conn not to turn around and try to flee but instead to chart a course directly for the enemy aircraft. There was no hope of survival, he reasoned, which necessarily meant their only option was to attack. Though Dmitri, Mason, and the others may not've known it, may never know it, this reasoning in Dmitri was the dark essence speaking to them, speaking through them, channelling itself through their bodies, their minds becoming vessels through which it may grant itself expression. This turned out to be a seminal moment in their struggle, even if they won't recognize it as such for a long time. Now, with the Borealis and the Nix in safe haven, Dmitri is forced to contemplate the possibility of violating Norwegian neutrality and risking expulsion from their safe haven. Soon, though, the decision is made for him.

But before Valeri began speaking to Tonya again, he'd found himself with some time to consider, some time to think on where he's come from. After his mother and father had been killed in the failed rising fifteen years before this one, Valeri, then a teenager, had known only pain at the loss of everything he'd known and loved in the world. He became bitter, in ways such a young man never should be, but his was a bitterness boastful and aggressive, given that he was at that age when young men tend to make war with the world anyways. The would-be medic of the group, a younger woman named Serena Molson, makes some effort to tend to the miscellaneous wounds sustained by the others over the past few days, but all she can manage is to clean off bloody skin and replace makeshift bandages with pieces of cloth torn from their shirts and pants and repurposed as new makeshift bandages. "...But I always thought I knew what was right," says Tonya, in the middle of explaining to Valeri the convoluted sequence of events that'd led to her taking in with the others in a brave but futile uprising. It makes Valeri realize this is his time to act, to live up to the role of duly-elected leader of the residents of Dominion Courts, only now having come to terms with the very real possibility they might survive yet. (Although few among them are survivors from Dominion Courts, still he takes some small pride in having been a leader of the garrison, back when there was a garrison to lead). He looks over Serena as she ties a strip of cloth to one young man's arm, while Tonya remains at his side. Valeri says to Tonya, "we'll stay underground, for now." Tonya nods, then says, "we're going to need to stop for the night. This seems as good a spot as any." It's agreed, not by formal process, rather by consensus left unspoken but acutely, instinctively felt by all.

Every now and then, they hear the muffled rattling of intermittent gunfire, interrupted by the dull thud of a distant explosion, the war on the streets above their heads having carried on in their absence, each gentle vibration felt beneath his feet seeming to Valeri as evidence on his brothers and sisters fighting and dying while he hides. All through the night he chafes at being stuck in this sewer, surrounded by the stench of dried human refuse and the slightest hint of rotting flesh. But they have no leader, no structure or ranks, and they stay together only because they know that as rebels they'll be found out and shot by the Home Guard. Finally, after most of the rest in their group have fallen asleep, Valeri feels a hand fall on his shoulder, then turns to find himself face to face with Tonya, a concerned look etched onto her face. "You're no use to anyone if you don't get some rest," she says. "I'm no use to anyone down here anyways," says Valeri, "so many people are dead already, and here I am hiding from the fight instead of throwing myself into it. Someone with children might be dying tonight because I'm not up there to defend them. I wish we'd taken our stand back at Dominion Courts. We could've taken a few more Home Guard troops with us if we hadn't withdrawn, and that might've saved a few more lives down the road." These are things which Valeri has come to believe, in the past few weeks, with all the passion and intensity of a religious zealot striding towards his own vainglorious self-sacrifice. But it's not to be.

On the bridge of the cruiser Borealis, Dmitri found their predicament averted when the Russian bombers inexplicably turn, reversing course to make back for home. (He doesn't know it, can't know it, but the Russians are as divided amongst themselves as they are, and received orders to abort from a different command than they'd received orders to attack. They were carrying nuclear weapons.) Now, Dmitri stands on the port bridge wing, looking out over the water, lost in thought. He recalls that last engagement when they'd fired on those Russian bombers, and he recalls that moment when they'd waited with bated breath after shooting down the enemy aircraft, not knowing whether they'd shot down bombers with nuclear weapons. Still the range dialled down between the fighters now bearing down on them, only for the radar operator to break the silence, shouting, "I have new contacts!" He'd paused for a moment, then had said, "coming from the west!" A few British fighters rose to meet the Russian bombers, not many, enough to disrupt the enemy attack. No one aboard the Borealis knew who those fighters aligned themselves with, and Dmitri recalls the thought they could've come under attack immediately after the Russian bombers had been turned back. This incident has become lost among the many others on that day, in the days since, but it becomes something so much more in the pages of our shared history as we commit it to the faded glories and the grinding pain. The British fighters had downed a few more Russian bombers, but lost some of their own to the Russian escorts, the whole affair watched from below helplessly by the crew of the Borealis and the frigate Nix, sailors of the revolution in waiting. Still the fires of liberation burned in the distance, across Greater London and throughout all Britain's cities columns of rising smoke marking exactly the spots where the bands of rebels made their stand, staining the pavement beneath their feet a deep, dark crimson with blood spilled from the veins of both friend and foe. Although Dmitri, Mason, and the others aboard the two ships in this flotilla can no longer see British shores, they begin to feel a mounting gloom with each mile they put between them and their homes.

While the free cruiser Borealis and the free frigate Nix had limped from the battle area, Dmitri ordered his communications operator to keep monitoring the radio waves, hoping for a signal, any signal at all from whoever sent those fighters out, or even from the pilots of those fighters directly. As he'd been about to turn away from the screen, his hopes found an answer, the radio crackling as a voice on the other end said, "...to the cruiser Borealis. This is Mobius Squadron, formerly of the Royal Air Force. We are from the airbase at Waddington. We are pledged to follow the banner of Elijah and the Popular Front. There are others like us. Rest assured, you are not alone." There was more, the pilots passing on a message from their commander, one Pilot Hatfield, duly-elected to his position just as Dmitri had been. Even now that they're out of harm's way, it's all a little overwhelming to the men on the free cruiser Borealis, shortly thereafter Dmitri presenting their next orders from the rebel Elijah to a brief session held by the cruiser's governing committee, the very body which elected Dmitri and from which his authority flows. Their orders are to remain in neutral port at Stavanger, keeping them safe, for now.

In the sewers beneath some part of Greater London, Tonya lets Valeri speak his peace, waiting until the young man pauses to take a breath before she says, "I'm no wise person, you know. I'm definitely no grand strategist. But don't forget that when the Home Guard pushed us out of Dominion Courts I lost my home and my neighbours too." Instinctively, Valeri knows what his former neighbour, now fellow soldier is saying, even as there's some small part of him that resents her for having the temerity to say it. "I'm not a leader," says Valeri, "and I've never been one. All I want to do is fight the enemy where they are. It's our homes they've taken. Like they always used to, when they would evict working people just so they could have the land. But now they're just doing it because we're fighting them." And Tonya nods, neither willing nor able to dispute anything Valeri's saying. But this is not yet their time, she knows, just as he knows, even if he can't bring himself to admit it. They'll sleep tonight, here, in these dank, dark, decrepit sewers, the stench of rotting flesh and dried human waste infusing itself into every breath they take. But in the morning, they'll march, unbeknownst to the whole lot of them a wider struggle carrying on all around them, in every breath they take, in every step forward, in every smooth, rhythmic contraction and expansion of their muscles a fight winning itself through. In this confusing time when nothing is as it seems, Valeri can only choose to stand by his beliefs, long ago having committed to them with all the fervour of a zealot racing to die in the name of God. With the others, he puts down for the night, feeling only the slight rumbling of the concrete beneath him when night has fallen, distant explosions rattling the darkness like a note struck hollow against a resonating chord.

In these times, when defeat and victory seem one and the same, Valeri and Tonya and all the others ought to remain conscious of their struggle, the necessary task facing them that of simply putting one foot in front of the other and pulling themselves through the day. The old regime retains much power, behind the scenes controlling, exerting, manipulating actors not through conscious decision but through the ebb and flow of natural forces beyond the control of any of us. The rebel Elijah knows this, knows himself and his Popular Front are but the rising tides, tides risen by the anger of a thousand and one generations made to endure the indignities of poverty, oppression, and despair. The enemy, though, is resourceful, cunning, even in these indecisive moments plotting to strike their own decisive blow against the rebel Elijah's budding revolution, and soon enough they'll deploy their blow against him, whether they realize what they're doing or not. In the aftermath of this aerial battle which strikes a chord against the budding counter-revolutionary movement, the rebel Elijah is beginning to see the true path forward. In the sewers, where men like Valeri take refuge after expulsion from their own homes, the rebel Elijah's edicts are studied with a ravenous intent, on those rare moments when their party puts down for a rest the young man taking advantage of every opportunity to enrich his mind.

In these sewers, there's little light, most of the fixtures meant for sanitation workers having gone out, leaving only the odd manhole or grating to allow some small, faint illumination to filter down in spots here and there. So long as Valeri nudges this way and that, just slightly, he can keep a little cone of pale light on the page of a book he's taken to reading, a book left over from an era long past. Hiding in the sewers, Valeri doesn't see the Russian bombers streaking in from the east, nor does he see the British fighters racing up to meet them. But before he's seen the contrails twirling, swirling, the crashing of flaming wreckage to the ground, sometimes the parachutes, sometimes not. After their abandonment of Dominion Courts, by Valeri, Tonya, and the others study has become a last resort for the part of each of them that seeks, that longs to break free of the chains they've worn all their lives. It's a small thing, but an important one, to be kept out of the fighting even for a moment while your brothers and sisters die in the streets, in an orgy of violence and hatred that seemingly has no end. They can't study, not yet, and Valeri wasn't able to take any of the books he'd read with them when they'd abandoned Dominion Courts. He remembers the things he'd learned, but he can't know what they mean until he's lived them to their full extent; he's only gotten his limited experiences, a taste of what's to come. It's nearly reached its end. As the boundless sky can hold only a limited array of misfortune before it must rain death upon the country. Much time has passed, too much, since the working men of Britain have known peace, months since the current uprising began in earnest, over a year since that fateful day when demonstrators were cut down in the middle of the street by the army's troops, massacred in plain view of the world's cameras, all for want of a fair wage and relief from the hopelessness of poverty, unemployment, and death. To Valeri, it seems a lifetime ago that he was living and working as an ordinary man, sharing that little flat with a young nurse named Hannah, so long ago it seems as if these memories are those of another person from another age, memories having found their way into his mind by way of some sinister psychic power.

It's Valeri's way of coping, of making sense of the senseless, to consider, not to consider but to briefly entertain the notion in an entirely not-serious way, even as he comes to grips with the present crisis speeding headlong for a desperate conclusion. But Valeri doesn't see, can't see the army turning to the rebels and against the hated Provisional Government, and this will cloud his judgement even as he gathers with the rebels in the sewers and into alleys dark and disgusting. Already a confusion has set in, with the gunmen of the Popular Front facing not only the Home Guard's troops in the cities but a growing array of paramilitaries in the countryside, in the small towns and the farmer's fields bands of guerrillas forming to take up the cause. It's inevitable; as the revolution forms, so, too, must the counter-revolution form, as good must necessarily provoke the rise of evil. But Valeri has never known peace, used as he is to the taunting of the screens with images of lavish opulence and sleek, glass-and-steel modernity, of expensive mansions and of cars that cost more than a man like him made in a decade.

In all the time since his mother and father were cruelly taken from him in that failed uprising more than fifteen years ago, he's seen the little oddities of time, the mundane and ordinary events which, when taken together, make up life. Valeri's seen birthdays worked through, holidays spent in worship of a way of life to him alien, profane, even obscene. Neither has Dmitri known peace, locked as he's been through his whole life in a maelstrom of terror and lawlessness almost exactly like that of Valeri's. Though Dmitri's parents weren't killed in the failed rising more than fifteen years ago, they were nevertheless consigned to the very same kind of poverty and restless despair that'd come to envelope the lives of all working men. But it's the little things that made up life, that kept on making up life even in poverty, things like birthdays marked by drinks in a seedy tavern, holidays spent listless and tired, friendships formed and broken in the time it took to spend a night in jail. It's impossible to over-emphasize the ways in which life goes on despite the grinding poverty and the dreadful despair, with millions of Britons even in this time of revolution and war still carrying on with their lives as best they can, the intricacies of life juxtaposing perfectly with the looming absolution of death. And once this revolution reaches is inevitable climax, neither life nor death will become possibilities, the two drawing closer to one another until they must blend into a seamless whole.

But we're not quite there yet. In the meanwhile, there's much left to happen, much work to be done. Still every bullet fired, every bomb burst, every foot brought down and every clenched fist raised into the air bring the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front closer to victory, and with victory, justice. In these trying times, when death is everywhere and when it can be hard, at a glance, to tell good from evil, we must always remember what's at stake, the futures of our children, and their children, and their children.

Once that Russian bomber attack had been deflected by the combined strength of revolutionary naval and air forces, the patriotism of the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front is demonstrated, even as they denounce the very agents of patriotism who call them to war against their brothers and sisters in other countries. Still Dmitri is thankful for the second bomber attack turning around without a fight. Dmitri, too, recalls the hardships of life since the war fifteen years ago. He was only a young boy when the working men of Britain and all Europe rose, and as a young boy he watched as millions of angry workers seized the imagination of the world and held it for some weeks. And in the years since, Dmitri grew up always wanting for something, In the navy he found an escape, or so he'd thought, filled as his head was at the time with images of adventure on the high seas. But all he found was hardship and poverty still, the pathetic wages paid to sailors in His Majesty's Royal Navy leaving him nothing to send home to his young wife, with only increasingly infrequent leave to see them together. Dmitri's wife was a lovely woman, chaste and pure, her teeth white and her smile broad. And now she's dead, shot dead by the Home Guard's troops in retribution for his acts of rebellion. This thought, as he must constantly steel himself against the coming battle, serves only to fuel his rage, like throwing petrol on an open flame, ensuring that he will fight until there's no more air left in his lungs, no more blood left in his veins, until the very last ounce of strength has left his body and made him whole with the dark essence which guides the revolution in all things. And then he'll fight some more. It's what he does.

Still the streets of cities around Britain echo with the rattling of gunfire anew, in the night the few working men still working only to find themselves caught in a maelstrom of despondence and despair. It wasn't all that long ago when the whole lot of them were pitted against one another in a frantic and futile attempt by their enemies to avert the impending arrival of our shared future. It's still this way. It's always been this way. It'll surely always be this way. Still the petty sectarian divides draw lines across houses, across streets, separating brothers, sisters, even sons and daughters. While the toppling of the old United Kingdom has left fertile the soil to be sown with the hatred of old anew, still the ashes of an impossible order must yet be scattered so that the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front might reap the dawning of a new era. But something's coming, something none saw but all should've. When it comes, we'll all stand in awe of the terrifying power loosed on the world, its release like the hounds of hell. But our future history should never mistake the furies and the fires of liberation unleashed for an evil; it's an inevitable consequence of so many years, so many lifetimes spent in pursuit of sin should evince revulsion for they who would seek to redeem us all. But this is all happening too soon, too soon, with not enough time having passed for the rebel Elijah to know that this is the foretold moment when his destiny should be at hand. Although he promises his disciples and the masses deliverance from evil, he must always take great care to remind them all that this deliverance will necessarily see much sorrow, much anguish, much blood spilled in Britain. And Valeri, Valeri is turning in his heart already to the teachings of the rebel Elijah, with only some small doubt left in the back of his mind to tempt him away. But this doubt will not win through, no matter how it might try. As Valeri learns among brothers and sisters the way of the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front, he comes to realize the truth which is beginning to form. Now, we consider the rebel Elijah's past.

Born around thirty years ago, the rebel Elijah knew his father by name only, his mother's husband having died in an industrial accident when Elijah was still too young to remember. At some point in his upbringing, Elijah began to consider his own fate, mysterious and anonymous as his origins were. As an ordinary labourer, Elijah began to spend much time at the union hall of old, where it was discovered that he could read, paraphrase, and debate the works of scholars even as a youth with little formal training and hardly any education. Sometimes, his mother would come to get him because people would complain that he'd spend too much time at the hall. But he would always refuse to come home, declaring himself among his brothers and sisters in union, even as those very brothers and sisters looked on him yet with a mix of sympathy and scorn. It was around this time that Elijah began to form his gospel of unilateral withdrawal, of the working man withholding his consent to be governed by refusing to take part in elections; but Elijah kept this part of his ideas, his gospel to himself, knowing as he did it wasn't the time for such a revelation. In this, he made his first mistake. His elders never took kindly to his embrace of the unsavoury characters, the flotsam and jetsam of urban life, but his only response was to declare all the most wretched and pathetic among the workers to be his true brothers and sisters. All this may yet come to be an elaborate contradiction, and so it was the rebel Elijah learned the truth of his own life and the work all history had chosen him to fulfill. But it was only upon manifesting the righteous cause of the working man in his own person that the extremist opposition of the old order should marshal itself against him. By then, it was surely too late to avert his coming. Although Elijah took to spending much time at the union hall, in truth, the realization of his own nature only came about through intense reflection and meditation on life, an epiphany occurring in him at some point through his adolescence that revealed to him a truth he'd known all along. As Valeri hears on the story of Elijah's life, told as it is to him by the whispers and rumours he hears spread among the most pathetic and wretched among his brothers and sisters at arms.

It's at this time that Valeri begins to learn the true character of the Popular Front; reliant neither on the whims of the manipulated nor the hollow charity of the manipulator, the Front draws its strength from something far more profound. But this forbidden knowledge is to be revealed to Valeri by way of his own personal experiences, soon to fashion him into something so much more than the undisciplined, ill-tempered rebel he's always been. Formerly so confused about all this, now his rebellious instincts are given the discipline of a knowledge forbidden. Even as Valeri learns the true character of the Popular Front, still he feels the yearning in his heart to know more. In this way, the rebel offensive is turning into a defeat for the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front, their assaults on the Home Guard's fortifications, convoys, and storehouses repelled with heavy casualties to the Front and few to the Guard. But not all is as it seems. As the rebel Elijah realizes on this failure, his is a growing frustration which can only be ameliorated by the surging of the dark essence within him, guiding him, reassuring him this is the path narrow and true to inevitability. But while Elijah experiences this growing frustration, across the country the angel of light works to influence the course of events, turning its sights on the King. Figurehead though the King may be, both the rebel Elijah and the angel of light recognize his importance.

More than fifteen years have passed since Valeri's mother and father died taking part in their own failed uprising, but it's hard to pin down an exact date when the first uprising ended and the second uprising, Valeri's, began. It's possible there's no such distinction except in the minds of people like Valeri, that these events are but two in a long, continuous war, the streets drowning in blood and piled high with debris all the while. Sometimes, it might seem events are proceeding too quickly for our history to make sense of them. Sometimes, it might seem these kinds of things are about to make themselves into icons, into idols on which we might fix our hopes for the future. But the rebel Elijah will brook neither icons nor idols, and he disseminates to his disciples and to his apparatchiks in the Popular Front this intolerance, a message which soon finds its way throughout Britain and across Europe, not by electronic signal nor by ink and paper but by the dark essence which seeks only to bring us all into the light. Soon, it's time.

13. Nevermore

Elsewhere in Britain, the streets are lined with the smoldering, sometimes still-burning wreckage of the old order. For a young woman named Margaret, or Marge as her friends had once called her, this time sees her forced out of her flat in the city of Nottingham by Home Guard troops. They've requisitioned the apartment block she lives in as a command post of sorts, having lost theirs to the relentless attacks of the rebel Elijah and his Popular Front. Marge's not free to go, though, having been taken in with a group of others and housed in another set of blocks, along with some others she doesn't know but soon will. While Marge struggles to work through each and every day, there're others who have already taken in with the rebels. In so taking they've made their days so much greater a struggle. But at least they're struggling for their own future, now. Mobius Squadron, formerly of the Royal Air Force but now of the Popular Front, has fled their base at Waddington and taken refuge at an airbase elsewhere. After they'd refused orders to fly out on another sortie, the base commander had ordered them detained as rebel sympathizers or spies. (He couldn't seem to make up his mind the full extent of their treachery, Hatfield now recalls.) It fell to the base's Military Police to detain the surviving members of Mobius Squadron, and detained under armed guard they were in short order. For several days they'd sat in the base's jail, wondering whether they were to be sentenced to death. This was something they'd fully anticipated when they'd agreed to refuse their next orders, but as Hatfield still hadn't anticipated facing execution. But then, several days after they'd been thrown in jail, the guards had re-entered their cell block, the lead guard saying to Hatfield, "you're free to go."

But Marge thinks she's in trouble at her place of work, an old warehouse where once she'd processed parcels whose contents often enough carried a nominal value greater than the wages she took home in a year; their declared value had always been printed on the labels she'd processed. Sometimes the parcels would come open, requiring Marge to deliver them to another department across the warehouse for repair, the walk permitting her to examine each parcel's contents. Sometimes she'd opened a parcel, here and there, when she was sure no one was looking and when the label piqued her curiosity. She'd never stolen anything, though, and she was very particular about it. But there were those working at that old warehouse who had. Although the managers knew in general terms of what went on, they needed workers so badly they couldn't afford to sack anyone, so long as there was no theft involved. In fact, Marge is a perfect example of the contradictions governing life in mid-twenty first century Britain; even though there were so many workers out of work, still it often proved hard to keep operations like theirs properly manned. Marge thinks she's in trouble because she'd overheard the managers pointing her out as a rebel sympathizer. In the apartment block where now she's made to live, now, she must guard herself against the possibility of attack at any time, some looking to rob her of even the scraps and threads she wears, others looking to have their way with her. But for the surviving members of Mobius Squadron, freedom from jail didn't mean relief from the threat of future imprisonment or hanging. Although the base commander, loyal to the Provisional Government, became aware of their planning to refuse orders after having their quarters thoroughly searched. He also came to know that the men had been leaning towards sympathizing with the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front, something he'd always suspected but could never find any concrete evidence of. Then, after ordering the pilots released from jail, he briefs them personally, saying to them, "you've been given a second chance to prove yourselves," only a slight variation on the same thing he's been telling them every time they've been sent out on sortie since the war with the Russians began. It seems very confusing to the pilots, having been given this 'second chance' after an act of open insubordination in refusing orders. Hatfield knew their insubordination was far more serious and open a challenge to the chain of command than anything they'd been accused of before, rightly or wrongly. The base commander had gone on to say, "your next mission is to attack the traitors on board two Royal Navy vessels already making their way to enemy waters. Sink the ships, and make an example of them all. Then you'll have proven your loyalty."

It's a terrifying prospect to confront day to day living with this kind of trepidation and despair, but when the Popular Front's apparatchiks come around one night, in the night, Marge is among those who pass on what few supplies they have, she giving a few tins of meat even as her stomach growls and a jerry can full of petrol she'd gotten her hands on even in the midst of a critical fuel shortage. When the Popular Front's apparatchik accepts these things from her, they look each other in the eye and share a moment of grim determination, the unspoken but acutely felt understanding that they must take action if they are to save not themselves but their children and their children's children from the poverty, despair, and death they've known all their lives. It seems, to people like Marge, that the Popular Front's coming around here, however infrequently and in few numbers, is proof on the weakness of the Provisional Government and the Home Guard. But Marge doesn't yet cooperate with the Popular Front, hasn't yet thrown herself in with the rebel Elijah and his disciples. Like most in wartime Britain she's consumed in the task of surviving from one day to the next. In her own personal life, she's known the hardship of being made to live on the edge, always fed well enough to ward off starvation, but never more. Having hungered all her life, she's become accustomed to that hollow, aching sensation at the pit of her stomach, even as she must constantly fight it off. Across the country, Mobius Squadron faces similar difficulties. The instructions given to Mobius Squadron by the base commander recall the various attempts made to sink those vessels. After receiving these new instructions, the pilots of Mobius Squadron didn't fly out on sortie right away, their aircraft in such a state of disrepair from shortages of parts and from accumulated wear that they required more service to be ready. This left the pilots some time to consider their next moves, though they were confined to quarters and placed under strict surveillance. Hatfield had believed their new orders could be rescinded at any time, given that the Provisional Government's edicts seem to change on a day to day basis. In their bunks late at night, one night, he'd said to the others, "this is another chance, and we may not get another still. We've got to take it." The others, Walter Wright and Linda Parker had agreed. Under surveillance, they couldn't make their agreement explicit, but Hatfield's intent had been fully understood by them both.

For Marge, too, has known much hardship throughout her life, losing friends, classmates to the scourge of addiction and petty criminality, each of them driven to the margins by an uncaring, unrelenting cruelty which used them all as though they're pieces of equipment, to be discarded whenever they're reached the end of their useful lives. But this, this maelstrom of terror and lawlessness can offer their only possible deliverance from this cruelty. Her secret sympathy for the Popular Front is neither common nor uncommon among the destitute workers of Britain, with most uncommitted to the struggle one way or the other. Now, we'll follow the story of this young woman Marge, or Margaret if you'd prefer, as she is given over to the cause of working class solidarity and self-liberation in ways neither she nor anyone around her would've thought possible even just some months ago. She'd used to work at a local hotel, manning the front desk in her finest, white clothes, perfectly pressed, without a crease. It was always quite the trick to make herself so presentable even as she lived in hopeless squalor, the striking contrast between the public and private in her life manifest evidence of the tension across Britain and around all Europe that has come to be irreconcilable. Across the country, the surviving pilots of Mobius Squadron have pledged to follow the banner of the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front, only to find they must keep on waiting, their present fixation seeming a tremendous anticlimax compared to their lengthy and elaborate planning. Hatfield, though an officer, comes from a difficult background, his mother and father ordinary workers in the time before that first failed uprising over fifteen years ago. In the bunks one night after being detained, he'd said to the others, "we've got to be careful about it." And Pilot Wright had said, "I can't take this being cooped up for much longer." Pilot Parker had agreed, saying, "we gotta get out of here." But Hatfield overrode them, saying, "be patient." Then, the next morning the three were roused from their restless sleep with new orders: take off and attack the cruiser Borealis and the frigate Nix while both ships were headed East, away from British waters. For a moment, Hatfield now recalls, he'd considered the possibility that those sailors really were traitors. But he'd dismissed that notion, as he'd climbed back into his fighter's cockpit for the first time in weeks his focus turning to carrying out Mobius Squadron's secret plan.

In Nottingham as in cities across Britain, the wildcat strike has given hope to the hopeless workers, among them an old man who, by all rights, should no longer be working but who keeps on working anyways. His name's Roy Harris, and he works at a rail yard through which passes supplies, food, fuel critical to the Home Guard's campaign against the rebel Elijah and his Popular Front as well as the war on the continent. At the end of the day, one day, Roy turns in tired and sore all over, his hands and his face covered in dirt. He leaves every day with the certain knowledge the next should see him turn in tired and sore all over, his hands and face covered in as much dirt as the last. But he's wrong, in a way he never could've expected but ought to have nonetheless. Walking along the side of the road in a single-file line with all the other workers, he imagines the lost world ahead of him appearing from the thick, industrial haze. As he marches with all the others towards the residential division where they've all come to live, there's the rumbling of a distant jet engine, growing louder and louder, clearer and clearer, Roy and the others looking up just in time to see a fighter jet soaring overhead, its wings still bearing the roundel of the old Royal Air Force. Actually, he's witnessing the few aircraft flying from the very base Mobius Squadron had been stationed at before their defection to the Popular Front. "There's fewer of them than there used to be," he says, speaking as much to himself as to the young man walking next to him. "And they don't go out as often," the young man, named Adam Greenwood. The two have been working together at the rail yard for a few months now, their length of service making them among the most experienced workers there. Some of the other workers are young, some are old, but all go home at the end of the day with the same look of exhaustion, their hands dirty, their faces scratched, the light behind their eyes dimmed just a little. Even after their months working alongside one another, sometimes within arm's reach, but still they know so little about each other. Whenever they'd tried to talk across their shared work-station, their voices are overpowered by the noise of so many conveyor belts whirring and rattling and the blaring of alarms to signal this and that. And on their walk home every day, just like today, both Adam and Roy are too tired and too sore to say much more. Yet, Roy and the other workers never become used to the sights above them, looking on the climbing fighters with a mix of awe and fear, as if each time the fighters take to the skies could mean death about to rain down on them should any of the enemy bombers make it through. But it hasn't come. After work one night, Marge makes for home, walking along a stretch of road not altogether far from the railyard where Roy works. It's been a long time since Britain was at peace, and women like Marge have grown up never knowing what it means to live without war raging all around them. And as Marge makes it home, she enters her flat and says to her family, "I don't know much about these parties everyone's talking about, but I know if we keep fighting in this war then life will only get worse for all of us." And she's right, if only in ways she never could've known. Although Marge won't join the rebels, she'll hear the distant bursting of bombs and rattling of gunfire like anyone else, sometimes on her walk home at the end of the day in the same gaggle of workers as Roy and Adam, sometimes elsewhere in Nottingham.

But as with all things in these confusing and disorienting times, not all is as it seems. In the city of Hull, another young man looks ahead to the coming of a new day and imagines himself somewhere else altogether. His name's Anthony McBride, and unlike the others he's consigned to the hopelessness of unemployment. Even while the country is embroiled in the war on the continent, so many decades of decay have left Britain's industrial plant withered away, a husk, a pathetic and feeble imitation of its former self. It's only been a few years since Anthony was to become a pilot in the Royal Air Force, until he became gravely ill and then given to boredom and booze like so many other young men. He can remember little of what happened next in his life, only that he wound up among the homeless lying in the shadows on the streets around the old Victory Monument in the heart of London's working class districts. His family had long before deserted him. He survives not by his wits but by the charity of others, on scraps of food and dressed in rags. But when the able-bodied and gainfully employed workers begin dropping from starvation, for forgotten men like Anthony the end draws near. He dies in the darkness, around this very time when the bulk of Britain is gripped by a mounting chaos, his death forgotten, unnoticed by all except the dark essence which sees all. Anthony is suddenly united with the essence, and becomes part of the turn of events in itself. Around this time, Beth finds her way home to \the dilapidated, old apartment block only half-occupied by its remaining tenants, she among them. Looking along the street after work one night, she peers through the darkness brought along by the nightly blackouts, in the darkness seeing a handful of men milling about, seeming to speak a language that sounds vaguely Asian to Beth. The foreign slaves who'd once been flooded into worksites across Britain, brought in from places like Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, and Peru, they're still here, wartime controls preventing them from leaving. But they're not found on the worksites or in the factories anymore. Even as the war places great demands on Britain's ailing industrial plant, still the needs of the wealthy to hoard their wealth continues to govern every aspect of daily life. But Beth speaks to another worker, not on this walk home but on the factory's floor the next day, saying, "as terrible as things have gotten for all of us, I feel sorry for them," referring to the foreign slaves, trapped, consigned to a slow starvation in a foreign land.

The screens fill with the Provisional Government's apparatchiks declaring the blackouts planned to disrupt enemy air raids but always carrying the nervous, hollow tone of men lying through their teeth, boldly, confidently. But each night Beth finds her way home, on this night reaching the entrance to her apartment block and making for the stairs, climbing four storeys to reach the little flat she shares with four other women. They all work different shifts at different factories, mills, and yards in the area, and it's only by chance that she arrives home on this night to find all four of her flatmates home, each of them still awake even this late at night. There's no furniture, so they all sit on the floor. Beth takes her spot in the flat's tiny lounge and says to her four roommates, "I don't know much about the war that's going on, but I know they're not telling us the truth when they say we're winning." And she's right, if only in ways she never could've known. In the days that follow, more young men and women turn to the cause of the rebel Elijah and the Popular Front, if not in their minds then in their hearts. In the early fall's rain, it's always raining here, the work becomes harder and harder for women like Marge. It leaves her sore and tired, every day, and she must work every day, with only Sunday left as a day of rest. "As for the rest of them, I hope all this ends soon," says Marge, a few nights later as she sits on the floor of her flat with her fellow workers, "even if I don't think any of them should be there." It's been another long day, fourteen hours of unpaid work, with another in their immediate future. Their meal for the evening is rice and beans. But for Marge, knowledge of the necessity of ending the war on the continent means little in the near future, even as she sleeps among a shantytown full of her fellow slaves the knowledge of what's transpired here today reassuring her. She's found a way around the embargo of information placed on them by the Home Guard, and but for the trooper eyeing her suspiciously through the night she might be able to sleep soundly knowing she's doing all she can. But families are not fed by sleep, nor by knowledge, and in the meanwhile her family will be killed without her knowledge. As she sleeps in fits and spurts, the last of her family are marched across a dirt road and shot, one by one, then thrown into a ditch, there left to rot. But the identity of her family's executioners is not what she would've ever expected nor what she ever could've guessed.

A rare moment of tranquility emerges. The slaves kept in these apartment blocks gather at the end of their day around screens in the common areas, but only occasionally is there anything to watch, most of the time the transmissions cut out. "It's all lies," says Beth, on a night some weeks later looking on the screen provided for the communal area of their apartment block. The screen's filled with the Provisional Government's apparatchiks announcing a plentiful supply of food in storehouses, to be dispensed immediately, then turning to denounce the terror and lawlessness spread by the rebels. "I'm sick and tired of listening to them tell us this is going to end soon," says Beth, "and I know they're all lying when they say it's for us. But I don't know what to do about it." She's speaking among a group of her fellow slaves, with the Home Guard's lone guard standing nearby, listening. He's too old and too unsure of himself to intervene, though. Beth is hungry, but so hungry she no longer feels that void at the pit of her stomach, instead only a tremendous fatigue wherever she goes. Although Beth feels weak, she's deadened, not dead. After working the twelfth day in a row, each a twelve hour shift, she's exhausted, her whole body in pain. They're supposed to have Sundays off, but increasingly this day of rest has been taken from them, the managers telling them the war demands sacrifices from all. Even as Beth is weakened by twelve straight days of work, there're others who've got it worse. Across the country, in the city of Coventry, a young man named Alec Schaefer works in an old aircraft factory, long ago shuttered but recently ordered reopened by the local authority, under orders from the Provisional Government to increase production of all essential machinery. It doesn't matter that this factory used to produce passenger jets, not military aircraft, nor that nearly all the machine-tools have long ago been disposed of; the order is to increase production. Every day Alec works, even on Sundays. Unlike Beth, Alec isn't even told he's to be given Sundays off. Instead, he's told the demands of the war require daily work from every worker in Britain. Still Alec sees the managers mostly absent two, three days a week, during those days the workers trading rumours. No one seems to know where these rumours come from. Alec's preferred theory is that the managers keep the factory open and running simply to drain the public treasury. For so long as the Provisional Government remains so hapless the scam keeps on running. But at the end of the day, one day, when Alec leaves after another twelve hours, he looks down the road and he sees smoke rising from the site of another rebel bombing, a small part of him hopes the rebels might mistake their factory for a target of value and put it out of commission. Then he'll be free.

Both Marge and Beth, or Beth and Marge if you'd prefer, live in these dilapidated, decrepit old apartment blocks within parts of London taken over by the Home Guard, housed with the others made to work in the still-open factories, mills, and yards serving the war industries. Actually, none of them are paid any wages; supplied with a place to live, food, and clothing, along with a basic medical care, they work as slaves powering Britain's war industries. It's been this way for some months now, since the fall of the old United Kingdom and the institution of the hated Provisional Government. Once so concerned with rising prices of food, shelter, clothing, it's a cruel irony that we now live in times when all these things are distributed freely, in the way that they are. Though we pause now and then to consider these things, we know this is a critical juncture in the war raging at home. In another time, we might've thought of migrants from places like Poland, Pakistan, and Peru as slaves; now we don't think but know ourselves all slaves to the same war. It's this sudden epiphany that compels Beth and Marge, or Marge and Beth if you'd prefer, to act. A thunderous applause breaks out, not here but in the banquet hall of a manor not far away. Even as men starve in the streets, still in the banquet hall of a manor not far away there plots a scheme to undo all that's been done and replace the Provisional Government with something else entirely. We won't see the character of they who plot, not yet, nor of the scheme they plot, but in time even the enemies of the Popular Front will see through the façade built up around them. Already competing interests are rising, from the nationalists seeking separation to the corporatists seeking profits above all else; even as Marge and Beth work as slaves their gradual turn towards soldiers of the revolution occurs over the course of many months, in times confusing and disorienting even the very soldiers of the revolution sometimes unaware of the strength and courage they possess. But larger questions emerge, larger events continue to mount in the wake of the massacre of those in the former liberated zones.

In the night, it seems as though no one can even remember how this war started, that the rattling of gunfire and the bursting of bombs in the streets is become simply the sounds of life in present-day Britain, Europe, all across the world. And while this war that's been thousands of years in the making seems to last a thousand more, Valeri, Tonya, and the other survivors from Dominion Courts continue to work their way across the whole urban area of Greater London, the whole lot of them seemingly unable to escape the maelstrom of death that their homes became. Sometimes, through this time, Valeri's grateful to simply be alive. Other times, he's certain he was meant to die with so many thousands of others, massacred like so much cattle driven to the slaughter by the Home Guard's troops. It's in this frame of mind that Valeri draws on some unknown reserve of strength to slog through the days. You see, the enemies of the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front are few in number but cunning and resourceful all the same. Though their numbers may be few, there are many more who count themselves among their ranks, many who've been deceived into taking up with the cause of their own oppression and impoverishment. It's a sad irony, but one which has always been, the wealthy and powerful's greatest talent lying in their ability to manipulate the many into carrying out the will of the few. But once Valeri finds his calling, his life will become harder, not easier. His own personal growth will lie in his embrace of the hardships in store.

The secret, the rebel Elijah knows, is to look past this manipulation and see his disciples in the Popular Front through any war that confronts them. And we'll see, soon, exactly what lengths the few will go to see their manipulation through, and therefore how much farther, exactly how much farther the rebel Elijah will need to look to see his disciples to victory. But while the rebel Elijah plots his next moves, in the sewers Valeri, Tonya, and the others advance from one section of the city to another, hoping, silently praying that the next time they're to poke their heads above the surface of the streets they'll never have to wade knee-deep in toxic sludge again. It's been some weeks since they've fled the once-liberated zones, and still they haven't made it out of greater London. "You should forget your friend Murray," says Tonya, on a rare occasion when they've stopped to rest for a short time. "You might as well ask me to forget about my parents," Valeri says. Even as they speak, the floor, the walls, even the ceiling rattles slightly with the bursting of a bomb in the streets far above them. "Don't remain stuck in the past forever," says Tonya. A part of Valeri feels the impulse to take this as an insult, but the better part of him, the budding rebel fighter who grows a little more disciplined with each passing day overrides his impulse. Unbeknownst to Valeri, though, there're forces at work which have greater designs for him. The rebel Elijah, having drawn on his own personal experiences to create something so much greater than one man ever could become, will soon begin his ascension to the halls of power, his greatest trials lying in wait. A general strike is risky in wartime Britain, with the Home Guard's troops wantonly slaughtering anyone who would dare challenge them, but the rebel Elijah looks to the coming general strike with the hope it'll expose the hated Provisional Government as weak and inept, as he knows in his heart it to be. But Elijah himself still has lessons to learn before he can rise. The war on the continent, every day it produces new waves of death, the bodies sent back to Britain in coffins unloading at the ports, to be buried in graves hastily dug by the Labour Brigades. The pictures Elijah receives from Popular Front operatives and apparatchiks of these coffins, they cause Elijah to feel a compulsion to accelerate his plans.

In his life, the rebel Elijah was not much more than an ordinary man, left the son of an unwed mother widowed at an early age. But many brothers and sisters followed, his mother taking in with another man some years after his father's sudden death. As a youth, sometimes his mother, brothers, and sisters came to take him back from that union hall where he'd spent many hours asking questions and receiving answers, complaining to him that he was embarking on a dangerous path. But he would always reply that his brothers and sisters in union were his true family, that the essence which unites all working men and which transcends concerns petty puerile alike. These came to be an impossible conundrum, an inherent contradiction, in the rebel Elijah's youth already a burning passion for the cause of the working man's self-liberation making itself evident even to the grizzled veterans and the weary cynics among the crowds at the hall. But this hall, not in London but in an anonymous town in the dilapidated north of England, saw much pain and suffering, the unemployed and the unemployable alike gathering there even before the failed rising fifteen years before the current revolution got underway. Sometime in Elijah's youth he befriended a young woman named Mary. It's not important exactly how they met. Rather, it's important that she comes to provide him a support through this difficult, early time in his long, slow rise from hopeless poverty to the leader of a movement, and, in the future, on to martyr for an entire future. Although she's been dead for years, she'll always have a special place in Elijah's heart.

As the young Elijah began to dispense his aged wisdom and knowledge, he came to convince many, and his fame and infamy alike began to spread. But the democracy practised in the Popular Front is unlike anything that's ever come before it, beholden neither to opinions malleable nor emotions pent up by so many generations of hunger and want. No, as Valeri's in the process of learning through the studious experience of a baptism of fire, the Popular Front derives its democratic character from its relentless aspiration to deliver the ordinary into the extraordinary, to empower the common man by filling its ranks with his stock. As the rebel Elijah has said, the first shall be last and the last shall be first. For reasons and in ways even he can't yet articulate, Valeri's beginning to understand what this means. Although Elijah's doctrine of unilateral withdrawal was meant to deprive the wealthy man's government of the legitimacy it needs to govern, it could never provide anyone with a blueprint through to the future. And so, preparations for the next general strike commence, the unions distributing messages not through official channels but through the informal, ad hoc channels proffered to the working man by the dark essence. It's risky, too risky in this time for these preparations to be carried out openly, even as the rebel Elijah wishes it to be so. With the nation at war, anyone who openly campaigns for such civil disobedience would be arrested on charges of treason and imprisoned for the rest of their lives, likely not to be so long given the diseased and decrepit state of His Majesty's Prisons. It's been this way for a while, but with the war on the continent producing an ever-increasing number of widows and orphans at home, the hated Provisional Government has only become more hated over time. Whether any of our characters will survive through this brutal and bloody time is yet to be seen, but those of us who do will survive through only to emerge into times bloodier and more brutal than anything we've ever seen.

14. Sanctuary

Among those seeking shelter in the wake of the Home Guard's attack is a young man named Julian Moore, and he flees his home not because he fears for his life but because he fears for his death. Unlike so many working men, Julian hasn't lost his family in this war, not yet, his chief grievance with the old regime being the hopelessness of an almost permanent unemployment. For his whole adult life, Julian has sought work wherever it could be found, never managing more than a few weeks of temporary work before finding himself cast aside like a piece of machinery no longer needed by his paymasters. In fact, since the Home Guard seized the liberated zones and murdered so many inside, the revolution has only intensified, with Julian struggling to survive as gun battles between the Home Guard and the Popular Front rage all across the country. It's something else to waste the prime years of your youth wasting away, languishing for want of a wage, any wage at all. As Julian has been fighting to survive all his life, dodging police raids, the rioting of the unemployed, and bombings, to evade the increasingly frequent outbursts of all three. Now, Julian takes shelter along with hundreds of others in an old church just inside one of the former liberated zones, in London where the Home Guard troops now surround them on all sides but don't dare venture in. Armoured cars sit in the street out front and in the alley along the back, machine guns pointed menacingly at the church's doors, soldiers with rifles in hand standing about, looking on as a steady stream of still more refugees crowd into the already packed church. Amid the maelstrom of death, Julian interrupts a group of refugees, saying, "I'm looking for my brother," going from one group to the next, asking for his brother by name. "Please," he says, "has anyone seen my brother?" But no one's seen his brother. "Someone help me," he says, "someone help me find my brother." He's in tears by the time he's made his way halfway through the church's refugees, and he can't find the strength to go on.

But while preparations for the next general strike are underway, Julian eyes the troops all around with suspicion not for their motives but for their designs. As he sits at the end of a bench, seated along with the rest of the wretched, he speaks with some of them, saying to one young woman, "my brother and I have stuck together for fifteen years. I can't bear to lose him." But the young woman, named Nicola Daniels, says, "I've lost everything I have too. My parents are dead, and the love of my life is going to die in Poland, if he's not dead already." But beyond their neighbourhoods, the revolution seems to escalate with each passing day. Memories of the mass slaughter of refugees and rebels alike in the former liberated zones remain fresh in the minds of people like Julian and Nicola, even though neither were among those caught up in the initial uprising or deported into the zones in the period after. Starting to turn against themselves, a loud noise and a thunderous rapture encompasses the whole room, all at once. Neither Julian nor Nicola will outlive the revolution, but it's their struggle to stay alive as long as possible that'll bring them together. It's possible for each of them to remember their lives before the revolution began in earnest, but for the fact that the revolution has been underway for so long as anyone can remember. It's not fair, it's not right, but it is, caught up in the terrific and terrifying maelstrom of fire and brimstone that visits upon the country, the city, every block and every flat day after day in an unrelenting campaign of sadistic, wanton violence. But still the schools remain open, and still the buses trundle along the streets, even as bombs burst and gunfire rattles off around every street's corner at all hours of the night. But in this transition period, when the revolution could still be defeated, a decisive moment could come at any time. This confusing and disjointed juxtaposition of the mundane with the mad only casts the streets in a surreal light, as though the dark essence which guides the revolution has turned night to day and day to night. But it only seems confused and disjointed in a country so long given to pleasures of the flesh, now made to confront the hollow promise of its own ideals.

In the city, Valeri remains underground with his neighbours Michael, Tonya, and a few others. They've linked up with their former contacts in the Popular Front, not the same individual persons who've long since been killed but a whole new set of recruits. Among them, the leader of a cell operating out of the sewers in a largely deserted section of housing outside the northern edges of what'd been Greater London, a much older black woman named Sandra Simpson disseminates the rebel Elijah's latest edict. While Valeri listens with the others to this woman, who asks to be addressed as 'Sister Simpson,' he recalls words and ideas he'd used to read in books brought home from the old union hall. She uses terms like 'class consciousness' and 'relations of production,' terms he's heard before but never fully understood. But as Valeri listens, he can't help but indulge in the distraction provided by his fantasies for vengeance against the vast and impersonal force which had killed his mother and father fifteen years before this revolution and which now sought to kill him. "...and when the time is right," says Sandra, "we'll attack, not by taking to the streets with the crowds but by staging our armed raid on the enemy positions." They've been discussing the coming offensive, the next offensive, always the next offensive action which should surely push the rebel Elijah and his Popular Front to victory. With the election upcoming, Sandra says, the time for their next round of attacks is near. But across the country, in the north pilot Hatfield and the other survivors of Mobius Squadron find themselves taking refuge at a base seized by the Popular Front. Grounded temporarily due to a lack of fuel, Hatfield and the others have been put on guard duty, giving them too much time to consider where they've been, where they're to be. Hatfield recalls their flight out from Waddington, how they were aware their radio chatter was being monitored. After they'd cleared the coast on a north-easterly course, Hatfield rocked his wings slightly, once, twice, then after a pause, a third time. Then, he'd switched his radio over to the pre-agreed secure channel, free to talk. "Keep on course," Hatfield had said, "and maintain speed, for now." Their plan, hatched in secret, had been to put down at the nearest neutral port, which they'd heard of the Russian bombers inbound. This precipitated the same discussion among them as there'd been aboard the Borealis, with the pilots of Mobius Squadron reaching the same decision their unknown comrades had made at the same time.

Above the sewers, not far from where Valeri is taking the next step on his path towards realizing his true purpose in life, there works a not-young woman named Clara Conway, she in the streets with many other refugees mustered back into service in the Labour Brigades. Like the others, Clara has her own story, of which we'll examine only a small part. She's already lost her brother, her father, and two of her cousins to this war, and still she must suffer the indignities of forced labour in the streets like the many so mustered. But still we can recall the little things, the mundane things that made up day-to-day life before the revolution began in earnest, which still make up day-to-day life even with Britain, all Europe aflame. Amid chronic shortages of basic foodstuffs, the odd loaf of bread lies unclaimed on a shelf, mouldy and stale, still snapped up by the first mother to find it, desperate as she is to feed her family. For Clara Conway, the sight of a youth starving in the streets while a nearby city bus stops to drop off and pick up passengers is but the final indignity, ordinary men stepping right past the youth as if he's not there. And this sight compels Clara to take the youth by the hand, on finding he's too weak to walk picking him up, taking him in her arms and carrying him as best she can down the street. Approaching the cruiser Borealis, Hatfield and the other two pilots in Mobius Squadron began a steep ascent to face the oncoming Russians. Like the men aboard the Borealis, Hatfield and the others had no way of knowing whether the Russian bombers were carrying nuclear weapons. As Hatfield took the lead, he ignored the base commander at Waddington squawking at him to break off the attack on the Russians, which only inspired Hatfield to hit the afterburners on his fighter and climb faster. But then his missile warning alert sounded. "Evasive manoeuvres," shouted Hatfield, throwing his fighter into a roll to port. He'd expected the Russian missiles to strike at any moment, but he'd expected wrong. "Fire coming from below," said Pilot Parker, "from the ships!" Pilot Wright had said, "wait, they're not shooting at us!" And Hatfield turned his attention to the cruiser, watching as missiles flew out towards the Russian bombers. Now, he recalls that decisive moment, as sits in a foxhole and clutches his rifle he feels not an ounce of regret.

But for Valeri Kovalenko, the personal antipathy he harbours for Tonya can't be explained by normal relations, wishing as he does that she'd left him to die, that she hadn't called out to him and offered a new way forward. He doesn't wish this explicitly; it's a slight differentiation in the appearance of formality, as if he can't quite bring himself to admit she was right, he was wrong. It's his mother and father. He thinks his one chance to avenge their deaths was taken from him. He knows, in the abstract at least, that there'll be many more chances to avenge them. He can feel the influence of the dark essence which guides the revolution, nudging him towards greater things, even as he can't bring himself to embrace this path yet. Sometimes, as they march from here to there or from there to here, Valeri finds himself arguing with Tonya, arguing without even knowing it, without remembering how they'd started arguing. But it's always quietly, with their conflict at least partly obscured behind euphemisms and petty examples, she telling him he's gripping his rifle wrong, he telling her she's carrying her bag wrong, the other letting it be only to respond in kind days later. Finally, at one point Tonya says to him, "let's all fight together," to which Valeri says, "that's all any of us can ever do." But elsewhere, Clara Conway can't save the youth. As the local A&E is all but shut down owing to a lack of supplies, equipment, and staff, she can only think to take him to a church run by the local rogue priest, formerly of the Anglican church but who defected to the rebels only months ago. It's a deathly sight, the Home Guard's offensive having produced many new wounded, for each killed in the attacks ten more left to die a slow and painful death. But the spark remains, the revolutionary fervour that only comes from the dark essence infusing itself into the air, filling the sounds of the voices crying out in pain as though the sounds themselves were a physical vessel converted for its own purpose. We realize, now, as Clara makes her way through the street with a gun in hand that she should count herself lucky among those who've lost their families, their loved ones, for it's only in loss that she is freed to lash out at her enemy, at all our enemy, without regard for her own. She's compelled by some unknown spirit to watch as the youth she'd tried to save withers away and dies, on the floor of that old church where there's the dried blood mixing in freely with the new. She's looking into this unknown man's eyes at the exact moment he passes. She's troubled by this, at the very moment when the light in his eyes darkens, darkens, then goes out. Although Clara Conway has become numb to so much pain and suffering, like so many others in mid-twenty-first century Britain, she can't help but feel shaken by the sight of one young man passing from one world into the next. Although Clara is taken in with the refugees at this church, she soon finds herself roped into work for the Labour Brigades, the meagre rations offered to the slaves more than she could afford for herself.

In the sewers there's life, but on the water off the Norwegian port of Stavanger, it seems there's only death for the men of the free cruiser Borealis and the free frigate Nix. They wonder when the fighter aircraft that'd protected them will reappear; it occurs to Dmitri those brave men might already be dead, shot down by enemy fire or executed for acts of disloyalty to the hated Provisional Government and the King to which it nominally pledges its authority. Don't think, stop thinking, put before a person for acceptance, offer only a tender shore on which to fixate, the crews of the free ships Borealis and Nix delivered anew not by the sudden emergence of an unexpected ally but by their steadfast commitment to the struggle. In the mess, Dmitri doesn't speak but listens to the crewmen, one of them standing to say, "...but we should never give up on the fight, no matter what happens do us." Another man says, "what happens to us is unimportant." And Dmitri takes this moment to interject, "the communiqués we receive from the Popular Front make it clear the path laid out for us by the rebel Elijah is one of suffering, not of relief. Do you pledge yourselves only to suffer so that freedom for the working man may triumph over the despotism of the wealthy man?" It's a question without an easy answer, and although there seems unity on board the free cruiser Borealis there're still brothers among them who harbour doubts, among those some few who might be tempted to act on those very doubts. But after the death of this youth in her arms, Clara can only press on with life, returning to the Labour Brigades as a means of sustenance. Whenever she thinks on the hardships of day-to-day survival, a shiver, a shudder runs the length of her spine, as though there's some small part of her that embraces the hardships and turns away from relief. It's a small act. "Don't stop working," says her director, an anonymous man strong and physically fit, his burly figure imposing in contrast to Clara's frail and thin body. But as with all things in life, the form of our fathers strikes hollow compared to the spirit of our sons and daughters, in her heart Clara becoming stronger and larger than any man ever could be. "I never stop working," says Clara, in a voice only just loud enough to be heard. But her director doesn't look back, only instead seething with rage at the slightest hint of insubordination. "If you stop working one more time then you'll regret it," he says. This Clara doesn't stand for, as she turns and stands to face him thoughts of her own pain and hunger disappearing, replaced with a blinding white rage at the enemy neither she nor any of her fellow workers in the Labour Brigades see.

But when the thunderous rapture dies down, it seems a false alarm, the breaking of glass and the battering down of doors a trick, a ruse, the sort of image each comes up with all on his own. And as for Valeri, well, he sloshes through knee-deep sewage, his party having happened through a segment of the sewers beneath London still carrying sewage. The foul stench fills every breath; when Valeri breathes in through his mouth, the foul taste travels along the back of his tongue and nearly makes him vomit. Neither his mother nor his father carried out a struggle that took them to the sewers, he thinks, and it's this very fact that grants him a special perspective on events he now can no longer understand. All parents want more for their children than they had; already Valeri's struggle has advanced beyond what his mother and father had been able to achieve. After their first meeting with Sister Simpson, they'd agreed to follow her. She doesn't say exactly where she's headed; but Valeri, Tonya, and the other survivors from Dominion Courts agree they've got no other hope. It seems such good fortune that they should've found a band of rebel fighters so quickly, but then Valeri has always had trouble believing good luck when he gets it. "...If you still want to leave, you can," says Tonya, walking ahead of Valeri. She goes on to say, "just let us know first." But now Valeri doesn't feel anger at her jousts, only resignation. Across the city, in a block of flats not far from the old city airport, a woman named Audrey Kimbrough survives just the same, but by different means. She'd lived not far from the nearest liberated zone, and she was nearby on the day when the Home Guard finally staged their brutal assault. She'd heard the thumping of heavy weapons fire, the sound of field artillery booming, interspersed with the rattling of small arms. But it's the screams she'll never forget, the screams of those who'd tried to flee the oncoming Home Guard attack only to be cut down, murdered in cold blood. Today, weeks after that day, she finds herself roped into the Home Guard, mustered into service clearing the streets inside the former liberated zones of all signs of the massacre. Even weeks after, they've still got much work to do, with the bodies left beginning to rot, turning into great piles of undifferentiated, discoloured flesh on the sides of the roads, in the alleys, in empty lots, wherever the bodies had been quickly and hastily gathered. She's given a used and dirty surgical mask to cover her face, but she can still smell the rotting stench of decaying human tissue. More than once, today, she retches; but for her empty stomach, she'd vomit. She turns to the trooper watching them and she says, "I can't do this." The trooper seems to look her up and down, as if thinking whether to strike her. He's not in the army, but one of the various militiamen who've been taken into the Home Guard. But then he lets her go. She goes home.

It's these thoughts that keep Valeri strong as he puts one foot in front of the other and pulls himself through the sludge. "Everyone stop," says Tonya, at the lead of the party. Instantly, Valeri freezes, all members of their group halting at once. Overhead there's the crashing of gunfire and the bursting of bombs rattling through the sewers, the sludge around their legs quivering from the not-distant blasts. They must put down here, and in the time it takes Valeri, Tonya, and their new commander Sandra Simpson to emerge back onto the street, much will transpire. This Sandra Simpson, Valeri comes to instinctively trust her, to look on her as the kind of leader they could've used in making their stand at Dominion Courts. It's not anything specific; it's the way she speaks with such confidence when she lays out the path forward for them. She cautions them, telling each of the survivors from Dominion Courts that, if they should join the ranks of the Popular Front and become disciples of the rebel Elijah, their futures will know only pain and suffering. But this only inspires in Valeri a fiery spirit, the troubled and difficult compelling him towards it. In the weeks after the Home Guard's liquidation of the former liberated zones, the remaining rebel forces in the urban areas have largely expended themselves, while the Home Guard continues to draw in more raw, untested, undisciplined recruits from militias, from private armies, even from sectarian paramilitaries that've sprung up in Scotland, Northern Ireland, even in Wales. But after Clara Conway has turned away from work in the Labour Brigades, she faces charges of sabotage and even sedition. She's taken in with a group of a dozen or so malcontents, homeless people and rabble-rousing, missile-throwing youths, the whole lot of them in the back of a Home Guard lorry trundling to a jail. Halfway there, she summons the courage to take a stand of her own. "I won't be shot for treason," says Clara to the man sitting next to her, "I'm a free woman, and no one can take that away from me." With thoughts of her dead friends and the rogue priest who spread the rebel Elijah's forbidden gospel, she waits for a moment when the guard in the back of the lorry with them looks away, then throws herself at him, tackling him, in the confusion his gun firing, an explosion thundering out as a rebel bomb strikes at exactly the right moment to flip the lorry on its side and crash it through a smashed-in storefront, killing almost everyone aboard but leaving Clara, miraculously, still alive.

But she might soon wish she'd have died, as she crawls out from the back of the flipped lorry looking on the rebel's gunmen down the street advancing towards her, their guns drawn, their faces configured into scowls. And although she's in pain, her body broken, bruised, and bleeding, the rebels can offer no help, and leave her where she lies in the gutter. The dark essence which guides the revolution sees fit to dispose of her life and the lives of the others in that lorry with her, and in so disposing to use her as a vessel through which it could grant itself expression. A tragedy it remains, but it's a tragedy in service of a larger cause, the liberation promised in the rebel Elijah's forbidden knowledge. A small comfort it might seem to the families of the dead, but know they'll someday see their loved ones again in paradise. Still reports filter in, screens across Britain showing news of the army's latest attack on the enemy's front lines in Poland and Eastern Ukraine. It's not that the working men don't believe these stories; most watch with bated breath, hoping to hear news on the fates of their loved ones, their brothers, fathers, sons on those very front lines. As the revolution works itself through this violent and confusing between-time, the men and women, the Valeris and the Dmitris, the Theresas and the Michaels are caught in the midst of a struggle simply to stay alive from one day to the next, each of them still ignorant of the grand act playing itself out before their eyes. But it's not to be this way much longer, even as it's been this way all along, ordinary people like Valeri and Dmitri, Theresa and Michael in the midst of their own personal ascension, at the vanguard of the way to the future.

On board the cruiser Borealis, Dmitri spares a moment on watch to contemplate the next meeting of the ship's governing committee, still a good week away but weighing on his mind nevertheless. It's a quiet thing to be left alone, with the frigate Nix having gone ahead. Whatever can happen, on the bridge Dmitri keeps an even hand. On their way into Stavanger's harbour, they'd passed ships foundering, wreckage long ago having stopped burning, with a thin film of oil covering the surface of the seas here and there. A battle had taken place here—no, a massacre. Sometimes they came across bodies in the debris. They couldn't easily tell whether the bodies are Russian, British, or something else, in death all made the same. Now, as he waits through the eerie and unsettling calm of neutral harbour, he recalls the way a body had caught his eye, the young sailor's dead eyes happening to point right at him, for a moment it seeming to Dmitri as though he'd been staring with a corpse. After Dmitri had rallied the crew around the cause, he can only guess what might happen next, lost as they all are to the flowing of energies and the passage of so much time. If ever he should doubt himself, his crew, or his cause, no one would ever know, concealed as his own doubts are beneath the harshness of his scowl. It's all building, all leading to something, not to an epic clash but to an inevitability that none can foresee. This is the last they must have before the pages of history turn from one to the next, as the cruiser Borealis struggles at an agonizingly slow pace in a race against time, the internal debate among her crew having spent so much of what little time they have.

They'll arrive, sooner or later, at the old Royal Navy base where the frigate Nix has already put in, but once there they'll find something none of them could've ever expected in this life or the next. But there's a common thread running through all their happenings, not only that of revolution but of a growing camaraderie which has no parallel. In this tentative, in-between time, when the rebel's gunmen are forever weak, there can be no confusion, no indecision, with the only course of action possible to attack. And it is. It's around this time that the crew of the Borealis hear news of the British Army's latest defeat in the war on the continent, thousands of troops killed, many thousands more wounded in a failed attempt to break through Russian lines not far from the eastern outskirts of Warsaw. The crew have heard the rumours, that the Poles have become convinced the Russians would level the city and massacre its inhabitants if successful in seizing it, and they've convinced their allies in turn. It's not true, but that doesn't matter. While Dmitri reads over the reports, received from the Popular Front and its sympathetic organizations in other countries via a guerrilla news service, and it only makes Dmitri and many of the others feel guilty for sitting out the war in some Norwegian port, on the orders of the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front. Dmitri knows this'll provide for much debate at the next meeting of the ship's governing committee, but he can't seem to overcome his own brooding self-doubt, even as he projects much confidence on his next walk-through of the ship's below-decks compartment, keeping his jaw square and his upper lip stiff, surveying the damage from their trip into safe haven here. The men look at him, throwing their salute, a right first, clenched, held straight up. And he always returns the salute. But he knows they can sense his doubt. They know he can sense their doubt. When he encounters his lead-hand, Mason, on his way into the mess, Dmitri says, "I hope the repairs are finished soon." But Mason says, "not soon enough." They both know there's a limit on what they can accomplish without a dry-dock and dedicated machine shops, but they secretly agree they'll put out to sea as soon as they can, with or without such orders from their contacts in the Popular Front back home.

But once Julian Moore and his friend Nicola Daniels determine to test the limits of their de facto captors, the Home Guard troops seem to withdraw at exactly the right moment from surrounding their church, making way for the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front to advance. (Rebel sympathizers have managed a withdrawal of the Home Guard from this particular neighbourhood). It's not too late for all that's been won to be lost, and all that's be lost to be won. This the rebel Elijah knows, and this he declares to his disciples in the Popular Front from their underground hideouts here in London and all across Britain. As he addresses his disciples in one of their many illegal assemblies in the Midlands, it becomes readily apparent even to his harshest critics and to the dissenters among the ranks of his supporters his popularity has reached a critical stage where it can't be stopped. Standing atop a rusty, disused shipping container, he declares to the workers from the area's plants and shops, saying, "...and if the enemies of the working man's revolution should strike us down, then we will only surge forward a hundred times as before. As you pledge yourselves to the struggle, know that you pledge not for yourselves but for your children, and their children, and the children of generations to come." His is a speech hypnotic, mesmerizing, prompting shouts of agreement from the crowd, even at this critical juncture all the death and violence in the streets having worn not the slightest edge on the spirit. Even as Elijah speaks, he feels the dark essence radiating through his whole body, electrifying his skin, surging through his veins, filling him with a raw power that he can train on any target he should wish. Watching, Julian and Nicola are enraptured, at once given to the struggle set forth by the rebel leader they've heard so much about but have never before seen with their own eyes, whose voice they'd never heard directly. Elijah knows Julian and Nicola personally, intimately, in the way brothers and sisters can know each other, and from the moment they first lay eyes on him that night Nicola and Julian both know him personally, too. This is true even as they have never met him before.

Day and night the streets fill with the moans of the dying, seeming to ebb and flow in intensity with every enemy air raid and every foray of the Home Guard's troops against the ragged, haggard crowds throwing their lot in with the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front. It becomes increasingly difficult to tell who is the true enemy, more bodies piling up in the streets, more blood staining the asphalt a deep, dark crimson owing to the Home Guard's bullets than the Russians' bombs. At the illegal assembly, Elijah declares to the crowd, saying, "...but if you fail to pledge your unconditional and wholehearted support to our revolutionary struggle, then you condemn your children, and their children, and the children of generations to come to a hopeless misery, to poverty and death unlike what any of you have ever seen. For this is the one campaign, the one time which can deliver us from evil, from they who would deem themselves your masters. If you fail to commit yourselves to the struggle, then we shall see a new repression and hopelessness, from which no one among us will ever escape." Still the rebel Elijah has made his way south, from the north of England where he'd drawn his first disciples, all those years ago. Following a roundabout path he heads along the disused motorways, through the razed fields, visiting the homeless shelters, the churches, the few union halls left standing, but for the carrying on of war managing only a few factories and mills.

The Home Guard's troops are everywhere, and yet they are nowhere at all, seeming at once to encompass the impossible even as they are as frail and starving. Sometimes, the rebel Elijah looks out over the crowds coming to greet him and imagines the death that surely awaits each and every one of them, only the dark essence inspiring him with the strength and courage to declare to them they can look forward to death. But when Elijah concludes his speech, he declares to the workers assembled, "...although our victory is inevitable it is never assured. It must be earned, it must be fought and died for. It is only when we put every breath, every heartbeat, every voice raised and every muscle exerted as bringing us closer to a democratic way that we earn our right to be masters of our own future." And the crowd roars its approval. In the Midlands, this is the aged industrial heart of what'd been the home to millions of working-class people, formerly the most fertile and productive among the soil left to fester. It seems wherever the rebel Elijah goes, he rallies the passions of the working men, among them the layabouts, the unemployed, the homeless and the hopeless alike, even in these times of war at home and abroad still the sight of our future, now, embodied in one man enough to raise spirits. But even as the rebel Elijah makes his way through the Midlands, he feels compelled to remind himself on the true character of the war in the streets, in his travels seeking out the most pathetic and wretched among all the crowds to convert into his closest disciples. It's precisely in these, Elijah knows, that the future lies, even as he becomes aware it's from among them, too, that the inevitable betrayal must come.

With all Europe brimming with a revolutionary fervour for many years, the men who led so many into the war on the continent may be starting to regret their declaration of war on one another. Never forget theirs was a decision made not for the good of the people but to save their own selves, in every combatant country on either side of the front lines the leaders of men agreeing to resolve their internal tensions by directing the ire of the working man against a common enemy, failing to realize the burgeoning awareness of the working man that their true enemy is not far away but right here at home. But nothing could ever come to be more true. Although Elijah is the leader of the working man's revolution, he is but a man, and even as he leads the crowd at the secret assembly through his speech he must pause to consciously remind himself that history is not led by men. It's in this frame of mind that Elijah learns his disciples in the Popular Front are on the verge of annihilation, their steady attacks depleting them of men willing to throw their lives away. In these desperate times, even Elijah can't help but become despondent, angry and frustrated as he is at the ability of the old way of things to persist. But herein lies the genius of the Popular Front's strategy. Elijah's gospel, that of the unilateral withdrawal, was disseminated without his name attached, under the auspices of various front groups, even the former People's Party and Worker's Party, both illegal, not involved. But this made the rebel Elijah and his disciples seem to be everywhere at once, even as they were vanishingly few in number.

So long as they can seem to be everywhere at once, they are. So long as they can seem to be capable of a relentless attack, they are. And so long as they can seem to be infinite in number, they are, and no amount of enemy bullets can cut them down. This is a strategy which has not come to Elijah nor to any of his disciples in the Popular Front naturally, but by so many years of experience, dating back even before the failed first rising more than fifteen years ago. When the rebel Elijah emerges into his encampment for the night, he consults with his disciples on their recent strategic losses before retiring to his cot. But in the meanwhile, before falling asleep he stands outside in the unseasonably cold open air and looks into the sky. He is become accustomed to this ritual, in craning his neck and raising his open palms, in a moment of privacy inviting the dark essence into his person anew. But even as the rebel Elijah spreads his forbidden gospel to all the homeless, unemployed, and destitute of Britain, still the old way of things persists, among the shopkeepers and mercantile companies hoarding their goods, even as men wither away and die of starvation in the streets.

As he looks into the night's sky, the rebel Elijah senses the pangs of the thousands of empty stomachs, feeling each as though it's his own stomach aching for want of a morsel of bread. In truth, even in times like these there's enough food to feed everyone in Britain, with storerooms, warehouses, and huge refrigerated shipping containers filled to the top with food. As a youth, the rebel Elijah's quixotic blend of learned wisdom and prophetic knowledge spread first throughout the small town in which he lived in the decrepit, dilapidated industrial north of England, but soon began to reach across the country. All the screens of Britain seemed to carry the debates and discourses the rebel Elijah had with the learned elders and the self-described realists among the leaders in union, and after the first few years of his own personal path it became obvious to even the most cynical among them that this man was destined for something more. The son of a single mother, in turn descended from a long line of prostitutes, drug users, from the mentally ill and from the physically enfeebled, was in the midst of rising into his destiny. No one knew where such a young man could've found not only his vast knowledge and his aged wisdom but also his fiery passion, a fiery passion that burned so hot and bright that soon enough all the world should come to see him for what he is. It's not impossible to consider that, even in this day and age, there could arise a figure like Elijah, nevermore asunder from the very essence of the working class as the now-leader of the revolution should be. History should never recall a specific moment when the youth Elijah came to receive the dark essence which now guides men like Valeri and Dmitri, for there was no such moment; the rebel Elijah never became one with the essence.

Rather, it became evident over the years that this was his person, his way of being, that the rebel Elijah simply always was the essence, never that he was one with it but that he and the essence were one and the same. Nor was there any moment when the rebel Elijah realized his true nature; he'd always known. And so it is that the rebel Elijah knows in his immediate future there must come a force that he should reckon with, a force of evil greater than anything he and his disciples in the Popular Front have ever faced. In the relative safety of this sanctuary, Julian and Nicola receive the forbidden knowledge which is becoming less forbidden with each and every person who receives it. Although Julian and Nicola count themselves among the swelling ranks of the unemployed, they return to the old church where they've taken refuge and disseminate the new knowledge, rallying the ranks of the unemployed to the coming strike. It may seem an inherent contradiction to declare the unemployed to be among those who would go on strike, and it's in exactly this contradiction that a higher truth is to be found. Loyal only to the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front, it's among these workers final victory must be found.

15. Nightfall

Everywhere in Britain, a lull in the action takes hold. In the weeks since the coming general strike was agreed upon, a quiet consensus has been built and distributed, the Popular Front dispensing its edicts through the common channels, in the streets, by way of sympathisers and fellow travelers who whisper in the shadows. We do not dwell on the minutiae of the Popular Front's organizing, the specific manner in which it draws converts to the fold or sustains itself through all the little logistical tricks that a guerrilla force must, as it's sufficient, for our purposes, simply to understand that it remains sustained for so long as it must. But when the Home Guard's troops, untrained and undisciplined as they are, attack again, the Popular Front's exhaustion of its resources and manpower means there's no one to oppose them. The Home Guard stages dramatic raids all across the country, attacking the churches, the union halls, spilling enough blood to fill the streets with rivers of a dull, copper red. For Valeri, this time sees him in hiding along with the others following Sister Simpson. When they pause, he asks her if they're to head into the streets to confront the Home Guard troops rampaging through the city, but she says, "the time for that will come, but not yet." He can see the hunger in her eyes, he can see she wants to take to the streets and fight the Home Guard. "Don't worry, Brother Kovalenko," she says, "we'll make them pay for every life they take."

But for women like Marge and Beth, or Beth and Marge if you'd prefer, the bursting of bombs and the rattling of gunfire in the streets mark exactly the spots where the rebel has seen fit to make himself felt. Marge can remember the way she would be made by the talking heads on the screens to feel as though the leaky flat she'd lived in, the ratty clothes she wore, even the hunger in her stomach at the end of a long day were all her fault, all her doing, even as the very men who dwelled in the old houses of parliament worked day and night to keep her living in a leaky flat, wearing ratty clothes, and feeling hunger in her stomach for many days to come. Beth can remember the way she would be made to work herself ragged and sore, then come home to an empty flat where she would have to work harder still to keep the drugs and the thieves from breaking into her flat and taking what little she had to be taken. All this, while the dark essence which now guides the rebel Elijah and the working man's budding revolution watched and waited, waited for a chosen moment to make itself felt. As Marge carries a small instrument to her shop in the morning, she walks along the side of the road with all the other workers, the lot of them under the watchful eye of the Home Guard's troops. But our paradise is not to be a real place, not in the way we've been made to think of places as real. No, our paradise shall come when the visions of those who've died before us should be esteemed in the halls of power, when the most wretched and pathetic among us have been recognized for the precious figures they always were and should always be. As Marge carries a small parcel under her arm, she thinks two steps ahead of herself, sensing among the ordinary men and women a new and lasting fate etched into the streets once so lively and bright. But on this day, Marge goes into work at the shop with every intent of making good on her calling. But fate has other plans for women like her. Even as a lull in the action takes hold, the immeasurable strength of the hated Provisional Government and its forces in the Home Guard is about to be made clear as the very course of all our future's history takes us into places darker than any of us could've imagined. As night falls, Marge and Beth know, in the vague and imperceptible way they can, that the rebels must place their faith wholly and unconditionally in the dark essence to guide them through the blackest of nights to come.

Not long after taking in with Sister Simpson and the band of rebel fighters she leads, the survivors of Dominion Courts are in the midst of their own personal reckoning. When the put down for the night, they put down in the ruins of some old shop, or in a disused cement plant, or even in the basement of some church, wherever they can find a momentary safety from the marauding Home Guard troops and from the paramilitaries who the Home Guard only loosely control. A few days after meeting Sister Simpson, they spend the night at an old, disused industrial plant, sleeping behind the chemical tanks on the edge of the facility. Although they all need sleep, Sister Simpson says they need two to keep watch for the first three hours; Valeri and Tonya volunteer. (They'll get three hours of sleep after first watch is over, while everyone not selected to post watch will get the full six.) At first, Valeri and Tonya both think to talk to one another, but they remember their strict instructions to make as little noise as possible, which includes avoiding all talk. Sister Simpson said they're only to speak if they have to alert the others to enemy movements. And so they stand quietly, a concrete wall to one side, a chemical tank to the other, with Valeri watching one way and Tonya watching the other. There's only around thirty fighters in their group, but they sleep piled up against the wall. There's no rattling of gunfire or bursting of bombs to fill the night, leaving only an eerie silence to permeate the darkness. Three hours pass quickly. Valeri thinks on what's happened, thinks on the mass slaughter he fled in one of London's formerly liberated zones, but most of all he thinks on the next chance he'll get to redeem himself. He's heard the stories, the lurid and depraved stories of Home Guard troops acting as little more than animals, going from block to block, shooting everyone they got their hands on, when they ran out of bullets then stabbing with their bayonets. In his heart, Valeri wishes he'd taken a stand and fought until the last bullet, then with his bare hands, even if it saved only one refugee from murder. But the dark essence which guides the revolution has greater plans in store for him, for all of them, as Valeri is an avatar for the struggles of the working class he can't see the future he's reaching for. Soon, three hours have passed, and Valeri rouses the next shift's guard, then lies down on the cold, bare ground, as soon as he closes his eyes falling into a shallow, restless sleep.

For all their posturing, for all their preaching from street corners and from the stages of union halls with microphones boom their voices to all corners of the crowded rooms, the rebel's apparatchiks now seek shelter from the war in the darkened spaces, the little crevasses that offer a relative safety and security for them all. But for women like Beth and Marge, or Marge and Beth if you'd prefer, the bursting of bombs and the rattling of gunfire in the streets mark exactly the spots where the rebel has staked his claim to the future, not for himself but for all working men. Beth can remember the way she would be deemed unworthy of anything but the pittance she would be made to receive, even as she would end each and every day tired and sore all over, little nicks and bruises in the oddest of places on her body. Marge can remember the way her rent would be raised, the way she could no longer afford to pay rising prices for meat, her meals over time reducing to rice, beans, bread, some vegetables fresh when prices fell but frozen whenever prices inevitably rose higher still. And these were during times of plenty, when all Britain had been declared by the screens to be growing, with wealth in abundance for all. Beth and Marge, or Marge and Beth, came to know in the vague and instinctive way all working men know that abundance under the old regime meant only they were becoming poorer and poorer still. And the dark essence kept on watching, kept on waiting, existing as it does, as it always has outside the boundaries imposed on us by our flesh and blood. Even as women like Marge and Beth, or Beth and Marge, kept on working through their early adulthood almost permanently hungry, tired, and sore, the dark essence kept on watching, knowing as it always has that there will come a perfect moment to strike. And that moment draws nearer with each passing day. The rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front can feel that moment's impending arrival, using what time they have to draw women like Beth and Marge, or Marge and Beth, closer into the fold. Even in these times, the dark essence which guides the rebel Elijah in all things seeps into the moment, infusing itself into every breath drawn by every man struggling against an impossible evil.

After they'd moved on from that old chemical plant, the band of fighters under Sister Simpson's leadership keep moving. She tells them they've got to escape Greater London, and soon, or they'll be caught in the maelstrom of death and destruction spreading in the aftermath of the Home Guard's attacks. As they're part of an army now, both Valeri and Tonya agree to follow Sister Simpson. But when they're on the move, it's slow going, the need to avoid contact with or detection by the enemy prompting Sister Simpson to lead them through back alleys, along sewers, across parks in the middle of the day. When they come across a rail line, Sister Simpson says they should follow it, as it leads on a northerly path for a few kilometres. Sometimes Tonya walks alongside Roger, the two saying very little, seemingly content to be next to one another. This inspires in Valeri a kind of subdued jealousy, not quite a revulsion, as he can recall when he last felt that way about someone, the when he last had someone like that. The young, half-Asian woman, Sydney Harrington, he misses her, no matter how convinced he might be that he doesn't. As they walk along the rail line, they hear the sounds of battle in the distance, the rattling of gunfire and the bursting of bombs both seeming to have become fainter, as though they're slowly making their way from the battle sites. Behind Valeri, close to the back of their ragged column, Michael O'Connor sometimes tries to make conversation with Valeri, the implicit rivalry between the two having re-emerged since they'd taken in with Sister Simpson and her band of fighters. But Valeri rebuffs the younger O'Connor's attempts at conversation, preferring to keep quiet and focused half on their travel, half on that image of the lovely, young Sydney, as if he could will her into his presence. She's still alive, but Valeri doesn't know that, can't know that. When O'Connor speaks again, Sister Simpson turns back to them both and says, "keep your mouths shut," a cross look on her face. Their lack of discipline, one of the many factors which doomed their stand at Dominion Courts, marks them as inexperienced to the others, but as Valeri's soon to discover, experience comes quick in revolutionary Britain.

It's not over yet, knows the rebel Elijah. With rumours of a planned election circulating even as the next general strike's in the works the rebel Elijah must put together this decisive blow before even a single ballot is cast. Although the working man's revolution in this country may have brought great hardship to the lives of Marge and Beth, theirs were lives already marked by hardship. As the bursting of bombs and the rattling of gunfire in the streets reminds them, Beth and Marge have only their memories to remind them on the lives each once had, marked as they were by hunger and want. It's not the major facets that become remembered, but the little details, things like the way either could've remembered as children turning up for school wearing patched trousers and old shirts, never admitting to anyone their poverty even as nearly every other child in Britain's working class districts wore clothes patched and old, the whole lot of them ashamed of themselves, parceled off and kept isolated even as a growing alienation had already begun to set in. And as each were made ashamed, there was that dark essence, watching, lurking in the shadows, waiting for the right time to infuse itself into the streets, into the shadows, into the alleys and into the yards. One day, not altogether long after planning for this next, decisive general strike began, Beth works at her post in the docklands, handling munitions bound not for the army on the continent but the Home Guard in the streets of Britain. She'd lost previous job when the plant she'd worked at had closed suddenly, and by some stroke of luck found a new job here. It's gruelling work, but she's used to gruelling work, and at least it affords her the chance to be a spy for the Popular Front, feeding information as she does on the munitions she's seen sent and where they're sent. When the time is right, she, too, should join the coming general strike, and in so joining she'll play a decisive role in its outcome, becoming so much more than she is.

In the north, Mobius Squadron manages to avail themselves of the service of an engineer the rebels have happened across, pressed into service on their aircraft. He says he's only experienced on airliners, but they put him to work on their fighters anyways. With spare parts scavenged from various wrecks around their base, in a couple of weeks the three remaining aircraft of Mobius Squadron are flyable again. Hatfield, Wright, and Parker are airborne again. They're the first of what'll become a great revolutionary air force. Owing to the divided loyalties of most of the rest of the armed forces, they've not been attacked yet, neither by Russians nor by any British. As they prepare to take off for the first time in several weeks, Hatfield runs through his fighter's systems, finding most of them barely operational, some not at all. Over the radio he confers with Wright and Parker; both face similar limitations. They know their engines could cut out at any moment, that their weapons might not fire, that their landing gear might not retract, or might not deploy once retracted. But, as they line up for take-off along the base's lone runway, they perform one last tower check before rocketing into the sky. They've all got families, as nearly everyone who's defected to the rebels has families. Hatfield has a wife and three adolescent children, Parker a long-time lover, Wright a sister. None know what'll become of their loved ones over the next months or years. (All made contact, or tried to, and urged their families to take refuge wherever they could. The Home Guard is too disorganized and confused to go after them, right now at least.) Their orders for this mission are to fly over enemy positions and perform reconnaissance for a later wave of rebel attacks, and they soon reach hostile territory, the pilot in Hatfield half-expecting them to come under fire as soon as they cross over. They don't have cameras, so they have to perform their reconnaissance with their eyes and their memories. "Captain," says Wright, "what are we doing out here?" Hatfield responds, saying, "I don't know." Events continue to weigh heavily on their minds, as if they'd expected something else entirely when they'd defected to join the rebels of the Popular Front. "Don't look now," says Parker, "but it looks like we've got company."

As Beth arrives at the shop where she's been made to work, she takes up at her workstation. She works next to a conveyer belt that carries crates filled with munitions, the shop charged with handling war supplies sent from Canada and the United States for use by the British Army on the continent. But Beth has begun to notice the shipments she processes aren't headed to the continent; at her station she sees postcodes for destinations at bases here in Britain. "We've got to tell them," she says to her fellow worker, who operates an identical station opposite hers. "If we can get a message out through the lockdown," says her fellow worker. But even as they half-discuss their future plans to help the rebels in the countryside, even still Beth can't help but let her thoughts be dominated by the family she no longer has. Even as she works through this day, she knows they must be dead, the dark essence which guides the revolution compels her to imagine they might somehow, somewhere still be alive. But it's not to be. But in Blackpool, a young man named Lester Hanson faces a different struggle, feeling as he does a vague compulsion to keep on working through this difficult time. He lives in a little house, shared with four other young men, the five of them working together at a nearby dockyard. By day they handle munitions and various war supplies brought in by container ship from Canadian factories, and by night they abide by a strict curfew imposed by the local authority, loyal as it is to the Provisional Government. Each of them work six days a week, a six-day work week having become standard in wartime Britain under the Provisional Government, but oftentimes they work seven days a week, several weeks in a row. Their bodies are bruised and battered, never seeming to heal. The recent rebel offensives reached into their city, resulting in widespread power outages, water mains rupturing, and deaths as rebel gunmen penetrated deep into the supposedly secure city of Blackpool. Lester and his four housemates survive, but every night, through the night, they hear the distant rattling of gunfire and the bursting of bombs, always seeming to draw nearer but never reaching them. In the wake of the failed rebel offensive, they continue to work, Lester himself thinking of his lover, wondering if he'll see her again before the war takes one or both of them.

After Mobius Squadron flew out on a reconnaissance mission for their Brothers and Sisters in the Popular Front, they encounter fighters loyal to the Provisional Government rising to meet them. They're under orders not to engage any Royal Air Force fighters as the Popular Front hopes to lure more pilots and their aircraft to the revolution. These thoughts speed through Hatfield's mind as he watches the RAF fighters gain altitude on an intercept course. Finally, Hatfield responds, saying, "turn about, make back for home." It gives Hatfield a deeply bitter taste, to turn away from the enemy, even as Pilots Wright and Parker both acknowledge the order and turn with him. But the RAF fighters don't break off pursuit, and a hollow fear grows in Hatfield that they'll be forced to defend themselves. "Increase speed," says Hatfield, "and hit your burners." He hopes this sign will signal their intent to avoid a fight, but for a moment it seems in vain. The RAF fighters continue to rise. (Their fighters are in better condition than those of Mobius Squadron.) The RAF fighters are soon within visual range. But they don't shoot. They don't even obtain a radar lock on Mobius Squadron. Instead, they simply fly closer and closer, soon alongside, exchanging looks for a moment, before turning back. Hatfield and the others don't know what to make of this encounter, except to suppose that it means the revolution they've pledge to fight for hasn't yet escalated into all-our civil war. When they return to base, the Popular Front debriefs them, and reveal the true purpose of their flight was not to gather reconnaissance but to provoke a reaction, any reaction at all from loyalist forces in the RAF. In his bunk, later in the evening, Hatfield isn't sure what to make of this revelation, but he and his two fellow defectors sleep through the night, this night, having been exhausted by recent events. In truth, all sides are reluctant to squander their strength in uncertain attacks, while the revolution rages in the streets of Britain's cities the rebels hoping to lure more defectors to their side and the Provisional Government hoping to entice those already defected back to theirs. Still, both grapple with the reality that most of the Armed Forces remain uncommitted, with even the great bulk of the Home Guard's nominal strength coming from paramilitaries, even sectarian paramilitaries who serve the Provisional Government but whose loyalties lie elsewhere. The real work of Mobius Squadron, still only three pilots, is yet to begin. Then, a few days after their encounter with loyalist fighters, Mobius Squadron is grounded once more, this time not by mechanical failure but by enemy action, by sabotage.

Meanwhile, Marge doesn't find work, so many factories shuttered over the years, still shuttered as Britain must import its armaments and Instead, she finds work at a ship loading off the docks, discharging a whole load of shipping containers from Canada. Her work is temporary; workers are called in to unload ships, then sent home, without knowing when or if they'll be called again the next time there're ships to be unloaded. The decrepit, old apartment blocks the workers are housed in are clustered together, secured by a perimeter of chain-link fence with barbed wire along the tops. All this as the sky burns a dull orange and the late-summer's wind rolls gently across the city's streets, over the bared faces of its towers thrusting at the clouds. Preparations for the coming general strike never seemed so acutely threatening, never seemed to pose such an imminent danger to the lives and not merely the livelihoods of people like her. But Marge won't give in, learned as she has over the course of her life to fight for every last scrap, for every morsel, for every thread of clothing she'd ever put on her back. "I'm not ready to call it quits," she says, with her family at her side as she thinks on the future, "you can go if you like but I'm going to stay right here, in my home." She doesn't know if they know she's in with the rebels, but she ought to know they'll figure out soon enough, the coming escalation of the war at home to bare all secret loyalties. "No one's ready," says her brother, "but if there's no one to take care of mum but us. If you die and I die then she's got no one." And Marge knows it's the truth, still her mother lying in bed waiting for the inevitable to come. Across the country, in the city of Manchester, the revolution rages, trapping young women like Jennifer Reese. In this part of the country, there's already open warfare, with gun battles between the rebels in the Popular Front and the Home Guard's troops. But there're no front lines, bombings and gun attacks taking place seemingly at random, sometimes several attacks in a week in one place, sometimes no attacks for weeks in a row in others. Jennifer Reese lives far away from the city centre. She lives in an old house, with her husband and his elderly parents, and she works in a nearby plant assembling train cars for use carrying strategic materials to the army on the continent. As she works, one day, she recalls it's been some days since the last rebel attack, some days still since the last Home Guard attack on suspected rebel positions. The rebels sometimes attack targets other than the army's positions, but by that same token the Home Guard frequently stages violent, lethal raids on gatherings of people fleeing the destruction of their own homes. On this day, one day, she pauses halfway through her twelve hour shift to look on the screen in the worker's lounge, seeing footage of a new Home Guard attack, in it the killings of many innocents. She rushes home at the end of the day to be with her family. They're not in the area affected by this current battle, but she knows they could be caught up, no matter where they are, at any time.

Marge hears of this Home Guard attack, though she knows little about it. Once the rattling of gunfire and the bursting of bombs sounds out through the night, she realizes this is her calling, this is her duty. In the living room of her mother's old flat, they see themselves not as guardians of a new tomorrow but as lingering echoes of an age struggling into its own past. This is an illusion, a falsity, kept alive not by mutual consent but by an insidious lie imposed on us all from somewhere we can't see. In the night, while the world continues its rapid descent into madness, both Marge and Beth are visited by the dark essence, even as they've been made to live these past months in a virtual prison. In the night, it always happens in the night, each of Beth and Marge lay awake in their cots, peering into the darkness, only to shiver and shudder slightly with the sudden realization that this is the moment in which their lives have taken in with the rebel Elijah and the dark essence he commands, even if neither Marge nor Beth can know it. As with most working men who give themselves over to the cause of the Popular Front, whether in spirit or in form, all Beth and Marge each feel is a sudden epiphany, a spiritual awakening even they're not aware of.

At a scrap metal yard near the city of Bristol, a man named David Mitchell stays his hand for one day, seeing his way over the scrap brought in on this day. Every day he works harder than anyone he's ever known. But the rationing has hit David hard, every so often the Home Guard troops coming around to seize what scrap metal he's been able to accumulate, declaring the value of such a strategic resource too great to be ignored. It's on one such day, today, when the skies are grey even though it's not raining, when the Home Guard comes to take what they've managed to hoard. The manager, an older man who isn't as old as he looks, takes to haranguing the troops, protesting their theft of his carefully-hoarded metal. "I can't believe you're coming here when there's so many rebels in the streets shooting up everything that moves," the manager says. "Be thankful you're not heading to prison for your insolence," says the leader of the troops, his insignia giving him away as a veteran from the war on the continent, a special mark on his chest. But the rest of the troops are older men, their uniforms ragged and threadbare, with holes in places. Some are unarmed. But as he watches, David's stomach growls and his feet ache. He knows the hardships he faces are nothing compared to the never-ending threat of death the troops on the continent must deal with every moment of every day. As the Home Guard troops are on their way out, seized scrap metal in the back of their lorry, David can't help but shout at them, saying, "and don't you ever come back or you'll be sorry!" But David doesn't know what he's saying. The lead trooper turns and threatens to arrest him, saying, "if you talk to me like that again I'll put you up with some real criminals and see how you fare against them." After all he's been through, David is defeated, too defeated to rise to the occasion. It's time for us all to take the next step in our rise into the future we've always wanted but should've never deserved. But the entrenched interests which flock to the cause of the enemies of the revolution. It's coming, but it's not yet here.

Lost amid the carnage is the life that carries on, with even the local shopkeepers and the scrapyard managers starving themselves into a decayed and decaying stupor, with men like David Mitchell left with a tough choice on whether to press forward with their meagre existence or to give it all up for a chance at revenge. They won't have long to wait to find out whether their slim chance is too slim. As they each commit themselves to the coming general strike, we know they'll each come to play roles far more important than either of them could've imagined. But it won't be easy. Although David is only one man, he can become like all the others. After one of the Home Guard troopers turns to confront him, still he shouts forward, receiving only a blow from the trooper's truncheon, sending him to the ground. Looking for an opening, any opening at all, there's a violent rage unleashed by this small moment, David returning to his feet, hurling himself at the trooper without regard for his own self. Meanwhile, someone's gone inside and taken out the scrap yard's Armalite, left over from the civil strife. There's gunshots, too many gunshots, the Home Guard's troopers beating a quick retreat when confronted with the serious opposition of the armaments but leaving bodies in their wake. It's too much, not altogether too much, the image of bodies lying motionless, stilled by the visiting upon them of death, searing itself into the mind of David. He's survived, in spite of himself. And he doesn't deserve to survive. None of them do, nor do any of the Home Guard's troopers, all having given themselves to some act of aggression or regression against the dark essence which guides the working man's revolution, all having committed some small turn against the rising tide of all our history's futures. All this seems to have little to do with the wider war, leaving little to offer men like David in the way of a future. But after the Home Guard's seizure of the former liberated zones and the massacre of so many innocent people inside, this violence has happened only in erratic fits and spurts, the country at large still lurching through this uncertain, early time.

But with the fires of liberation burning long into the night, Marge sees her task a little easier when she meets with her old friend Beth on a rare night when they can spare the time; even the virtual slaves are let to relax on Sundays, on one such Sunday Marge and Beth, or Beth and Marge if you'd prefer, meet to discuss their next step. Bound as virtual slaves and under the lash of the Home Guard's troops, it'd seem, on its face, that neither Beth nor Marge can do much. But it's precisely because they're enslaved that they can and must be exactly the sort of person in whose charge the revolution's future must lay. This is true for Valeri as well, as he is become an avatar for the larger struggle, his life, his long, slow rise from an ill-mannered malcontent as a youth to the still-learning soldier of the revolution he is now, in his twenties. Now we must look on Valeri and the others who've taken to the relative safety and security of the sewers, their movements seemingly taking place neither at night nor during the day, but seeing them make ground nevertheless. Now, though, they've started seeing more ordinary men and women, even children in the sewers taking refuge from the war in the streets. But when Valeri stops with the others to rest for a few hours, he comes across a young woman carrying a malnourished child. As a visual reminder of the starvation and privation that's taken hold in war-torn Britain, the sight of so many mothers and fathers tending to the skeletal forms of so many sons and daughters never ceases to move Valeri. Despite death having long ago become a constant companion in life, Valeri's heart can never numb to it all. Although Valeri's stomach growls, he gives the small morsel of food he has to the woman, who gives it in turn to her child. It's a small moment, but one which foreshadows a larger time when men like Valeri will grow to become the heroes we know them to be, even in a world lacking in heroes the dark essence which guides the revolution choosing some for a role that does not, cannot be.

But still the warehouses and ports seem filled from floor to ceiling with food, even as the streets of every city in Britain are littered with the decaying bodies of the starved and starving. Every so often the workers pressed into service running the hoarding operations at the warehouses are cast out, new workers brought in, corralled in from among the vast ranks of the homeless and the unemployed at gunpoint. Even here, somewhere on the outskirts of Greater London, the shopkeepers and the merchants are under orders from their managerial superiors to keep on hoarding food, to what end none of them can know. But as Valeri looks on the young woman feeding her starving child, he can't help but feel a burning rage warming the cockles of his heart, a rage burning he must keep suppressed, for now, that he may continue to follow the edicts of the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front. Although Valeri doesn't know this woman's name, nor the name of her starving child, he knows she counts among the destitute taking in with the Popular Front, able not to fight as he can but giving over the essence of her person to the cause of the rebel Elijah. Even Valeri can remember the way of old, many months and years ago when the rebel's guerrillas set off their bombs and staged their gun attacks in the streets in a grand campaign to bring down the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Now, with the war on the continent producing scores of new corpses every day, it seems only a matter of time before something must give way. It may only be a testament to how far he's come that he thinks back on those times as the early, heady days, when all this had yet to come to a head. In the sewers, no longer in the sewers Valeri and the others have taken to hiding in a disused factory outside London, a place as safe as there can be anywhere in war-torn Britain. "Valeri," says Tonya, snapping him out of his self-imposed reverie, "it's time to get moving again." And as their party leaves the civilians behind, among them the starving woman and her child, Valeri says to Tonya, "that could've been me." Acknowledging him with a nod, Tonya understands he's referring to the deaths of his own mother and father more than fifteen years ago, his own starvation in youth staved off by the charity of his mentor in union, Mark Murray. Still Valeri angers inwardly at their betrayal, unable to bring himself to grips with the true extent of Murray's collusion. It doesn't occur to Valeri that the union leadership is weaker and more inept than ever, that the recent wave of wildcat strikes and their condemnation of those strikes has cost the highest levels of union leadership the confidence of so many workers, in the meanwhile the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front winning their confidence, slowly but surely. He's without the confidence or the support of so many officers in the military, so many of the leaders in churches, industry, and civics, and still without the majority of the ordinary workers throughout Britain, but he's making gains. In time, the moment when union leaders condemned the wildcat strikes will be remembered as a decisive turn in the course of the larger revolutionary struggle, even if the turn seems, right now, to be so slight as to be imperceptible, like the tides still rising but starting to slow their rise against the rocky shore.

After the rebel Elijah began to disseminate his forbidden knowledge, there were many among his ranks who never could bring themselves to support him, could never count themselves as among his brothers and sisters. Sometimes, in this early period immediately before the failed rising fifteen years before our current revolution erupted, a few men at the hall where he went to study and debate felt threatened by such a young man who displayed such knowledge and charisma that he could command the near-instantaneous loyalty and devotion of workers much older than he. Though nothing came of this threatened feeling, there was much to be learned from it. Already, his was a wisdom far beyond his years, and such wisdom had already begun to provoke many signs of contradictions. At first, only the whispers and the haunting after-voices left by the elders in union who sought to preserve their own power as part of the way of things. As the rebel Elijah came to know, they who would deign to work for the benefit of the working man must have as their ultimate goal their own abolition; else, they require the working man's repression. All this was in the time before the failed rising which claimed the lives of Valeri Kovalenko's mother and father. At times, when Elijah went to the hall for study and debate, he would hear the whispers of they who would seek to plot against him, and in his youth Elijah disregarded these whispers, choosing instead to keep on spreading his forbidden gospel without regard for his own well-being. But the character of the Popular Front is becoming more and more evident to men like Valeri with each passing day.

But while the rebel Elijah continues his long and slow campaign, he meets, in secret, with representatives from all the churches in Britain, a meeting which Valeri's unaware of but which he'll come to see, which we'll all come to see as having been inevitable. Although some leaders of these churches have been opposed to the Popular Front from the very beginning, Elijah pledges them to be guaranteed their own freedom, telling them, "...I claim for myself nothing but an unconditional service to a higher power. I am a man, and history does not follow the lead of men, neither myself nor any of you. I keep the faith, and I ask, no, I insist you keep the faith as well." He pauses, looks around the room, eyeing every church leader one by one before continuing, saying, "remember in all things that your freedoms given to you are free to be used to any purpose, to any end. I guarantee your freedoms on the precondition that you must keep the faith." Even in that early time before the failed first rising, the old government of the United Kingdom had its spies and its informants everywhere, including that very hall. It was a conspiracy not yet formed, comprised not of the conscious thought of men but of energies and essences flowing through the passage of so much time as a river of wind must flow through the vast and boundless skies. After all, even as a young man Elijah had begun to preach a forbidden gospel, arguing passionately for the union in whose hall he studied and debated to unilaterally disengage from participation in the legal-political process laid out for the working man by his wealthy masters.

At the hall, this was a sacrilegious teachings, and it was on one night at the hall when Elijah took to the floor and urged the union in whose hall he stood to call on its members not to vote in the then-coming election, thereby refusing their consent to be governed. To the elders in union, this was a dangerous, threatening line of thinking, and already the many workers young and old who had begun to follow Elijah were becoming given to this dangerous thinking. Even in those heady days before the failed rising, the working men of Britain were destitute and desperate. And then, as the young man Elijah was only beginning to gather disciples to his cause, the rising began. It's not yet time, it's always time, it's been time for so long as anyone can remember, if only any of us ever had the foresight to see into the inevitable future we must all share in. And so it was that whenever votes were held in union the young Elijah's way would never win. Despite all the crowds professing their love for him, few would stand to be counted among his disciples, teaching the young Elijah a valuable lesson. As that first, ill-fated rising began, Elijah had only just come to the realization that consensus is not measured, but won, that unity is not happened upon but forged as steel in the fires of liberation. A bitter lesson he'd learn the true consequences of as the elders in union denounced him for the first but not the last time. Although Elijah's brothers and sisters in union may have turned their backs on him, he knows there's still hope for the future, in this confused and disorganized early rising the churches freely and all but openly offering Elijah what his brothers and sisters in union can't yet bring themselves to give. As Elijah meets with the leaders of Britain's churches, he says to them, "...and if you should return to your congregations and declare righteous the cause of the Provisional Government and all others who would oppose the Popular Front, then you declare righteous the old way of life, the greed, the lechery, the trapping of millions in hopeless poverty and degradation. But if you should declare righteous the cause of all my brothers and sisters in the Popular Front, then you cast your lot in with they who would oppose in all things the old way of life, its greed, its lechery, its merciless tyranny of poverty and degradation."

"Are you not called to drive out demons?" Elijah asks. He goes on to ask, "are you not called to heal the sick? Well, I tell you this: Britain, Europe, all the world is filled with demons, is sick, diseased, consumed in a bloated corruption. You are called to freely give as you have freely received, and now is the time when you must give freely." But while the rebel Elijah confers with his disciples in the Popular Front, left unspoken but acutely felt among them all is the impending arrival of an antagonist, an evil that's been there all along. It's been said history has neither heroes nor villains, and it doesn't. Still our heroes are aware of the magnitude of the events they're experiencing, not acutely but in the vague, instinctive, almost visceral way that they are. In this time, the rebel Elijah comes to know about the rise of his opposite in Damian, knowing as he does from the sensation he feels whenever he looks into the darkness of the night and calls on the essence to enlighten him. As we'll come to see, Elijah and Damian, for all their apparent similarities, couldn't be more unlike one another. As many will learn at some great cost, each man is entirely unlike the other, Elijah the great leader of men, Damian only the greater deceiver of men. In time, this will become apparent even to the staunchest defenders of the old regime. But in the meanwhile, Elijah must continue his work, even though he knows there can be no accord between him and they who would deem themselves his Earthly masters. In this deeply confusing, disjointed between-time, already Elijah can sense the rising of many new armies in the darkened alleys and in the gently rolling hills across England. In his private moments, Elijah confers with the dark essence which guides the revolution in every man, seeking guidance from something which he is a part of.

Although Elijah knows, in the way that he does, of the rise of Damian's twisted and perverted gospel of liberation, still there's a part of Elijah that must come to grips with this new threat. In the end, Elijah has the support of the church leaders assembled, even though he can know from looking into their eyes one or two of them must already be cast in with the rise of Damian's twisted and perverted gospel, even if they don't know it yet. It's they who may yet betray him, something he can foresee even now. In this confusing between-time, when the preparations for the general strike continue despite difficulty, with the churches momentarily pledged behind his central leadership, no more the scattered and confused mob but beginning to form into a whole. But after the liberated zones have been seized in the Home Guard's offensive, there can be little doubt among the working men of Britain on the next step.

In the night, it always happens in the night, a key decision is made that should grant the rebels and their sympathizers an opening, and it's an opening Elijah intends not to squander.

16. Anthology

After the expulsion of the working men from their liberated zones, the enemies of the budding revolution felt vindicated in their chosen path. It seemed, to men like Nathan Williams and Colonel Douglas Schlager, that theirs was a victory assured, the decisive battle in their campaign to restore the old regime and crush the budding revolution in the streets. Skilfully manipulating the remaining among the managerial class and stoking the nationalist sympathies of many, the Provisional Government has come to assume a strength at odds with the corruption eating away at its innards, like a cancer metastasizing only just slow enough to go unnoticed. Although the Provisional Government is strong and the Popular Front is weak following its failed offensive, it's always true that in weakness there is strength and in strength there is weakness. Still surrounding themselves in luxury, they meet, again, in that very same manor where once, not altogether long ago in the scheme of things, men just like them schemed to profit from their own demise. Although Schlager and Williams have some idea of the insidious forces they've unleashed, and those which they seek yet to unleash, either of them are foolish in their steadfast belief that they, together, can control these forces. But the divisions which are rife within the Provisional Government effectively prevent these men from realizing their belief, even as they convince themselves all can be made right again.

"Are you ready to declare victory?" asks Williams. "You may think you're being clever," says Schlager, "but it's you who's missing the point." The old saying goes that politics makes for strange bedfellows, and few are stranger than these two men who view one another with a unique blend of grudging respect and subdued contempt. "We should promise to bring all the wealthiest men and companies in Britain to trial, once the war's over of course," says Schlager, "or the enemy's hold on the poor will never be broken. It's not enough that we've seized the neighbourhoods they held. They don't fight a war of territory." Williams listens, pausing for a moment before saying, "you could be right." It's a rare moment of introspection on Williams' part, as the suggestion from Schlager compels him to consider the vast and complicated holdings he's amassed over the decades might've contributed, in some small way, to the war raging in the streets. But it's mutually understood any such promises they make will be made without any intent or desire to fulfill, and they quickly agree that every one of the wealthiest men and companies ought to be reassured, in advance, that these are empty promises meant to placate the restless workers. Even as they plot, even as they scheme, the dark essence which guides the working man's revolution watches, everywhere and nowhere all at once.

The dark essence informs the rebel Elijah, not by conferring with him as meeting conspirators but by tending Elijah's instincts towards a series of happenings that even he can't anticipate. And men like Schlager and Williams are only pawns of a greater force, even as they believe themselves masters of their own destinies. Although neither Schlager nor Williams have met the great deceiver, they're already under his sway, given as each man his to lust, Schlager to vainglory, Williams to avarice. In time, this will be their downfall, but for the moment they see fit only to defy the dark essence and embrace the great deceiver, in blind pursuit of their own ambitions. Already, their lives have seen much change; Williams has taken to enriching himself even as he helms the Provisional Government, diverting funds into his companies and using the conscripts in the Labour Brigades for free labour. But neither is Schlager an innocent man, given as he is to temptations vainglorious and shallow, in either case seizing his men with the rousing of their passions to a false idol. More than ever, we see them for who they truly are. "This won't help restore order to the streets," says Williams, "not right away, at least." But Schlager says, "then we'll have to make examples for them." This is a dangerous line of thinking, these men realize, but still the influence of the angel of light, the great deceiver seduces them into beginning down this line, no matter where it might lead. Although Britain has been a constitutional monarchy for hundreds of years, both Schlager and Williams see the value in continuing to rely on he sitting monarch to afford them a kind of legitimacy.

But neither Williams nor Schlager are the sort of men who take it upon themselves to venture into the trenches, to get their hands dirty and their bodies raw. Though Schlager recalls a time in his life, not all that long ago, when he might've relished life on the front lines in Poland and eastern Ukraine where the bulk of the British Army still faces off against the Russians, now he's accustomed to the comforts of home, even if he doesn't realize it. And now, Colonel Schlager has assembled under the banner of the Provisional Government a motley assortment of army units, with most of the Home Guard at least nominally pledging themselves to follow them. This was, in no small part, due to the King's endorsement of the Provisional Government in recent months; even in this day and age, in a country so steeped in tradition and empire as Britain the King's support carries considerable political weight. But Schlager and Williams know this support has its limits. "He will break with us one day," says Schlager, "and I think that day will come sooner rather than later if nothing changes." Williams says, "and what makes you think that?" Schlager says, "I trust my instincts." Williams says, "and you should." The two men now stand at one of the manor's windows, looking out on the carefully-manicured lawn, even in these times of strife managing to surround themselves in the kind of luxury and indulgence which has always inspired so much revulsion in the hearts of working men. As they amend their plans to direct the war, still they persist in their unwavering devotion to the great deceiver and to the angel of light, even as they've yet to meet either, yet to learn their names. They've both heard of the new figures rising from out of the slums somewhere in the historic province of Sussex, but they assume his is only another variation on the reports they receive of the hated rebel Elijah. Only too late will they learn of the angel of light's true identity, by which time he'll have already manoeuvred them both into a place where they can do nothing but serve him. As for the great deceiver, well, he works from a location far more distant, slowly but surely building alliances between competing interests in the United States, China, and some of the other powers not yet embroiled in this war.

"Without the King our cause is lost," says Schlager, "and if we don't concern ourselves with his likely defection then all our work could fall apart at any time." But Williams isn't convinced to worry, saying, "the King will not abandon our cause, for he knows without unity there can be no strength. And if we lose our strength, then defeat will inevitably follow." The two men stand over the shoulder of one of their younger colleagues, a junior officer only recently defected to join their ranks. But they trust him, as much as men like them can trust a man like him, given as they are to suspicion and recrimination whenever the turn of events doesn't follow their carefully laid plans. Although their designs on the Provisional Government are coming apart rapidly with each new setback, these men and those like them who serve the old way of things deceive themselves into thinking, into honestly believing they can not only forestall the arrival of a new era but that they can prevent it from ever coming to be. It's this belief that makes them dangerous, not the armies they command or the weapons of mass destruction at their disposal. Williams has spent the past few months rallying to the Provisional Government factory managers, dockyard foremen, and priests in the Anglican church still loyal to the crown. Schlager has spent those past few months rallying to the Provisional Government officers in the army, navy, and the air force, thatching together a new armed forces from bits and pieces left of the old.

It's been a careful, delicate process, the forging of alliances which could come undone at any moment with the gentlest of breezes rustling the trees. And the offensive which finally retook control of the liberated zones for the Provisional Government was Schlager's doing, he and the junior officers under him planning and executing the offensive in order to lay the conditions for the Provisional Government to take that first, crucial step towards what they saw as stability and restoration. Too late will they see the futility in their own vanity. Too late will they realize the folly of their faith misplaced in themselves. While Schlager and Williams, and all the other men who control the hated Provisional Government scheme to secure their own future power, the war on the continent rages, a new attack on the Russian lines producing scores of bodies on both sides. The front line hardly moves, a few hundred metres one way, then a few hundred metres back. The Provisional Government, its apparatchiks and its mouthpieces on the screens have long stopped producing detailed casualty lists, rather describing this battle as a courageous and valiant stance on the army's part against a hated enemy who seeks only to destroy everything they hold dear. This will prove to have been their ultimate downfall, the lies they spread which they came to believe fully and honestly, as though they'd believed in these lies all along. Although neither the great deceiver nor the angel of light aren't here and has no knowledge of what can happen, in the heat of the moment he can intuitively know what's happening. His knowledge, though, doesn't come from the same place of enlightenment as does the rebel Elijah's; where Elijah seeks liberation for all, the great deceiver seeks only power for himself.

Finally, a decision is reached. In a vain attempt to forestall the coming general strike, the Provisional Government will carry out its own offensive, attacking every apartment block, every union hall, every church, even every homeless camp in carrying out a renewed offensive, a second wave of attacks in the still-ongoing but slowing rebel offensive. Though men like Schlager and Williams believe they can still fight back the tides rising against them, this is their folly, this is their tragedy, condemned as they are to forever fight a losing battle, to forestall the surge of the working man's aroused passions. Outside British waters, the crew of the cruiser Borealis continue to debate the merits of crewman Emily White's proposal, even as they must know the chance for accepting the Provisional Government's offer of amnesty must be long past. For his part, Dmitri begins to consider that the crew may be seeking an outlet where none exists, not for the possibility of returning to their old lives but to convince themselves it's a possibility. The crew, Dmitri thinks, needs to believe they are continuing to choose the path forward. As he makes his way from the bridge to the accommodations, Dmitri looks forward to returning to the familiar comfort of his bunk. Whenever he returns to rest, if only for a few hours, he's reminded by the cramped, uncomfortable confines of his bunk that he is of the same stock as the others. Crewman Emily White's proposal remains debated, even though she's dead, her body ejected into the sea in the same burial all aboard get after being killed in action. Although Dmitri might be entitled to the captain's quarters, as duly elected ship's captain, he chooses to continue to sleep in with the rest of the crew, still in his old bunk. He doesn't know it, can't know it, but this choice will set the pattern for many generations to come, long after these men have passed the torch to a new generation of revolutionaries. But Dmitri still doesn't think of himself or his brothers among the crew as revolutionaries, even after having irrevocably committed themselves to the banner of Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front. As Dmitri settles in for what he expects to be a short, restless sleep, he's roused. "Brother Malinin to the bridge!" comes Mason Smith's voice over the loudspeaker, "right away!"

At the base where they believe they're secure, Williams and Schlager monitor the stockpiling of arms, munitions, and supplies, despite great hardship and chronic shortages of the essentials managing to assemble a stockpile which should sustain their forces for some time. But it's not enough. It's never enough. Outside, the early-autumn's rains have begun to fall, in the English countryside never to intensify into a deluge but to batter and beat the country into a dulled, muted submission. On the bridge of the cruiser Borealis, Dmitri arrives to find his lead hand Mason hunched over a console, studying a readout intensely. Dmitri approaches, and Mason turns to face him, the lead hand saying, "this is news from the home front." He hands Dmitri a pair of headphones. They share, Dmitri listening in one, Mason in the other. They hear the voice of one of the Provisional Government's apparatchiks in media announcing the onset of a new season of disbursements, funds meant to alleviate the hardship of the war. The announcement pledges to reopen every factory, every shipyard, every mill, with full wages to every able-bodied worker in Britain, all in service of the war effort. Following this pledge is another, the second pledge to rein in the worst excesses of the old regime, declaring the ultimate goal of the Provisional Government to be a peaceful path through to the future. Then, there're vague promises about a coming election, once such a time as the security situation in Britain can be stabilized. The Provisional Government's apparatchik promises this to take place no more than six months from now. Finally, the Provisional Government's offer of clemency to rebel fighters is reiterated. Although neither Dmitri nor Mason know it, this pledge is made in a vain attempt to forestall the coming of the revolution's next phase. Over the next few days, over the next couple of weeks they deduce this offer is a ruse, meant to lure defectors like them back, only to be jailed and hanged, an example made.

In the rain, in the rain, a final overture is made, somewhere in the darkened streets and the blackened alleys of the old working class districts through the essence Elijah extending a spiritual hand to the great deceiver, offering him a last chance at atonement for the path he has yet to walk. It's this moment, more than any other, that serves as the decisive moment, the turning point in the great struggle which we all face. This is a ritual act, with all parties involved knowing the only outcome could ever be the great deceiver rejecting this last chance offered by the rebel. After a few days have turned into a few weeks, the crew of the Borealis begin to plan their next moves. At a special session of the ship's governing committee, the crew unanimously agree that they should leave Stavanger at the earliest opportunity. But they can't agree on where to go, save to head west, back for home. The crew of the frigate Nix have no representative here, which gives Dmitri some pause for thought. "I say we attack," says one crewman. "I'm sick of waiting here to die," says another. "We've lost everything we have," says a third, "and for what? To sit out the war while so many others die?" Sitting at the head of the council, Dmitri listens as the crew come up and speak their piece, one by one, with his lead hand Mason and the other three on the ship's governing council at his side. After each of the assembled men have spoken, it's Dmitri's turn, the whole lot of them following no particular rules or procedures but responding to the vaguest of impulses flowing through each of them. He rises. The others all sit. But as Dmitri begins to speak, he feels the rising of an unknown spirit in him, the very same feeling that'd been coursing through his veins when he and his crew had staged their daring escape out the Thames. It wasn't all that long ago in the larger picture, hardly six months, that they'd seized their vessel and struck out on their own and already Dmitri is beginning to grow into a man the dark essence has always sought out.

But before the failed rising fifteen years ago, things were never the same. Even as he'd begun to preach a new and dangerous gospel, the young man Elijah was soon to have the chance to put his learnings into practice. Having already amassed a small cadre of followers in the small, decrepit city in North England, the young Elijah worked from a young age in carpentry, employed among the workers putting up the very buildings which once went up in cities across the country. It was here that Elijah's early learnings found an audience, in the dispossessed and the disenchanted among them who'd been made to suffer the indignities of poverty and despair. As the young Elijah ceased withholding and began to spread his gospel, the gospel of renouncing the working man's consent to be governed, the first step in turning away from a world lost to the sins of unbridled lechery and greed. Among them, far away in the environs of London, the mother and father of one Valeri Kovalenko themselves took up the cause, with a group of others seizing control of one of the few factories still operating in the region. It was a glorious time, when a few million workers held the whole of Britain in their grasp, first the police failing to dislodge them, then the army called in. And where was Elijah? His fellow workers seized not only their worksites, but the whole of the small, decrepit city in which they lived, under Elijah's leadership declaring to the world their self-liberation. They were the only workers among the millions who went on strike to seize their city, and in the weeks that followed they were made to serve as an example for the rest. In giving themselves over to the struggle of the rebel Elijah, Valeri's mother and father set him, too, on the very path they'd chosen. Thus, Valeri is always followed the rebel Elijah and counted himself among Elijah's disciples in the Popular Front, whether he'd realized it or not.

In the immediate afterwards, the first raids lash out, uncoordinated, disjointed, and confused. Here and there, the Home Guard's troopers break down doors, smashing into closed shops and apartment blocks, rampaging through the homeless camps shooting at anything that moves the wrong way. But this time the carnage is met with carnage. Still the Provisional Government presses its attack, doubling down on its ill-fated offensive even as it spirals out of control almost immediately. Taking refuge in a mostly-shuttered industrial district, Valeri, Tonya, and the others among the survivors from the old liberated zones steel themselves against the moment, emerging into the street to happen upon a gun battle. It's all a deeply confusing mess, with gunmen firing on their troops. They can't tell whether the gunmen are Home Guard troops or bands of paramilitary fighters loyal to some other flag from the past. It takes a moment for them to get their bearings; in the heat of battle, a moment can last a lifetime. Two of their own fall. "Fire at the enemy," says their leader, Simpson, "and don't let them escape!" And Valeri is only too willing to oblige, squeezing the trigger to the satisfying crack of rounds shooting. But he doesn't know what he's shooting at. "Hold it," says Tonya, at his side, "there's three positions ahead." They've happened upon a Home Guard patrol, on its way into an apartment block, Valeri and the others arriving at just the right time to head the enemy off. There's a confused action, with rounds burying in concrete and shattering glass into a thousand pieces. "Don't stop shooting," Valeri says, throwing his rifle over the barrier and squeezing the trigger, loosing rounds, missing, then felling one trooper with a wild, uncontrolled burst. All Valeri can feel is the dull, metallic taste of blood flooding his mouth and the raw, electric energy flowing through his veins. Soon after, they find themselves in with another band of rebel fighters, these, too, a motley assortment of survivors from the seizure of the former liberated zones. Together, they take up positions near a railyard, Valeri and Tonya finding themselves enrolled in a paramilitary unit, one of the many which form the bulk of the Popular Front's armed strength in this tentative, early period. For a moment, the petty conflict between Tonya and Valeri recedes into the background, occupied as both fighters are by the formidable obstacle of the enemy force standing before them. "I used to pick fights with boys like you," Tonya had said, once, when they were sheltering for the night, "when I was in primary school." Taking the challenge head on, Valeri had said, "well I'm no boy anymore, and I haven't got any compunction against fighting, so long as we're on the same side." Now, some days later, in the middle of a pitched battle with Home Guard troops, Valeri and Tonya fight as one.

And once they've exchanged fire, the Home Guard withdraws, leaving behind more broken bodies and blood spilled onto the street from the innocents than the gunmen, but this crucial act having been won. It's a small moment, one of many that take place on this day, and it serves a visceral evidence on the chaos gripping the streets, in the Provisional Government's gathering strength massacres pooling blood everywhere. But it's not enough. After having given his food over to that starving young woman and watching her give it, in turn, to her starving child, there's something in Valeri that knows what must be done. Their de facto leader, Sandra Simpson, listens in the aftermath of their latest attack, while Valeri and Tonya plead the case for raiding a nearby warehouse. But Sister Simpson won't have it, saying to them, "that place is too well-guarded. We can fight, and we must fight, but we must pick our battles wherever we can. These are our orders." As Sister Simpson goes on to say, they've formed a single unit under her command, an ad hoc assembly of gunmen united into a force. Now, she says, they must link up with the Popular Front's forces elsewhere in the country, in its strongholds in the north and northwest of England. "We can't succeed here," she says, "but when we form a greater whole, we can overthrow the Provisional Government and bring liberation to the working men of this country." There's more, there's always more, but in their improvised encampment Valeri and Tonya realize they have little choice but to accept this reality for the time being. Valeri, for his part, ruminates in a rare moment of peace and quiet on the course laid out before them. Still Michael O'Connor is there, studying behind Sister Simpson, eagerly taking in everything she says. She uses terms like 'trade unionism' and 'economism,' terms Valeri might think himself familiar with but which he must now learn new and challenging meanings for. Although Valeri still looks on the younger Michael with a kind of subtle antipathy, his disdain has dulled. Valeri can't know it, but this is due to the influence of the dark essence on his heart. When next they're in action, Michael saves Valeri's life, the younger rebel shooting dead a Home Guard trooper only moments before the latter could shoot Valeri. In the aftermath, it seems Michael couldn't believe what he's done. (It's the first time Michael has been personally responsible for killing an enemy). Approaching him, Valeri says, "you're turning into a good fighter." He pauses before saying, "thank you." But the younger Michael only looks on Valeri with a kind of uncertainty, saying, "we've got to keep moving." It occurs to Valeri the younger Michael might not know what to say.

"If we don't take the chance when we have it," says Valeri, later, after Sister Simpson has decided to put down for the night, "then it might never come again." Although Tonya has her say, she leaves out her knowledge that Valeri only wants a blaze of glory, even after all that's happened still that adolescent instinct controlling his thoughts. But now, he's in the company not of the rebellious but rebels, in this new unit finding himself among steadier hands who can help him grow into what he's to become. It's hard to explain exactly when they became a coherent fighting unit; in fact, there was no one moment when they coalesced around themselves. It certainly wasn't when the residents of the old Dominion Courts fought off the attacks by the Home Guard on their apartment block turned fortress. No, as they prepare to attack a warehouse filled with food, less two men than when they'd hatched their plan only a week earlier, it becomes readily apparent to Valeri and Tonya theirs is something greater, from the way they can agree to put aside their differences, for now, without having to use words to speak. The firm-jawed looks they exchange declare among themselves a burgeoning solidarity, given to them without even their knowledge by the dark essence that's all around them at all times. In the darkness of the night, Valeri grips his rifle by the barrel and readies himself for the attack, even as across London and all around Britain the attack's already begun. But Valeri doesn't take right away to the life of the paramilitary soldier he's become, finding it difficult at times to concentrate on the future with his thoughts so often stuck in the past. Even after all that's happened, all the action he's seen in so short a time, he still thinks from time to time of the life he used to have, as if he could ever have it back. When next Valeri grips his rifle tight and fires at hostile Home Guard troopers, he keeps, in the back of his mind, a thought spared for his lover, Sydney Harrington. Although it's been a long time since they'd last seen each other, since he'd last held her in his arms, he still misses her, as though she's only just been taken from him.

Roving gangs attack survivors in the countryside, the few army units which had defected early on to the rebel Elijah and his Popular Front finding themselves under constant fire. At times, it's hard to imagine Britain is not yet in a state of civil war. At times, it seems as though there's a constant state of emergency with workers all across Britain on strike at all times, with no one left to do the work of keeping the country at war. Even after the recent wildcat strikes have ended, at all times there's workers walking off the job somewhere in Britain. But this is by design. While Valeri finds himself learning to be a true revolutionary, there're others who only try to survive. The young man Miles, meanwhile, has struggled all his life simply to stay alive, and it's in the struggle to stay alive that he finds himself living in his element. But when the Home Guard troops round him up with a group of other layabouts and press them into service in the still-extant Labour Brigades, he finds himself under the heel of the enemy. The threat of a rifle's muzzle pressed against the back of his neck is enough to keep him in line, for now, even as he thinks of the old life he never lived. He's more like the typical youths of his day than he would care to imagine, consigned by forces much greater than him to the despair of unemployment even in time of war. He lives in London, not far from the very spot where Valeri and the others had withdrawn in the face of overwhelming assault. He works, today, with around thirty others in restoring power to the recently-seized liberated zone, some local apparatchik having taken it on himself to try at it. But it's a futile endeavour, the Home Guard troops to come through this area again in a few days, searching for more rebels, on finding none simply killing whoever they find. But when Miles and the rest of the work unit are made to come back sometime later, they're made to have at it again. When Miles stops halfway through the day's work to take a drink of water, he's approached by one of Home Guard troops watching them. The trooper says, "you've been slacking off all day," before drawing his pistol. Miles drops his bottle of water and raises his hands to cover his face. The trooper crashes the butt of his pistol across Miles' face. "Get back to work," says the trooper, standing over Miles, before turning and walking away. The Home Guard draws on so many men like this trooper, undisciplined, poorly-trained, still wearing civilian clothes, distinguishable from those they torment only by the blue bands on their upper arms and by the weapons they carry.

But as the rebels fight and claw their way across the city, young men like Miles aren't given to their cause, not so readily. Miles is with the others in their apartment block, later, when he says, "if the war ever stops then we'll all have a chance to be something." They're in a communal area, watching one of the few screens left in their block. And among the others who work in their particular Labour Brigade, there's a silent agreement. The next time Miles is mustered into the streets to perform backbreaking manual labour, he thinks to stand up to the guard who assaulted him, but the guard doesn't show. He doesn't know it, can't know it, but the guard has been killed when a leftover bomb from the recent rebel offensive finally blew. But there's more at stake here than the lives of a few malcontents and the cruelty of the troopers who terrorize them. While the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front prepare for their next wave of attacks, rivals for the loyalties of working men prepare for their own rising. Assemblies meet in Edinburgh, Cardiff, even Belfast, with smaller alternate assemblies meeting in Inverness, Swansea, even Derry, countless assemblies smaller still in cities and towns all over Britain. Although this civil strife has been brewing for some time, the ethnic and nationalist sentiments are only now beginning to coalesce into a hundred-and-one movements, each seeking its own way through to a future even as they're all stuck firmly in the past. For Valeri, Tonya, and the others given to the rebel Elijah's war, the rise of democracy can't come soon enough. But whenever the rebel Elijah looks ahead into the future, he must come to grips with the loyalties of the workers divided among a hundred-and-one kings, with many turned against him even as he seeks their own liberation. In the heart of every worker there lies a yearning for mastery of his own destiny, and from this yearning springs a craving for a democracy the likes of which no one has ever seen. If we must aspire to a new world, Elijah knows, then we must be willing to persist through the agony meted out upon us by they who would deem themselves our masters. Amid this state of anarchy, there's still an order which persists, the life we'd once lived subsisting on the delusions of a lifetime spent chasing a dream which can never be. Attitudes can't be changed in the time it takes a people to rise against their enemies, against their masters, with even the basic longing for a new tomorrow inadequate to inspire them to overcome so many hundreds of years of tradition and ritual. This is where Miles finds himself, mustered into service again under threat of execution, working himself tired and sore putting up fortifications even as there's gunfire breaking out all around him.

It seems the Home Guard troops who would threaten him are more concerned with forcing him to work than they are in facing down their enemy, as soon as the chattering of gunfire ceases they draw back onto the streets and order him on. No longer working in the restaurant for scraps of food, now he forces himself through hours of hard labour only to be fed scraps twice a day. After erecting a fence, he stops to mop the sweat and dirt from his brow, only to be told by his fellow worker who says, "if you stop working again they'll cut us both loose," to which Miles can only nod and put himself back at it. All the while a Home Guard trooper stands watch, only happening to be looking the other way. The manager at the restaurant turned him in, though he can't know it, needing fewer workers and taking advantage of the Home Guard's demands for labour to avoid being seen to cast young men out onto the street. Even still, the war's on. Apartment blocks burn, seemingly the same blocks burned to the ground again and again, a third of the stars falling from the sky when the enemy's bombers range over British skies, then a third falling again, over the heads of Valeri the nightly blackouts, sometimes planned, sometimes not, seeming to reveal all the stars mixed in freely with the bursts of light coming from the engines of so many fighters and bombers streaking overhead. But Valeri is not a hero, feeling as he does the call to revolt against injustice even as he's come to drown in a rapidly deepening pool of his own self-doubt. No more the young man given to intemperate outbursts, in the months since their unceremonious expulsion from the old Dominion Courts he's become something more. Among his group there're new recruits, their ranks swelled by those fleeing the burning of their homes by the Home Guard, but also by sectarian paramilitaries, gangs of roving youths, even the odd Russian missile falling on the city. As the sewers rattle from the bursting of bombs in the streets, they lick their wounds. These are the most pathetic and wretched from among the working class districts, the women beaten and spat on, the men enslaved. But their time is soon to come. As Valeri, Tonya, and all the others prepare to seize a store of food, there're other forces at work. These forces, they've been lingering in the background for a long time, only to emerge at exactly the right moment. With the Home Guard's ill-fated offensive, these killings begin, a new wave of terror unleashing itself upon the country.

Though there were many killings, even massacres, in the months, the years leading up to this, it's only now that the old sectarian tensions erupt in an impossible display of hatred and recrimination. This will influence the coming general strike, the Provisional Government's inability to provide even a modicum of security contributing to its eventual downfall even now, in its moment of unassailable strength. Even as the old order has all but completely disintegrated, there remains the odd man out who persists in his delusion, his example deceiving others in turn to regard the revolution as but a passing phase, a difficult time to be seen through rather than the rising of a new world order. But soon, a new figure emerges from the chaos to promise order for all who live on the streets. His name's Damian, just Damian, and he commands forces brighter than the whitest of lights in the middle of a polar summer's night. Throughout history he'd been known by many names, and in this deeply confusing, disorienting time we know him as the bringer of light. Guided by his basest desires, he's come to believe in the legend of his own destiny, as the liar is so given to lies grandiose and elaborate that he begins not only to believe his lies but that he's always believed in them. But as the streets flounder beneath a deluge of rapidly darkening blood, it's clear Damian is the force behind this new and brutal phase of the working man's revolution, countering the influence of the dark essence with an essence of light, flowing through him, commanded by him. Damian is seemingly a perfect counterpart to the rebel Elijah, but he's a fraud, an illusion, a counterfeit who would deceive rather than enlighten.

No one knows where Damian came from; though he must've come from somewhere, even he can't recall anything before his emergence in the here and now. At a glance he might seem a rebel not altogether unlike our Elijah, given as he is to rallying crowds to do his bidding. But there marks a key difference between the rebel Elijah and this new character Damian. Where the rebel Elijah spreads knowledge, the counterfeit rebel Damian spreads a perverted kind of anti-knowledge, not ignorance but a highly seductive and selective version of the forbidden gospel which the rebel Elijah is come to spread. The emergence of Damian as a central figure in this war for the future marks the exact moment in which the page turns from one era to the next, although few will ever know it. But even Damian answers to someone, loyal as he is to the cause of his own enrichment, to his desires whether subtle or gross. In fact, Damian has been here all along, in the shadows, behind the scenes, manipulating events with the deftest of touches, frustrating the campaign of the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front. Actually, Damian once counted himself among Elijah's closest disciples, on the very committee which governed the union between the Worker's Party and the People's Party. Although Damian remains with Elijah, for now, his turn against the rebel is inevitable.

Meanwhile, events in the world at large continue to mount, the devilishly clever Chinese manoeuvring their considerable interests against the bitterly divided and intensely isolationist Americans. Though we fixate on events in Britain and, to a lesser extent, throughout Europe, know that all the world's a stage for this frightening and dramatic episode in our history. It's impossible to foresee where this will all lead, even as there are men around the world who believe they can tame the forces unleashed by so many years, decades, even centuries of hatred and recrimination, with only the rebel Elijah able to discern the coming storm. It's a storm which should dwarf all that's come before it, with only the passage of so much time in so short a span to point a way through to the future. But even the rebel Elijah can't know the future in the way any of us could know the past; he can only sense it, he can only bring his intuition to bear on it, guided as he is by vague sensations imparted to him by the dark essence which guides us all. Whether we realize it or not, whether we accept it or not, each of us is hurting towards a future in which pain and suffering will eclipse any we've known. The rebel Elijah promises his disciples as much; still they follow him, knowing as they do that his is the way through to the future.

17. Vengeance

In this tentative, in-between time, the skies darken and the winds howl, an unseasonable storm seeming to settle at exactly the moment when the rebel Elijah looks to the sky and questions his calling to the path of righteousness. And the dark essence which flows all around him responds with a furious vengeance, he storm intensifying, unleashing bolts of lightning that seem to burn Elijah's face with an impossible heat. It's been only several months since the old Parliament fell and the Provisional Government rose in its place, fifteen years still since that failed rising which set us all on a collision course with our history's inevitable end, but it seems to men like Patrick O'Sullivan like it's been all his life. He lives not far outside the southern reaches of the Birmingham metropolitan area. Armed only with the implements of his work, wrenches, hammers, pliers, and screwdrivers, Patrick is given to the revolutionary cause only by the thrumming of a constant pulse deep inside his heart. For Patrick is no ordinary worker, not like the thousands upon thousands already given to the budding revolutionary cause but also unlike the millions who've yet to pick a side. And in the night, it always happens in the night, there's the sound of voices crying out followed by the crack of gunfire, then voices crying out still. But on this night it's not only the Home Guard's troops indulging in the passions of anger and hatred. In Patrick's moment of decision, he takes to the side of the road and says to a young man, "give me a minute," then looks up and down the street before saying, "it's time we fought back." But he says this knowing they've been fighting back for so long as there's been a fight to be had, with the dozens of workers and dozens more layabouts around the block taking to the streets, defying not the Home Guard's guns but the hunger in their stomachs, the fatigue in their nerves, even the pain from their flesh cut open and their bones broken to stand. Although the rebel's general strike has yet to begin, here working men fight using whatever tools they can muster, without tools fighting even with bare hands and voices shouted hoarse. "Are you standing your ground?" asks his friend, a man named Jordan, "or are you only catching your breath before running some more?" The question perplexes Patrick even as it enrages him, the stale air gulping in and out of his lungs with each breath leaving him at a loss for words. It's a fanatical, fantastical moment, with the blood pumping through Patrick's veins and his heart thumping against his chest as though it's the first time in his life he's ever felt truly alive.

Although the nights pass in this tentative, in-between time, with the rebel Elijah given to questioning his calling to the path of righteousness it seems as though the nights last forever. Following the Popular Front's defeat in their recent offensive and their failure to inspire an uprising, Elijah spends his days ministering to the needs of his disciples in the Popular Front and his nights in seclusion consulting with the dark essence. But every moment he questions his calling to the path of righteousness, the dark essence which flows all around him responds with that furious vengeance, through the weeks the skies fill with an unseasonable storm, the winds howling louder and the bolts of lightning burn hotter against his face. Soon the pilots of Mobius Squadron take to the skies again, their new comrades in the Popular Front having happened across a store of aviation fuel and presented it to them for immediate use. In flight, the three of them strike a loose formation as they rise over the North Sea, again heading east, searching for incoming bombers they know might not be there. For his part, Hatfield's unsure what to think of their mission. The skies over the North Sea are contested airspace, with the Russians penetrating from the east, the loyalist Royal Air Force from the southwest, and a vast array of different factions coming from the north and the northwest. Below there's only the rough waters of the sea, even from altitude the whitecaps breaking in the wind. "Captain!" shouts Pilot Parker, "one o'clock, high!" Streaking in from the east are more Russians, some at altitude, some close to the sea, in very loose formations all making speed. The Russians are on radar, but the signals given on Mobius Squadron's scopes are erratic. Their commanders in the Popular Front have told them to shoot down any Russians they come across, all the Russians they can, to not stop shooting until their missiles and cannon shells are all expended. As Hatfield throws the throttle open and ascends to meet the oncoming Russian fighters, he knows they're outnumbered, but he doesn't care.

With the final preparations for the general strike underway, we're only weeks away from nearly every working man across Britain walking off the job and in so walking off bringing the hated Provisional Government to its knees. Patrick is among them, yes, but with one critical characteristic separating him from all the rest: he's destined to be one of the rebel Elijah's strongest and most loyal disciples. Although Patrick has not yet met Elijah, nor is Elijah aware that Patrick struggles in the street against the Home Guard's troops, there's between them bond unspoken but acutely felt. After engaging the Russians, the three surviving pilots of Mobius Squadron gave a good account of themselves but were unable to stave off this attack. Days later, after losing none of their own but also accounting for no Russians down in that engagement, the pilots of Mobius Squadron are stood down again. This time it's owing to a lack of spare parts, each of their three aircraft experiencing some kind of mechanical failure. But this is no time for any of the three pilots to rest, the Popular Front's local leaders telling them to be prepared to abandon their base at any time. They say the Home Guard is in the midst of a new offensive aimed square at the Popular Front's strongholds in the post-industrial wastelands, the north and west of England. To Hatfield this time seems already indistinguishable from outright civil war, but still he holds out hope for those who still fly the Union Jack, that they could be won over, that the Popular Front's burgeoning revolution can win through. At their airbase in the Midlands, pilots Hatfield, Parker, and Wright try at fixing their aircraft without the spare parts they need. But then there's a siren sounding, followed by the burst of explosions and the soaring of jet engines. "We're under attack!" comes a young man, shouting. But it's not the Royal Air Force that's coming after them. It's the Russians, staging a low-level attack, sneaking in under the radar. "This isn't right," says Parker. Hatfield and Wright agree. It's over almost as soon as it started, leaving smoking craters and wrecked buildings across the base and in the city outside.

In the midst of this current wave of raids by the Home Guard's troops, Patrick and his small band of workers seize the implements of their work, using them not to cease work as will be the case for many in the coming general strike but to attack the enemy, the hated enemy. With his feet striking the pavement and his heart thumping hard against his chest, Patrick feels the brimming anger in his soul for the justice of vengeance. To his fellow working men in the street, he shouts, "no fear!" And his fellow working men all shout back, "no fear," in perfect unison, but for the stomping of a hundred feet against the street and the chattering of distant gunfire. At their airbase in the Midlands, the pilots of Mobius Squadron take stock in the days after that surprise Russian air attack. The three fighters they'd had were in hardened shelters, which withstood the attack. But without spare parts, ammunition, or adequate fuel, they're little more than heaps of metal. "What happens to our families?" asks Hatfield, speaking as he, Parker, and Wright are to some of the Popular Front's men. "I know I might not see my boyfriend again," says Parker, "but I want to know if he's okay." And Wright interjects to say, "I haven't been able to get hold of my sister in weeks." The Popular Front's men express similar concerns, but already have learned to withstand the thrumming of their heartstrings. The pilots are in agreement, though, that they regret nothing in their turn to the cause of the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front. Although they commiserate among themselves over the loss of their loved ones, all three of them would do it again. But there's more to it than that. There's always more to it than that. When the three are mustered in with a group of rebel gunmen a week or so later, they learn they're to be sent to man the city's defenses against another attack by the Home Guard, still the distinction between revolution and civil war seeming, to Hatfield, to blur more with each passing week. They're no infantrymen, but the pilots of Mobius Squadron determine to serve as they've been asked, even as they still confront their own doubts about the burgeoning revolution and their place in it.

But when Patrick sees through the smoke and fire he imagines in the distance an image, a ghostly visage of the woman he'd once loved but who was cruelly taken from him not by the Home Guards bullets or by the Russians' bombs, no, but by the enemy gangs pledging fealty to sectarian lines. This imagining only drives Patrick into the waiting arms of the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front, offering as they do a respite from the hatred of working man for one another, in unity against a common foe. But it's not that simple. It's never that simple. In realizing that he's got little left to lose, Patrick, and all men like him, can't acknowledge the internal debate within them, not within their minds but within their bodies and souls, the blood of a thousand generations mixing in their veins to produce the quixotic and noxious cocktail that is theirs, only theirs. Patrick looks to his own past, filled as it is with hopelessness and despair. But each armed clash only draws more men to take up arms, whether they pledge to follow the banner of Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front or one of the many paramilitaries pledging loyalty to the just-as-many factions springing into being across Britain. Already the nationalists are revealing the true opportunism in their character; as the last vestiges of the old United Kingdom are swept aside, the temptation of raw feeling proving an insurmountable obstacle. But while Patrick looks to his own past, the three pilots of what'd been Mobius Squadron grapple with their own futures, littered as their futures are with only struggle and death. They've not yet become intimately familiar with the forbidden gospel as disseminated by the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front. But after the three remaining pilots of Mobius Squadron have found themselves in with a band of rebel fighters, they're afforded an opportunity to acquaint themselves with the way of the warrior. After their last flight, Hatfield had thought he'd never sit in the pilot's seat again. But now he's certain of it, sitting as he is with pilots Parker and Wright in the back of an old church, the church old but not disused. At the pulpit, the pastor engages in a fiery sermon denouncing the Provisional Government and calling for, "all power to the Front!" This is a seminal moment for Hatfield and the others, with the former Captain soon called to the podium, unsure what to say, but sure how to say it. Recounting the flights, the interceptions of Russian bombers, the last orders they were given by their former superiors in His Majesty's Royal Air Force to fire on rebel ships, the decision they'd made as a squadron, as brothers to defy the hated Provisional Government and give themselves over to the Popular Front. In truth, Hatfield, like Parker and Wright, still has his own doubts, doubts in himself and in the path they've chosen. Later in the evening, when they're called to action again, Hatfield will have the chance anew to assert the greater struggle in himself. At work is a new Home Guard offensive, soon to push the Popular Front out of its stronghold and reassert control of the wayward north and northwest.

But all this is only a fleeting moment against the mounting of events. Although the rebel Elijah has amassed his cabal of disciples and in turn an army of devoted followers both armed and unarmed, still the conspiracy against them is strong. From a shop in the centre of the old industrial heartland of England there rises a hope for the future, in the narrow chasm between one row of shophouses and the next an elderly man rising from his cube of a flat to see the last day before the end of the world. His name's not important, but we'll call him Forrest, Forrest MacDonald, and in the final half-moment before he dies on this very day he sees the momentum of the Popular Front reveal itself. In the midst of a pitched street battle between youths hurling missiles and a few Home Guard troops, he's set upon by the armed men wielding truncheons and brandishing rifles. But it's not yet time. After losing men to the cracking of gunfire, the street clears, leaving a lost cause in desperate search of a vessel through which to grant itself expression, Forrest McDonald on the pavement bleeding out slow, painfully, without hope for a new tomorrow. While the rattling of gunfire and the bursting of bombs draws further and further afield in the night, all Forrest can hear is the bleating of a lamb's cry as he waits for the inevitable. What memories could this young man have? What loved ones could he be leaving behind? What loved ones could he be reuniting with after a long and painful separation? It's not to be the last time we've wondered on these facts, nor is it the first, instead a maelstrom of emotion surging through Forrest's nearly lifeless body at exactly the right moment to create in him a joined space, disregarding the laws of this world to allow the rebel Elijah in. It's nothing specific; in the night, as the rebel Elijah is ensconced in a prison made of his own self-doubt, of his own questioning of the inevitability laid out before him, a connection is made between the dead young man in the street and the rebel Elijah himself. A shiver takes hold. There's death, and there's life. As cruel and disturbing as it may be to acknowledge this openly, death can unite all, through the rebel Elijah whoever should make use of what time they have in this world receiving everlasting life in the form of a world changed forever.

But while the rebel Elijah seeks a way through the wilderness and on into the brightness of a new day's dawn, across the country Valeri, Tonya, and the others push their way into the warehouse they'd assaulted, finding it filled with strategic materials, food and clothing among them but in disappointingly low quantities. Still, it's enough. Although it might be too late for Forrest and so many others like him, as Valeri hurls packages of food to starving mothers and fathers he can't help but feel the surging of a renewed vigour through every part of him, as though the surging of adrenaline is renewed with each act of liberation. As he turns, one moment, to take one of the last packages of dried food, he says to Tonya, "and this is only the beginning." For her part, Tonya nods and says, "you have earned my trust and respect," then hands out a tin herself to a pale and ghostly figure who looks a frail assortment of skin and bones. And their de facto leader, the rebel Sandra Simpson ensures the banner of the Popular Front is visible to all, even as the rattling of gunfire and the bursting of bombs in the distance plays a soundtrack of dull and deafening death all the while. Even as the rebel Elijah is filled with an agonizing and paralyzing doubt, his disciples in the Popular Front are carrying out his edicts, even if they don't know what those edicts are. In the confusing, disjointed in-between time after the Popular Front's decisive defeat in its recent wave of attacks but before the Home Guard brings under control the north and northwest of England, these are moments which should combine into a towering rage that must consume all and spare none, propelling the rebel Elijah to an ultimate victory even as he dwells in the darkest of defeats. But enough of this, for now; we look further afield, deep into the heart of darkness, for it's in evil's lair that the next sequence of events should unravel.

At dawn's first light on the morning before the general strike is set to begin, the Home Guard's troops move in. Attacking the union halls, the churches, the universities, the Home Guard's troops are met neither with passive compliance nor with passionate resistance. Forrest's among those taken in, but not right away, finding himself with the others at his shop in a pitched battle with the Home Guard's troops. "Don't come here," he says, wielding a banner like a club, "and leave us alone!" After he's kept burning behind his eyes the lingering stare of a dead man walking. "It's too late for you," he says, confronting the lead trooper. There's the cracking of gunfire and the exaggerated thumping of bodies falling limp to the ground. In the confusion, the building catches fire, and the Home Guard troops withdraw to leave it to burn. In the back of the lorry Forrest sits, his face bloodied, his arm broken, he and the dozens of others taken in on this night to be sped to their deaths. Some of their deaths will come quickly, mercifully by the barrel of some trooper's gun, others slowly, painfully, by starvation or neglect, by the beating of a dozen blows against their heads. It's all a sham, it's all a fraud, it's all aimed at sowing terror among those who've been dulled to terror a long time ago. It's done out of habit, the forces loyal to the way of things unknowing of anything but the truncheon brought down on anyone who would step out of line. In the night, it always happens in the night, the dark essence watches from its secret hiding spot, hidden in plain sight, occupying as the dark essence does every single point of existence around us all even as it's confined to the impossibly narrow space between spaces.

Forrest's already dead, but in death he achieves more than any man ever could in life. And in this narrow, obscure corner of England where Forrest McDonald's body lies crumpled against a wall, the dark essence which guides the revolution experiences an intense, burning pain, seeming at once to burn with the intensity of a hot winter's night. After handing out packages of food, Valeri, Tonya, and all the others find there's nothing left for them, but this is by design. As Sandra Simpson addresses the group in the shelter of the now-empty warehouse, she says, "now this is the essence of the struggle we face, to disregard our own well-being and fight for all that is good and true, for the working man always." And when it's that small amount of time after their gathering but before they must abandon the warehouse, Valeri and Tonya take their time. "I'm always hungry," says Tonya. "As am I," says Valeri, "and we must keep going." Even in these times Valeri can't help but look back on the life he's lived, at the age of around thirty having tried so many different things yet still left so many more untried. If his mother and father could see him, could be with him in form and not only in spirit, they might offer something cautious yet reassuring. Although they, too, were mired in the hopeless poverty that's enslaved many millions of Britons for so long, still his mother and father fought tirelessly for him, with only the question of why they'd seen fit to leave him confused and alone, forever.

But the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front have anticipated this move, too, and they know what their response must be. From within his hideout in a homeless camp, or the sewers, or even on the top floor of a very tall building somewhere in the heart of London, the rebel Elijah watches, seemingly everywhere at once as only he can be. But while he looks on the fires of liberation burning into the night, the rebel Elijah seeks atonement for his doubts. The dark essence, though, seethes with an unburned rage, seeming to intensify the hotness against Elijah's exposed skin with every moment that passes. Although Elijah's disciples in the Popular Front seek his guidance in these trying times, following their decisive defeat in their recent offensive the rebel Elijah directs them to follow his previous edicts before seeking in solitude the solace of a thousandth night's voice. Across the country, the nights seem to last much longer than before to Valeri, even as he sleeps only in fits and bursts as he'd slept in Dominion Courts. After rising in the middle of the night, one night, Valeri finds Tonya standing guard outside the front of the warehouse they'd raided. She says to him, "it's strange how the weather can turn so quickly," without even looking back knowing it's him. "A sign of the times, perhaps," Valeri says. "Perhaps," she says, nodding slightly, still without looking at him. But the sum of Valeri's experiences in his journey from ill-mannered malcontent to soldier of the revolution is not yet complete, if ever it could be. After having taken in with a band of rebel fighters, he and the other survivors from their uprising in the working class blocks now find themselves facing death behind every corner, hiding in every shadow. Being no soldier, Valeri has been receiving a harsh instruction, learning not by studying books but by forcing themselves through practice. As Valeri speaks with Tonya, in the middle of the night, he begins to become open to the idea that their struggle, far from being the product of an unlikely set of improbably circumstances, was, in fact, the only possible sequence of events, all along.

Although Valeri doesn't intrude upon her thoughts further, already the unspoken bond between them radiates an understanding equally unspoken but acutely felt. As Valeri thinks on the past, Tonya thinks on the future, the two friends, neighbours on opposite faces of the same page. There's the rattling of distant gunfire, and Valeri thinks on his mentor, Mark Murray, the man who'd shown him so much kindness and fraternity when he was little more than a troubled youth and who seemed to disappear so suddenly, so abruptly. There's the bursting of bombs to rattle the ground gently, and Tonya thinks on the next time they'll have at the enemy, craving as she does the chance at vengeance for the taking away of the life she'd never had a chance at. By now, the crowds who'd eagerly received the food they seized have dispersed, leaving only a solitary band of fighters to occupy a vast and empty shell of a building, darkened permanently by the power cuts and affording only a temporary respite from the fires of liberation burning in the street. Here, they'll wait, for now, in the near future to resume their push into the heart of darkness, into Greater London, until then feeling only a void seem to encompass them all. But events are afoot. Although Valeri doesn't know it, their uprising, the seizure of their own homes followed by the Home Guard's recapture, even the massacre of so many tens of thousands were all steps on the path he's taking. But when Valeri's put through the experience of one exchange of fire with the Home Guard, then another, then another, he begins to accumulate experiences like scars.

At a railyard in Swansea, a young woman named Justine Clarke works her last shift before the coming general strike, acutely aware as she is that she may never work again, not only at the railyard but anywhere. Every day she's seen death visit those very streets which she's about to take with many of her brothers and sisters. Although she might seek the kind of selflessness needed to cast her lot in with the rebels and their sympathizers in union, she can't quite bring herself to take up arms with them. After all we've seen, after all we've been through together, it mightn't seem possible for ordinary working men and women to turn their backs on so many years, so many lifetimes of hard work and a deep-seated commitment to discipline. In this deeply confusing, disjointed in-between time, the ordinary man seems unable to make sense of anything. Whenever Justine Clarke stops, she feels pain in the back of her neck, in her veins, in the very air she breathes. "Are you dead yet?" asks her fellow railyard worker. "I need to eat," says Justine, "and so do my family." There aren't any trains coming in tonight, but several are scheduled for tomorrow, each of them carrying a load of armaments, fuel, and foodstuffs, destined not for the starving men in the streets but for the army fighting on the continent, in Poland and Eastern Ukraine against the Russians. As Justine works, she tries her best to overcome the hunger and the pain gnawing at her innards, but she can only stand the pain for so long. After the end of her last shift before the general strike is set to begin, Justine looks back at the station she'd worked at for the past few years, feeling the beginnings of a lingering regret. "Don't feel so bad," says her fellow railyard worker. "I don't," says Justine, "but I do wish I could see my son again. I miss him so dearly." Her son is on the continent, serving in the British Army somewhere in Poland, last she'd heard. And although she'll never hear of him again, there's a dulled, muted kind of certainty in her knowledge of his fate, as though not knowing whether her own son is alive or dead could be an easier burden to bear than having to forever search for a body that isn't there.

As with the millions of other workers across Britain and all around Europe, these striking workers, the Justines and the Forrests and the Michelles of the world, these are the ordinary workers who feel ensconced within desperation and the hopelessness of their own lives. Immersed for as long as any of them can remember in the deepest and darkest despair, each sees their only hope in the fires of liberation burning, in the promise offered by the rebel Elijah and his Popular Front. But not all are like them. Whenever Valeri and Tonya stop for a moment, only a moment, to lick their wounds and take stock of what they've got left, there's the presence of a vast and almost-imperceptible feeling that not all is as it seems. It's unsettling to Valeri, which seems like an odd thing given all the death and the decaying stench of rotten and still-rotting flesh all around him. But as they head out on watch, again together, Valeri says to Tonya, "I feel it too." And Tonya, she nods, then says, "it's coming." Theirs is not some mystical power of premonition but a natural sort of intuition granted to them by a force at the beck and call of the rebel Elijah, if only he should see through his present predicament, his present loss of faith and with through the day. But he's tired, they're all tired. As Valeri and Tonya walk along the disused rail line with the others, suddenly there's the eruption of gunfire ahead. Valeri jumps to one side of the rail line, Tonya to the other. Valeri raises his rifle and fires, two, then three more rounds cracking through the air. But then his rifle clicks empty. He realizes Tonya has no weapon. Many of their fighters have no firearms or ammunition, too many days having passed since they'd last scavenged either from corpses, burnt-out shops or vehicles, or outright stolen them. But so many Home Guard troops are also without armaments, in wartime Britain nearly all ammunition and firearms diverted either to the army on the continent or to certain private stores. Valeri dives for cover, clutching his rifle, thinking to use it as a club if the enemy should overwhelm them. But this battle is over quickly, as nearly all such battles are, the brief exchange of fire seeming at first to cause no casualties. But it turns out one young rebel has been shot dead, two more wounded. Valeri and Tonya are each given some of the dead rebel's ammunition, while the two wounded walk.

In the end, the Provisional Government will prove too weak and inept, the Home Guard too poorly led and equipped to stop what must come. No more than a few hours are left until the general strike is set to begin, and in those hours a sense of inevitability seems to invade the very streets on which so much blood has been shed, on which so much blood has yet to be shed. If the sight of bodies, dead and dying, should give pause to anyone in the grips of a heated passion, then all that matters is carrying on the fight for one more day. As each day gives way to the next, and the day after that, and the day after that, the Provisional Government's weakness and ineptitude only seems to grow its impossible strength. The Home Guard troopers are everywhere, even in greater numbers than ever before. Even if the Popular Front offensive is petering out, still the strain of the Popular Front's offensive makes itself acutely felt on the hated Provisional Government, with the ordinary men looking for an outlet, provided only by the crashing of a hard night's rain against the streets. During a lull in the action, Valeri and Tonya are searching through the rubble of another warehouse for something, anything at all that should even vaguely resemble food. Most of the others stand by, while a few search other buildings for food. "Keep looking," says Tonya, after a search through a kitchen reveals nothing. But Valeri says, after they've found a box filled with tins of food, "I'm not always sure we'll be able to scrounge our food from places like this." They exchange a quick look which continues their last conversation, through the days and through the nights the same thread needling, weaving in and out of the moment like a single loose piece of thread rapidly undoing the richest and oldest of tapestries. "Are you there?" asks Valeri. "I'm here," says Tonya, "and I'm coming back now." They eat, that night, though they may not eat the next, each meal confronting them with the possibility it might be their last. "We're going to get on the move soon," announces their leader, Sister Simpson, "there's enemy forces headed in our direction." This time, when Valeri shoulders his rifle and steels his innards against the coming battle, he finds he can't seek the same solace as he once had in the memory of his dead mother and father. There are others just like Justine and Forrest, millions of others on the cusp of realizing their instinctive, subconscious revolutionary ambitions, each needing only the gentlest of nudges to send them all careening over the edge and into the darkness of the darkest abyss below. In the blackness of the night, Valeri and Tonya find their role calling them, a call irresistible.

A row of houses reach along the side of the street, on the other side a wrought-iron fence running along the side of what looks like an urban park. In the darkness of the night, Valeri can see the faintest outline of people huddled in the bush, as if to hide from the sight of anyone who carries a rifle. It recalls a time in Valeri's life not all that long ago when he was as any other worker, concerned with paying his rent on time, with keeping a roof over his head and food on his table, given during the days to imagining himself something other than what he was. Even Valeri was in love once, in love given to adolescent notions like seeing his kindred spirit in a woman. Sometimes, he looks back on the life he'd led as a civilian, working at that shop for a pittance hardly enough to feed and clothe himself. Change, it seems, doesn't come easily to men like him, forced as he's been by circumstance to become something entirely unlike what he was before. He wonders. Would Hannah recognize him? Would Sydney? Maria? It was only some months ago that he'd last seen those women, and he believes, fully believes they must all be alive somewhere. But the rebels under Sister Simpson don't always need to scrounge for food in dumpsters, sometimes finding clusters of working class people who volunteer them food despite their own impoverishment, still other times taking food at gunpoint from reluctant shopkeepers or from the backs of lorries. Still, as they edge their way out of Greater London, they can never manage enough food to keep their stomachs from growling through most of the day and all through the night. It's something Valeri's become almost used to, from their time in Dominion Courts, as though the hunger has become like an old friend, a constant companion. As they reach a particular intersection, they come across a row of shops, pausing to look inside, the streets devoid of activity. But out of one shop comes a group of young men and women, one of them saying to Valeri, "please, take this," before offering them tins of food. Another among the group says, "use it to help your fight." And Valeri, with the others among their group approaching from behind, says to the young men and women, "your support is greatly appreciated," before adding, "with the hearts of people like you, our revolution can't fail." Sister Simpson looks on approvingly. But soon they must leave, before the Home Guard arrives.

In truth, they are, but each of them has made their own way forward through these times. In the darkness of the sewers, all seems to blend into the background's blackness, Valeri suddenly unable to recall anything more than a few days in the past. Moments earlier he'd fought through a dull haze and into the present day, as he trudges through a knee-deep sludge suddenly becoming acutely aware of himself in ways he never had been. This time, this time he has for careful and idle introspection, it strikes him immediately as crass and self-indulgent, in itself proof on his failure yet to move past himself. As though Tonya can read him, she steps up from behind him, puts a hand on his shoulder, and says, "they're all still alive, I think." But Valeri says only, "I don't know if that's good or not," before Sister Simpson can be heard to say, "all quiet until further notice!" Although they know only vaguely where they're going, almost all of them trudge forward willingly, following the lead of Brother Simpson deeper and deeper into the night. But as is the tendency of things in revolutionary Britain, not all is as it seems. Even after all they've been through, though, neither Valeri nor Tonya can let their personal disagreements rest, using lulls in the action to have at each other. "We should've stayed and fought to the death," Valeri often says. "We did the right thing by getting out while we could," Tonya often says. But neither fully believes the things they're saying to each other. Sometimes Valeri says, "if you think it's a good idea to run away from a fight then why are you still here?" Sometimes Tonya says, "if you want to go out in a blaze of glory then what's stopping you?" Hidden behind their repeated arguments is a tension left to slowly build even between conversations. Still, Valeri's jealous of Tonya and Roger, lovers having survived thus far to still have each other. Valeri, on the other hand, has no one, his life of mostly adolescent and impudent acting-out interspersed only with the occasional affair. Even Sydney Harrington, his most fondly remembered lover, must be elsewhere living her life, or so he thinks.

During a lull in the action aboard the Borealis, Dmitri finds himself with a rare moment to reflect on where he's been, what he's put himself through. Though his wife and young child are dead, he feels no guilt in having brought about their deaths, reassured as he is by the dark essence in him that true fault lies on the murderers who pulled the trigger. Still an uncomfortable silence seems to pervade every empty compartment, every open space throughout the ship's cavernous interior, a silence which invites tantalizing thoughts and subversive desires to invade. No one knows when the next battle might take place, and the uncertainty seems to induce an uneasiness into the men. In the mess hall on board, the food is rotten, the rations spoiled, still Dmitri forcing it down in order to set a good example to his brothers and sisters in crew. This wasn't what any of them had expected when they seized their ship and committed themselves to follow the banner of the Popular Front. In thunderous explosions and in the booming silence of the night it becomes clear to all that we can't ever stop fighting for what's right, no matter the cost. Although the Borealis is in poor condition, the frigate Nix is still better off, and it becomes an open but unspoken question whether they'll have to abandon the cruiser and take to the frigate. "Where do we go now?" asks Dmitri, in a rare moment of indecisiveness. He's not on the bridge but in the cruiser's navigation room, standing among some of the other crewmen. He's got a look of uncertainty on his face, when his lead hand Mason Smith enters the room. As though sensing the unease, Smith takes over, while Dmitri leaves to return to the bridge.

It may seem as though the forces here at work are lost amid the carnage and the chaos that's come to grip the country in so short a time, but still there're those little moments when the silence, the eerie, uncanny silence seems to reverberate on a frequency just above the range of human hearing, tempting us all to imagine we can hear it. But then there's the memories that recall the bursting of bombs and the rattling of gunfire in the distance to remind Dmitri and all the others on the pain and suffering in the streets, meted out by anyone who would oppose them in their quest for justice. As his colleague Smith attends to the men, Dmitri says, "this crew won't sit on the sidelines while good men die." And he means it, with all the determination of a veteran grizzled beyond his years. On the bridge, he snaps out orders, to the helm saying, "give me the best speed you can. If you have to run this ship apart, then run her apart!" It's quite the trick to see the men, those left still fighting even after all the death and destruction that's been visited on them, their energy, their spirit remaining unbroken even as their stomachs growl and their muscles burn in agony. "I see new contacts," says the radar operator, "directly ahead, surface ships." It's hard to see more than a few hundred metres away, but see the experienced operator does, seemingly able to extend the range of his radar by pure strength of will. "Give me a firing solution," says Dmitri, "and sound battlestations!" Soon the klaxon wails and all men aboard rush to their posts, the creaky, leaky old cruiser seeming to take on a new vitality, a new energy with each new battle, each new cheating of death. "Do you have any regrets?" asks Mason, not in the heat of battle but some days later after the imminent threat has passed but before the next threat should become imminent. "I do," says Dmitri, but he hesitates to share his thoughts even with the man who has come to be as his brother. "Speak freely," says Mason, "or don't speak at all." And so it is that Dmitri allows himself a moment of weakness, a moment of vulnerability he's learned in his short months in command not to show the crew. After so many short months of breathless action and hasty repairs, the ship all around them seems held together by the men's pure strength of will, and Dmitri is not yet grown to become the leader he knows the men elected him to be. Electing a ship's captain, in another time it might've seemed absurd, and in another time it'll seem absurd again. Although Dmitri seems like the first of many, we know this is but a confusing and disjointed in-between time, when the absurd becomes sublime but only briefly.

Before the failed rising fifteen years ago, the forbidden gospel of unilateral disengagement had come to find an audience, spreading throughout Britain. In the pubs, in the alleys, in the aged, falling-apart blocks and in the offices of welfare, the millions of workers too disenchanted with the way of things immediately took in with his learnings. But it wasn't by way of the screens that his learnings were spread, no, it was in the little half-conversations, the little moments shared by brothers and sisters, the word soon reaching all the way in the south of England where real power called home. A conspiracy soon formed, the elders in union colluding with the agents of the wealthy to frame Elijah for something, anything at all, and to use that something, anything as an excuse to remove him. But the conspirators soon found themselves pre-empted by the spontaneous rising of working men in Britain. It's not altogether unimportant how, but in this time Elijah came to experience the true character of the struggle to which he's been committed from birth, ensconced as he was in the rabble so held in contempt by the elders in union.

For weeks, the young Elijah took to the streets, standing in the bed of a parked lorry among a crowd of his brothers and sisters heralding the dawn of a new era. But it wasn't to be, not yet. Many of Elijah's disciples in this early time expected this to be his promised moment of liberation, but it wasn't to be. As the working man's early rising fell to the withering attacks of the British Army, the rebels in Elijah's hometown in the decaying, decrepit North of England held out longer than any others. Many were killed, but before surrendering their lives they gave a good account of themselves, forcing the Army's troops to win every block, every street, every patch of open ground. When it was over, Elijah was nowhere to be found, his person having seemingly disappeared even as his legend grew stronger and spread further than ever before. Now, in this second revolution, Valeri, along with Tonya, Roger, and all the others having only so recently taken in with the guerrillas of the Popular Front must now receive the forbidden gospel as they've already received it many times over. While preparations continue among the workers, whether freed or enslaved, whether employed or unemployed, the guerrillas of the Popular Front largely conserve their strength and avoid direct contact with the Home Guard's troops.

In the sewers, Valeri looks on while Tonya receives directions from their leader, Simpson, just Simpson. She's instructed them to refer to each other as 'brother' and as 'sister,' even going so far as to insist on being referred herself simply by the latter title. "...But Sister Simpson," says Tonya, "if we don't attack now, then why are we here?" And Simpson looks Tonya right in the eyes, holding the look just long enough to make the point acutely felt, then says, "you are not yet learned in the character of the struggle to which you have taken. You have all survived as far as you have because of the passion and intensity of your belief. But that isn't enough." Although Valeri is receptive to this new way of thinking, he looks over at his former neighbour, now fellow soldier Tonya, and sees in her shades of his former self. Still, the calming moment is interrupted by Tonya's insistence, as she seems determined to have at a debate. In the time it's taken the lot of them to abandon the liberated zones, Valeri and Tonya have seemingly reversed roles, a fact not lost on Valeri as he watches a heated discussion form.

But while the final preparations for the general strike are underway, larger forces are at work. Although we've already come to know of a mysterious figure who goes by the name of Damian, we've not yet met Damian's master. A man named Lucius, only Lucius, neither controls nor influences Damian, not directly at least, but nevertheless acts through him in ways neither can understand but both can feel. This is not the beginning of an insidious conspiracy but rather the beginning of its end, the unholy partnership between Damian and Lucius having begun even before either of them had come into being. But enough of them, for now. Although these men are an insidious evil, they are contented to enact their influence behind the scenes, while men like Valeri must survive through this confused period, after having set down for the night the task of scrounging for supplies looming over them like a black cloud threatening to unleash a storm at any moment.

Rattling about in the back of an old, disused lorry, the three of them look for anything to sustain them, faced as they are with seemingly never-ending starvation. But Valeri stops, for a moment, and looks down the yard through the chain-link fence peeling off its frame. Some youths watch them the street beyond, but don't approach them, as though at any moment Valeri and the others could open fire on them. "Is this the last time we'll have to study?" asks Valeri. "The time for study is not yet over," Simpson says, "in fact, it's only just begun. But your study must involve so much more than reading about heady theories and abstract concepts in books. Your study must centre on the act of learning through experience, and all the experiences you've had up until now are only the beginning. In truth, you will never complete the task of learning, and neither will I. For now, we rest, and wait." And thus their night ends, in the moment of truth when the last of the working man's energies should impress itself on the changing future's landscape all the rebels owing their allegiance to the Popular Front standing down for the night. No one knows where this can lead; the rebel Elijah and his immediate disciples at the highest levels of the Popular Front keep secret their true plans for the future, a secret kept not by their scheming nor by their hiding in plain sight, but by their enemy's inability to grasp anything beyond their own desires. It's coming, it's coming very soon, the turn of events which men just like Valeri have been dreaming of for so long as there's been the oppression of men by those who would dream themselves their masters. In fact, it's already begun, as proven by the cries of anguish and the chattering of gunfire in the streets, by the way the bursting of bombs has become but a fact of life, disconcerting, but not altogether out of place. But when the vast and immeasurable strength of the hated Provisional Government is to falter, then should be the time for men like Valeri to assume their rightful place at the

All this is a confusing, disjointed mess, as wars tend to be. But even as the workers of Britain prepare to paralyze the Provisional Government, still the rebel Elijah and his Popular Front carry on their campaign, never forgetting the cause of liberation is a noble and necessary one if any of us are to have a small measure of happiness in our lives. It's a difficult thing, tumultuous as these times are, to think of life as being made up of endless warfare, of explosions and gunfire, of murder cold blooded and callous. Still the work must go on, the shops still brimming with activity, the ports still transferring cargo, all the working men of Britain still consumed as they are with the petty concerns of their own lives, relationships, marriages, children whether in school or not, even things like personal grudges held among workers or half-hearted loyalties to some sectarian flag more imagined than real. But it doesn't always have to be this way. For the last time this night, Valeri puts down with the others, unable to shake the thought of his own impending death, coming to grips as he is with the ultimate end. So far has he come from the troubled young man and the disgruntled worker of his youth, now converted by a baptism of fire into a faithful, loyal servant of the rebel Elijah. No more does he devote time to thoughts of indecisiveness; now, in the last moments before the general strike is set to begin, Valeri must commit himself anew to the cause of the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front.

18. Shattered

The next day, it begins. In the middle of the day, millions of workers from Cornwall to the Scottish Highlands, from Derry to Dover all walk off the job, joined by many millions more among the unemployed and the homeless who walk away from their shelters. For Valeri and the others from the old liberated zones, the weeks that've passed since their expulsion from their own homes have come to this, from their hiding spot in the sewers all the secret preparations for the next wave of attacks the future seeing them rest their fate in the hands of the mobs once more. The power cuts out all at once, instantaneously plunging all of Britain into darkness, at exactly the moment when the late-September's sun slips beneath the horizon, soon the only light that provided by the fires of liberation burning brighter than ever. At a power station outside Manchester among the workers striking is a middle-aged man named Scott Morris, at exactly the right moment he reaching for a master switch at his control console and throwing it open, then turning and walking out, joining a crowd of the others as they defy the manager's shouted orders to return to work. But once they reach the perimeter and set out to force their way through, they find themselves staring down the barrels of rifles held by the Home Guard's troops. Still they advance on the troopers, Scott pausing only to shout at the top of his lungs. "No fear," he says, "no surrender!" His shouts are met with a chorus resonating through the mob of workers, and for a moment it looks as though the Home Guard's troops might waver in their stance. But the crack of gunfire and the falling of bodies to the ground dispel this notion, expected as it's been all along by the rebel Elijah and his disciples that this should be the bloodiest moment in the burgeoning revolution yet. But the shouts, "no surrender," and, "no fear," come from the mobs of people mobilized by the careful work of so many apparatchiks and sympathizers of the Popular Front, to be brought down by a shocking turn of events. But while the general strike begins, the army fighting on the continent defends the lines against a Russian attack, unbeknownst to all the Russians expending much of their reserves in a futile bid to dislodge allied forces in Poland and Ukraine. In time, the rebel Elijah will make use of this.

For now, the Popular Front's forces stand down, at the abandoned warehouse Valeri and Tonya among those who would sit out the general strike. Already there's a dissatisfaction brewing; Valeri says, "it's not right for us to be sitting here while so many die." But Tonya says, "we're dying too," before pausing for a half-moment to clutch at her shoulder gently. And it's true. Although they've found enough food for themselves, for now, there's a desperate situation prevalent, each of them losing faith slowly but surely in their chosen path. Still they study, devoting their precious spare moments between gun battles with the Home Guard's troops to the acquisition of knowledge. "At least you've got Roger," says Valeri, "I'm envious of what you've still got." Tonya knows, vaguely, about his relationship with Sydney Harrington, but she doesn't know how he misses his former lover. "You've had love before," she says, "and you'll have it again." But he only shakes his head glumly in response. Under the guidance of Sister Simpson, herself in turn under the guidance of some mid-level functionary who answers to the rebel Elijah and his highest disciples in the Popular Front, Valeri, Tonya, and all the others are in the midst of becoming the very army that should see the rebel Elijah's war of liberation won. But elsewhere in the country, not far from the spot where Sister Simpson orders them to take cover, a young man named Stuart Baldwin takes in with the striking workers. At a shopping centre where he'd worked, long functionally shut down due to wartime shortages but kept open anyways, he takes to the street outside with the many other workers and the many more unemployed, homeless, and sick. "No fear," he says, "no surrender!" And he shouts along with the hundreds of others immediately around him, this general strike unfolding here as elsewhere. Although the unions' leaders have denounced the strikes and called for their end, still the rank and file helped to organize this strike in coordination with some of the Popular Front's apparatchiks. Stuart's no union man, having grown up in a time of poor wages and poorer living conditions, but he, like millions of others on this day, readily answers the call to action. "No fear," he shouts, as loud as he can throw his voice, "no surrender!" The group he's in with, the hundreds soon becoming thousands, they're confronted with a line of Home Guard troops, mostly unarmed, who don't know what to do.

It recalls a moment immediately during the old revolution, after the rebel Elijah had seemingly disappeared from his unnamed small city in the North of England. No grave was left, the regime of old Britain denying the rebels the right to bury their dead. In that early time, we would be advised to recall the lessons of history, when not all was as it seemed. Though the failed rising lasted only a few weeks, perhaps a few months at most, and although it was preceded by many acts of disobedience or even resistance in the history of the wealthy man's repression of the working, the unusual vigour with which the working men this time fought their oppressors inspired a renewed passion. After all, as Elijah had said, there were many failed revolutions throughout history, many failed attempts at self-governance for the workers; none should preclude the inevitability of their future success. As for the rebel Elijah, his legend only grew after his inexplicable disappearance, stories of his having led the workers around him in an armed resistance, having fought to the death and taken ten times their number in enemy troops with them acquiring a place central in the growing history of the new working class movement which he'd already inspired. But the rebel Elijah was not gone. He lived on. With a band of followers, he'd taken to the hills, sheltering in old farmhouses, in patches of forest here and there, even in ditches that filled with rain during the dull winters that never seemed to end. And this was his critical error, one which should've only magnified his image in the eyes of the desperate working men, for a time the old Britain consumed in dispensing misery on those who'd dared to raise a fist against the wealthy man's dominion. For Valeri, at this time only a child, was consigned to the sidelines as his mother and father renounced their right to his legacy in sacrificing themselves for the failed rising fifteen years ago. In this, the moment our decisive strike is set to begin, all Valeri can see is the ghosts of his past rising in the distance, threatening with their imposing presence. It takes all of Valeri's strength to keep himself focused on the here and now. In the time it takes workers across Britain to walk out of work, all the faith Valeri, Tonya, and all the others seems to turn on them like a clear summer's rain. "It's not the last time we'll have a chance," Valeri says, "not if I have anything to say about it." But Tonya only looks at him and says, "if you have an idea, I don't want to hear it. Not now." And so Valeri necessarily takes action, holding Tonya's shoulder at exactly the place where he knows she feels the pain, at once seemingly lost in the moment. But he can't heal her pain, much as he'd like to. Despite all they've been through, together and apart, they are not yet soldiers hardened against the worst ravages of war, though soldiers they are. As the general strike gets underway, Valeri and Tonya, and the rebels they're taken in with, hear first of the Provisional Government's attempts to appease the strikers. A dishonest-looking man takes to the screens, announcing the arrests of a few wealthy men on charges of war profiteering and hoarding.

Only some months ago they were ordinary workers rising up with so many others, and now they are in hiding, committed to study so as to prepare themselves for the titanic final battle which surely lies in their future. But it's not all easy. It'll never be so easy. As they read, Sister Simpson leads their readings, repeatedly saying to them, "your faith, innate as it is, in the righteousness of the working man's struggle must seek direction. You have come far, in choosing the path of the Popular Front, but you have farther still to go." But this announcement by the Provisional Government of its arrests of a few wealthy men on miscellaneous charges rings hollow, persuading no one. This news prompts some of the rebels among them to approach Sister Simpson, including Valeri and Tonya, asking their leader to join the striking workers, to support them by attacking the nearest Home Guard detachment. But Sister Simpson holds fast, telling them, "we must link up with our forces outside London. If we join in the strike now then we'll be captured by the Home Guard. They are too many and we are too few, for now." This, their study has begun only after their heated discussion had reached its fever pitch. Later, while the Home Guard concentrates on the demonstrations, rebel units like Sister Simpson's take advantage of the chaos to move quietly further out. But still the occasional moment presents itself for talk. "We must look back in order to look forward," said Valeri, when asked whether he lives in the past. "Do we seek only to fill our stomachs? Or do we seek something more?" asks Tonya, pointedly asking whether all the destruction and death around them will have proven to be worth it in the end. All the while, Sister Simpson watches and listens, letting the younger among her colleagues have at it. Although none can know it, this, here, is the purest example of the character of the revolutionary movement, not in votes tallied but in discussion freely held among ordinary workers given to an extraordinary cause. The younger Michael stands and says, "we should never accept anything less than total victory." He says this, Valeri knows, concealing his losses, the deaths of many family and friends in the period before their unsuccessful uprising at Dominion Courts. He goes on to say, "I've been fighting one battle or another all my life. I think we all have. It doesn't matter whether we live or die. Whatever hardships we have to endure, we should endure them willingly."

All at once, the power goes out all across Britain, nearly every city, every town, every stretch of rural road and every isolated spot wedged between two hills plunged into darkness at exactly the moment when the sun slips beneath the evening's horizon. At an airfield outside Plymouth the control tower goes dark only for a moment before the emergency generators kick in, groaning to life despite themselves. A young woman named Kathryn Thomas mans the control tower, along with a handful of others under the watchful eye of two Home Guard troopers. At the moment the lights flicker back on, the workers know it's time, Kathryn exchanging nods with the others before reaching for a central switch on her own console and flipping it off, shutting down the field's radar. Others around the tower shut off the rest of the systems, only after a few moments have passed the Home Guard's troopers realizing what's been done. One of them shouts, "turn that back on," and points his rifle square at the back of Kathryn's head. But she says, "no surrender," in just as loud a voice as needed to be heard. She turns away, making for the stairwell, walking calmly past the troopers whose grip on their guns seems to tremble slightly, only when she's put one foot on the top stair does it happen. There's that crack of gunfire, Kathryn falling limp, tumbling down the stairwell, dead before she hits bottom. It's these little moments, a thousand times over, that feed the simmering rage flowing through the streets like blood pumping through veins. Even those who sit out the strike come to sympathize with the strikers. Though none can know it, this is the moment when the rebel Elijah's struggle is made anew. At the warehouse, in the middle of the night Valeri and Tonya watch the horizon burn as the fires of liberation light up the darkness and listen to the rattling of distant gunfire. "I've been thinking," says Tonya, "and I sometimes regret the things I've done." Valeri, without taking his eyes off the sky, says, "I don't believe that for a second." Tonya replies, "and you shouldn't. I'm not as certain of things as Sister Simpson is. At least, I don't think I am." But then their de facto leader, Sandra Simpson, appears next to Valeri. Without looking at him, Simpson says, "and you're right about that. I'm a disciple of the rebel Elijah, and in my heart I've always been. But not in the way you might think." A rare moment of understanding emerges, in the time it takes the three of them reach a silent consensus to be made not-silent as the night wears on. But soon they'll have the chance to make good on their newfound understanding, if only they could see through the darkness and on into the light. In the relative safety of an old, disused shop, Valeri, Tonya, and the others put down for the night, opening their texts to the place where they left off the last time. Under Sister Simpson's guidance, they read, word by word, page by page at exactly the same pace. In the days after the beginning of the general strike, it's only been a few days, the surviving rebel units scattered throughout the south and southeast of England have all followed this same directive to avoid contact with the strikers. Sister Simpson's band is nearly out of London, but they're still a long way from help.

As they turn, together, from one page to the next, Simpson says, "...and although we all aspire to atonement in the enlightenment of struggle, we are all doomed never to reach atonement by our efforts. This is the contradiction inherent in our work, in our study, that we should aspire to an ideal that we can never achieve. But as we give ourselves over to the struggle of the Popular Front and its quest to liberate all working men from the chains of oppression, we know, in part, that it is in the struggle itself and not the goal towards which we struggle that there lies vindication and redemption." Soon they're to link up with another group of rebel fighters, forming a new provisional unit that can stand on its own. They'll soon come under attack, again, the Home Guard momentarily distracted by the ongoing strikes but soon to shift its focus back to the rebels. Across the country in the city of Sheffield another young woman named Linda Hall sees the night at water plant, with a few others waiting for the power to fail before they know it's time. When Linda reaches for a switch to turn the city's water off, she finds herself confronted with a soldier from the Home Guard who points his rifle at her and says, "don't touch it," but with a half-unsure tone infused into his voice that makes clear to her his indecision. The workers have no armaments, except their own strength of will. Another worker appears behind the trooper, without warning hitting him over the head with a pipe. The trooper crumples to the ground, bleeding from the back of his head, the worker who delivered the blow looking back up at Linda as they share a slight but firm nod. Then she reaches for that switch and flips it, in the time it's taken a little switch to be flipped the city's water shutting off. Although this action has the potential to harm many, the workers here, Linda and her colleague among them, have come to accept the war they've been long been fighting. In war, the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front have told them, death is inevitable. But everlasting life awaits them in the form of the burgeoning revolution they have bequeathed their lives to.

This current wave of strikes immediately becomes the new revolutionary character, the dark essence sweeping across all Britain, seeping from the clenched fists and from the gritted teeth of working men filling the streets. But even while this dark essence gathers, the rebel Elijah plots his next moves, neither conserving his strength nor expending it, at exactly the moment the general strike begins sending his bands of gunmen into action. Still seeking atonement for his frustration, for his loss of faith, the rebel Elijah looks ahead to the Popular Front's next wave of attacks, surrendering to the overpowering instinct which guides him to an understanding; in weakness, Elijah knows, there is strength, and in strength there is weakness. Even while Elijah seeks atonement for his doubts, though, he walks among the ranks of the most pathetic and wretched in Britain, Europe, all the world, they who dream of better tomorrow. As he consults with his disciples in the Popular Front, the dark essence sees fit to relent in its fury at his momentary lapse into self-doubt. "We march on Westminster," he declares in the middle of a meal with his closest disciples, "and we depose the Provisional Government." It'll take some months to carry out, by which time the summer will have waned and the beginnings of winter will have set in, but it's agreed. But not all agree. It's acknowledged this is the moment of the Popular Front's weakness, with so many of its men killed in recent months, but Elijah holds fast. He says to his disciples, "we are weak, yes, but it's because we are weak that we are strong. In weakness there's strength, and in strength there's weakness." As the current general strike rages and the war on the continent drags on, the next step into all our history's future forms. And when next Valeri, Tonya, and the others put down for the night, again their texts open to the very place where last they'd left off, each of them in a ritualistic fashion taking in word after word, page after page, over so many sessions all learning to read at exactly the same rapid pace. They do this by design, as if they can learn to read in the same manner then, soon, they will so learn to act, as a coherent unit and not as a ragtag group of fighters. Still Brother Simpson stands at the centre of their circle, seeming to lose herself in the moment as she says, "...and you will never know by what supreme grace we are offered this chance to redeem ourselves in making ourselves one with the Popular Front, in becoming whole with all our brothers and sisters who should dream of a better tomorrow. But know this: although we should seize our redemption in committing ourselves wholeheartedly to the struggle of the Popular Front, we know that already we are doomed." She pauses, for a moment, seeming to gauge her words' reception in each and every one of the fighters assembled around her, in particular letting her weighty gaze fall on Valeri for a half-second longer than the others. "You all know that you are called to the struggle," she says, "and you have proven the struggle to be your calling long before you were taken in to the ranks of the Popular Front. But now you must choose to walk the path laid out for you. Now you must choose not only to recognize your destiny but to reach out and seize it with both hands."

At some point, Valeri realizes he has stopped reading even as the others keep following the text at the same pace, word-for-word. Now, Valeri looks up at Sister Simpson and feels an electric sensation run the length of his spine, sending a shiver through every part of his body, standing the hairs on the back of his neck on end, exactly as he'd felt when taking a stand at the old Dominion Courts. He doesn't know this, he can't know this, but this sensation is the dark essence choosing, again, at this very moment to reach into him and take up residence in him, as if to convert his body into a vessel through which it could grant itself expression. But Valeri's time for study is not yet over, nor is Tonya's, nor any of the others assembled in this dark and decrepit old building somewhere in the industrial hinterlands of revolutionary Britain, nor of the countless other units feeding into the larger revolutionary struggle headed by the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front. Now, their time is almost come. For Valeri, it recalls a moment they'd encountered Home Guard troops not all that long ago but exchanged no fire with them, instead the two forces looking on one another for a little while, half an hour or so. Valeri and some of the others, mostly the younger ones, had wanted to shoot at the enemy, but Sister Simpson vetoed that idea, saying, "we've got to conserve our ammunition until we can reach help." Although neither Valeri nor anyone else in their group could've known it, the Home Guard troops they'd come across were lacking in firearms for everyone in their group, and for those who'd had firearms not enough ammunition to go around. But most importantly, and just as unknown to Valeri and the rest, these Home Guard troops had divided loyalties, most of them cobbled together from a group of young men in need of work. "We'll keep moving," Sister Simpson had said, "and keep an eye on them until they're out of sight." Another rebel, an older man, said, "they may have already reported our positions to their superiors." But Sister Simpson had said, "if they have then opening fire now won't change that. It would be all the more reason to keep moving." In the grips of a burgeoning revolution, the streets of British cities, where not consumed by the ongoing general strike, witness this kind of confrontation. With the distant sounds of rattling gunfire and bursting bombs permeating the silence, Valeri and the others stared down the Home Guard troops for a while before the latter withdrew, leaving them more confused than frightened.

But Valeri wonders why they haven't fallen under Home Guard attack since making camp here, so large their unit had become that it's impossible to simply sneak through the alleys and sewers. Across Britain this general strike is met with bullets and the baton, but still the striking workers fill the streets, stepping over the broken bodies of their fallen brothers and sisters to vent their rage. Beth and Marge, or Marge and Beth if you'd prefer, storm across town, taking in with their families at the refugee camp that's come under attack not by the Home Guard's troops but by unknown gunmen. For a moment, to Beth it almost seems the rebels of the Popular Front might be assailing them; those rebels have attacked camps just like this one many times before. Amid the crashing of all our history's futures against the present moment, all Beth and Marge can feel, can see is the struggle for their own survival in the here and now. And then the Home Guard's troops arrive, confusedly firing at anything that moves, spilling blood and flaying flesh open, filling the streets with the screams of the dying. This war is bloody and violent as all wars are, but nested within the blood and violence is the character of the dark essence, its figure concealing an inevitability which we'll all share, whether we want to or not. But not for all the scattered concrete and loose limbs could anyone see much of a future in all of this, the rebel Elijah eagerly urging the strikers forward whenever he should chance upon a settlement of revolutionary-minded men. At one particular plant in the Midlands, a region already in the grips of the worst violence between the Popular Front and its many enemies, the striking workers go one step further, on seizing control of their plant and expelling the managers forming a nucleus of their own. A middle-aged man named Isaac Howell is among the plant's workers who take control, elected as he and the others are by a show of hands in the plant's main yard. When the managers call in the Home Guard, Isaac and the other workers are met with a hail of bullets, several workers killed but many more to take their places. By the time the Home Guard attack is withdrawn, confused and uncertain as the troops are about their mission, there're bodies scattered lifelessly across the entrance to the plant's yard. When the Popular Front come around, they give the workers congratulations, only for Isaac to shake his head and say, "we've lost too many men to be congratulated." But their occupation doesn't end, not yet. As the general strike grinds on, Isaac and the others who've formed this nucleus know their struggle has only begun.

At an assembly of workers elsewhere in the country, the rebel Elijah listens as the men assembled vote to form a governing committee of their own, in open defiance of the Provisional Government's nominal authority. In a day and age characterized by the spilling of blood and the scattering of lifeless bodies in the streets, it's a deeply confusing and disorienting chance to have at their own destiny, leaving more than the possibility of a future's end unclaimed. "Are you all not here to see through this crisis and on into the future?" asks the rebel Elijah, addressing the crowd, "and are you not ready to ascend the summit and stand astride the mountains for all the world to see?" But whenever the rebel Elijah addresses the crowd, his exhortations to reservation only inspires them further, his power to inflame passion in the hearts of oppressed men everywhere amply demonstrated. "And when you reach the future," the rebel Elijah continues, "will you be able to look back and tell your children, and their children, and the children of generations to come that you fought until utterly spent so they might live free?" But whenever Elijah pauses to allow the dark essence to flow through the moment, the crowd urges him on, shouting their approval, even as there stands among them so many who would seek to side with the enemies of the Popular Front, whether they realize it or not. We aren't yet ready to take the next step into all our history's future, but soon enough the time will come when we'll all see the full scale of the war for what it truly is. Meanwhile, in London Marge and Beth have been feeding information to the Popular Front's apparatchiks, deftly avoiding the Home Guard's troops all the while. It's quite the trick, to avoid the fighting even as they live immersed in it wherever they go. Stepping past the rubble, Marge immerses herself in a crowd of striking workers, outside a huge warehouse which once held vital medical supplies but which now holds rations and field kits bound for the army on the continent. At the behest of these latest outrages, the whole crowd seems to move and sway like the ocean in a storm surging against the shore, lashing out, hurling itself against the gates, breaking through, the mass of them seizing from the warehouse whatever they want. But these attacks have consequences, entering as we are into a new and cruelly violent phase of the war in the streets. In this life Marge has seen much pain and suffering, and now she is here to witness the meting out of pain and suffering to the enemies of the so-long deprived workers in Britain. Every pound, every penny taken from every worker is now visited upon the enemies a hundred times over, Marge herself there to witness the seizure of the few wealthy men left in the industrial decay. It matters little which set of hands place themselves on the triggers of the guns, only the blood spilled in the streets like a tidal wave tall enough to blot out the sun. For Beth and Marge, or Marge and Beth if you'd prefer, the sight of so many violent reprisals in the very streets they've come to call home is chilling, unsettling, in the heat of the moment either of them turning away from the death and looking inward, towards life. "Are you ready?" asks Marge. "I've been ready all my life," says Beth. "You have?" asks Marge. "Yes," says Beth, "it's only just now that I've come to realize it." Nodding, Marge offers an outstretched hand, Beth taking it firmly in hers. As if on cue, there's not the bursting of bombs nor the rattling of gunfire in the streets outside but the tortured screaming of someone in excruciating pain, seeming to come from all around them, all at once. As if on cue, Marge and Beth, or Beth and Marge if you'd prefer, take up armaments, finding among the rubble discarded pistols with enough rounds left in their magazines to last a half-moment or two in a firefight. Neither Beth nor Marge are soldiers, trained or otherwise, but as with all of us they've been waging war against one force or another for so long as they've been alive. The violent reprisals already spiralling out of control in the streets threaten to consume both women, but each of Marge and Beth have their own reasons for insisting on the fight.

After Valeri's last venture out onto the surface, he can only imagine what horrors lie in wait for him and his brothers and sisters this time. But even as he fears death, as all men do, he steels himself against the power of the moment, there's the bursting of gunfire to ring out in the streets, prompting Valeri to drive for cover, behind a burnt-out lorry while others scatter in behind toppled-over bins and forced-open doorways. In moments like these Valeri's body might be enamoured of the fight before him, but there's some small part of him in the back of his mind that lingers in the past, even as there's the rattling of gunfire and the bursting of bombs in the distance, sound, feeling slightly different on this night. It's nothing immediately obvious, only the way the dark essence reaches through the distance and infuses itself into the base of Valeri's neck, running the length of his spine, creating in him the intuition that everything has changed on this night. As though the entire world has been replaced by an exact copy of itself, Valeri thinks himself renewed by the wave of violence and terror unleashed in the enflamed passions of so many generations of working men kept repressed for too long. Still he longs for the moment when his will be expressed in the storming of the gates, ever lost in the pages of our history which has yet to be written. But this time, it's different. "Shoot them," Tonya shouts, her voice carrying above the din, "give it everything you've got!" But when Valeri turns to face the battle, he squeezes the trigger on his rifle only to hear it click, empty. "Don't look back," Tonya says, "don't ever look back!" And in the heat of the moment, with passions risen from beyond the domain of the visible and erupting in the violent reprisals all around them, men like Valeri can only look back, consumed as he is, as they all are by the demons of their past who they carry around with them here, in all our history's futures.

Off the coast, the free cruiser Borealis and the frigate Nix steam slowly down towards the Channel, their orders unclear but fully understood. Rocking from side to side, the Borealis manoeuvres to avoid enemy fire, even as neither Dmitri nor anyone else aboard can know who the enemy presently is or why they're taking fire. A last-second turn sends a round crashing into the sea, rising a column of water immediately to port, shaking loose hull plating and bursting welds along their seams. The frigid North Sea vents into the hull like the vacuum of space flooding into a spaceship's hold. For a moment, it seems the Borealis might be lost. But she's come too far to be sunk by a near miss. Both ships in this two-ship flotilla survive through, making their way West again, leaving the hardships of battle in their wake. On the bridge, both Dmitri and Mason stand at their posts, Dmitri over the helm, Mason over the gunner, each of them fully immersed in the power of the moment. As the fires of liberation burn across Britain and all around Europe, it seems the only way forward could be through an horrific cataclysm the likes of which the world has never seen. It's been this way for as long as anyone can remember, the fires of liberation raging, consuming all. But this time, it's different. This time, we see in the coldness of the hot summer's nights an intensifying pressure on all men to resolve their current predicament. As if the state of affairs in Britain could worsen any further, in the streets there're mobs of people loyal not to the banner of Elijah nor to his disciples in the Popular Front, but to some sectarian cause long buried but never forgotten. But when Dmitri had finally allowed himself to confess, it occurred in such a way that made him feel guilty for having ever hid his true feelings from his closest friend. "I regret leaving my wife and daughter behind," Dmitri had said, "although I was only enlisted in the Navy and we were at war, I should've seen them off, somehow. I could've sent them to Canada as tourists, and told them to simply stay there if war should've broken out. But now they're dead, they're dead because I failed in my duties as a husband and as a father to protect them at all costs. This is something I'll never be able to forgive myself for. I may as well have murdered them myself." And his second-in-command, Mason Smith, had only listened, allowing Dmitri to speak his mind. They were in the old officer's quarters, still littered as it was and still is with the personal effects of the very officers they'd taken to the stern and executed one-by-one. As if to accentuate the point, as Dmitri explains on the gravest and most intimate of concerns weighing on him, a final resolution emerges from within a dark place, neither able to see into the future but learning, learning to place their trust in those who are.

An interlude emerges, one of many to set into the scene. In the sewers where the urban guerrillas like Valeri, Tonya, and their neighbours take refuge, the moment seems at hand. When their de facto leader, Sandra Simpson, addresses the whole lot of them, she says, "now is our time to attack," then looks each of them right in the eye one after the other before saying, "we fight until victorious or dead." Now, Tonya complies, after they've set down for the night turning to Valeri and saying, "no matter what, I will always remember the time we stood back at Dominion Courts as the purest form of the revolution." This conversation follows much debate and lessons the rebels under Sister Simpson have shared, even as they've made camp not far outside the boundaries of Greater London every spare moment they have filling with debate and lessons. For his part, Valeri only nods, thinking neither of lofty ideals nor of future utopias but increasingly finding his thoughts fixated on the image of his mother and father, neither dead nor alive but trapped in some ill-defined place where life and death have blended to become a seamless continuum. And it's a gruesome thing, to have changed so much as a person that Valeri's willing to embrace the totality of their situation, but not so far as to be an entirely new man. In his life, even before his parents were killed in the failed rising fifteen years before this one, Valeri has always been made to feel unwelcome, like a burden on they who would deem themselves his better. As a young boy, fighting everything, he'd never cease to have a go at even the biggest and burliest of bullies, even when it meant a black eye and a broken arm for him. As an ordinary worker, his last life before this new role of revolutionary guerrilla was thrust upon him by circumstance, he would never, could never hold his tongue, speaking out against any injustice even when there was no possibility of righting the wrong. And now, with the chance offered anew every day to show commitment to his heady ideals, he can't help but feel the beginnings of fear creeping forward from the back of his mind, circling around his thoughts, weaving an elaborate path, resisting, defying any attempt to either rein them in or push them out.

In their camp, Valeri stands, slings his rifle around his shoulder, and steels himself against the moment as he prepares for his turn to stand watch. He may not realize it, but he's subconsciously calling on the dark essence to grant him the courage and the strength to carry forward. But this time, it's different. Their unit—they don't know it, don't think of it in such terms, but they've become a unit—is moving further away from Greater London, further from the scene of so much wanton violence and destruction, on orders from the rebel Elijah's closest disciples in the Popular Front. Even though they're not aware of it, they've become, in the way that they have, soldiers in the army which would seek to eradicate poverty and free all men from the tyranny of despair. But Valeri wishes they'd take part in the general strike. Even now, a week after it's begun, the whole country seems to grind to a halt, with the railways shuttered, the docks closed, and the streets filled with screaming and crying. In their camp, Valeri knows they're unmolested simply because the Home Guard is fully occupied in trying vainly to tame the strike. He wonders why they're not attacking the Home Guard troops. Sister Simpson insists, even when there's no one voicing objections, that they must use this time to prepare themselves for the Popular Front's next move. In time, they should come to see themselves not as heroes; after all, heroes don't exist. Rather, they should exist, and in time they may yet come to exist, not by fiat but by taking on a life of their own through the handing down of legends and folklore from generation to generation. Even the rebel Elijah knows this, in the temporary headquarters his closest disciples have set up in a miscellaneous building once used by wealthy men to hoard the necessities of life but now left empty and abandoned in the war. In this, the rebel Elijah looks ahead, consulting with the dark essence even as the general strike, this current, decisive general strike rages out of control. And the dark essence, it should seek to answer him, to afford him the consultation he seeks but only in ways even Elijah could've never foreseen. And while Elijah looks ahead, the general strike which has paralyzed the British war machine continues unabated.

But on the cruiser Borealis, events soon take a turn for the worst. As the ship takes on water, her engines, in a severe state of disrepair to begin with, struggle to keep up, faltering against the new mass entering her hull. On the bridge, Dmitri looks over the water, peering through the solid whiteness spraying up over the cruiser's bows. "I don't care about anything else," says Dmitri, on the line with the engine room even as it floods, "keep full power to the engines!" Turning to the gunner, Dmitri says, "make every shot count," receiving a grim, "yes, Brother," in response from the man with his finger on the trigger. In a moment when life and death seem equally unlikely outcomes, neither Dmitri nor his closest subordinate Mason have in their hearts a passion for the larger struggle, focused as they are on their own survival, in pushing through from one moment to the next, in keeping air breathing in and out of their lungs for at least one more rapid, rhythmic contraction of their chests. But that's a fraud, too. Even in these moments, when adrenaline overpowers thought there's still the overwhelming power of the dark essence flowing through their bodies, as if to convert them into little more than vessels through which the dark essence could grant itself expression. Once the ship is stood down from this latest combat action, the crew come to grips with the fact that they are headed for a continuous action, entirely unlike the fits and bursts of combat they've been in since giving themselves over to the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front. Days, perhaps weeks earlier, the two men had bonded over their mutual confessions. And once Dmitri had let out his concerns, it was Mason's turn. "Although I have no children, I left my family behind as well," Mason had said, "if they're all dead, so many have died in this war. Their likely deaths weigh on me considerably. But I know you well enough to say with full honesty that you are a strong man, and this is proven by the continued support you enjoy from this cruiser's governing committee. If I have become your second-in-command, then it's become my duty to be honest with you in all things." Although this was not to be the last time they'd spoken on this topic, this informal, in-private vote of confidence came to mean more to Dmitri than the open vote of support from the committee assembled by the crew. Mason has always been and will always be, Dmitri knew then and knows now, the even-keeled brother all men thrust into responsibility need.

After weeks of breathless action, Valeri, Tonya, and the others under Sister Simpson's leadership put down for the night, listening to the distant rattling of gunfire and to the faraway bursting of bombs in the street. But this time, it's different. This time, the moment betrays them all, in the time it takes one day to give way to the next an impossible dream turning into a certain nightmare. "Are you thinking?" asks Tonya. "I am," says Valeri, "wonder what's become of Sydney, the last woman I'd fallen in love with." Tonya sits next to him and says, "do you regret leaving her?" But Valeri says, "not for a moment. But I wonder if she's still alive. It's been months since we last spoke to each other, and in that time..." His voice trails off as he thinks on the all the death he's seen, on all the death he hasn't seen. The rebel Elijah has expected this all along, looking as he does to a near future when he should make his triumphant entry into London, a future nearer than anyone could foresee, perhaps even including Elijah himself. If death must come, then Elijah ought to be not merely ready to die but desiring it, craving it. Only then will he be ready to embrace his destiny, realizing his role in bringing about the advent of the working man's liberation. As Elijah is become an avatar for the working man's struggle towards mastery of his own destiny, there must introduce an impossible element into Elijah's role.

Although we might be tempted to think this introduction was a late event in the series of events that'll have taken us through to our history's inevitable future, in fact it'd been determined all along. This, he realizes even as it'd known in the visceral, instinctive way he could, since he was a young boy. Looking out over the blackness of the night, Elijah senses the dark essence setting itself on the country beyond anew, infusing itself not only into his person but into the person of the working man. All throughout our history we have looked to language, colour, even ideas created artificial for a sign of the way through to the future, when, in fact, all along it's been the shared character that lives within the hearts of all working men that should triumph over evil. But evil, it seems, has its own designs on the future. After the rebel Elijah's momentary loss of faith in the guidance of the dark essence, he can only think to redouble his efforts at finding a point of attack. Amid the strike, there's little moments when we might be forgiven for overlooking the simple yet subtle nuances of the present, the things that are but seem like they shouldn't be, the things that aren't but seem like they should be. Even as the general strike intensifies, still there're men and women forced to work at gunpoint. But far away from Elijah, Valeri knows this all too well, having freed men from the Provisional Government's bondage. It may have been a passing moment in their campaign to link up with elements of the Popular Front outside London, but it happened. Even as Valeri works through to become the soldier he's always been, among the rebel Elijah's closest disciples the one known as Damian continues to gather his forces, working behind the scenes, establishing a loose coalition that should soon challenge Elijah's Popular Front.

As we must remember, the future belongs to the most pathetic and wretched among us, they who would be spat on, kicked and beaten, used as objects, tools to be manipulated according to their masters' whims. It's exactly among these pathetic and wretched that our future lies. Take a moment out of the breathless action to look back on the way things were, years ago when the wealthy man's dominion was supreme, but never unchallenged. It was always possible that the despair and the hopelessness felt in the hearts of the working men left each of them longing to realize an impossible dream, no longer seeming so impossible amid the carnage and mayhem unfolding every day anew on the streets of Britain's cities, and cities across Europe. But Damian can only forge a coalition that'll be a pale imitation of the Popular Front, with the great bulk of Britain still to be committed to various and sundry factions when Elijah makes his triumphant entry into Westminster. The real war will have only just begun. Elijah knows this. Elijah lives this. Elijah feels this truth surging in him with every electric sensation running the length of his spine whenever he steps out and seeks to receive the wretched and the pathetic into the swelling ranks of his army. It's a voyage long and roundabout, but a voyage which should never have possibly led anywhere else. Elijah draws nearer to his goal, making his way south along the old, disused motorways, stopping in every town and city to be among his people. Some have said Elijah is a King, but it's not true. No, as he directs the war effort against the hated Provisional Government, his guerrillas attacking across the country in perfect time with the ongoing general strike, still he has the power to call more to the cause of the Popular Front, once a union of two minor political parties but now a vast and disparate organization which encompasses both the intemperate and the sublime.

But within the narrowing space between these irreconcilable wholes, the dark essence can find a vast expanse in which to grant itself expression. A resistance has not yet formed, and may never form, but within the tension offered by the dark essence's eternally conflicted character there must always be a resistance to form, already formed, forever in the process of forming. But wherever there's resistance, there's hope. Never forget the way these things have come to pass. Never forget the way of old, when the way of things ignored the plight and the pleas of the ordinary worker, pleas to be treated as something more than a piece of rubbish dirty and diseased. In an old, disused warehouse somewhere along the road to London, the rebel Elijah puts down for the night, then another, then another, weeks passing while the exigencies of war keep him confined to this space. As Elijah must constantly reassure his followers, he is no god, that he is no leader of men, that the history that's been building up to their struggle is not led by men but by forces which govern men much stronger and more primal than any man could know. As the general strike rages on, Elijah prepares his forces, battered and bruised as they are, for their next moves. But no matter where his person is, the dark essence which guides Elijah's revolution reaches all corners of the country, soon to take us all someplace none of us could've expected but all of us should've, all along.

19. Mayhem

As the dull, grey skies set themselves over the morose British countryside, the dark essence which guides the working man's budding revolution chooses a particular moment, not this one, nor the next, nor the one after, but some moment of no significance to make itself felt. While the rebel Elijah considers his next move, in the working class districts, among the bombed-out apartment blocks and old, disused factories and mills there's an awakening, the seizure of a spirit which was there all along but which has now chosen this moment to assert itself. A woman named Cynthia who lives in Sunderland is among those who would dream themselves their own masters, having suffered the indignities of unemployment and despair all her life. At the head of a crowd, she shouts revolutionary slogans, but her voice is drowned out by the vastness of the crowd, each of them hurling their own insults at the Home Guard troops down the road, voices shouting things like, "death to the pigs!" and "no more war!" and "kill the Minister!" (The latter refers to the self-described leader of the Provisional Government, none other than Nathan Williams himself). Following the Provisional Government's announcement of arrests for a handful of wealthy men on charges of hoarding and profiteering the anger vented in the streets has only intensified, people like Cynthia seeing right through the lies of the apparatchiks of men like Nathan Williams. The general strike doesn't subside but surges, in the streets of cities like Sunderland women like Cynthia having marched off the job and refused to return, now marching in the streets in defiance of the Home Guard's half-hearted attempts to rein them in. But her role is not only here, in the shadows that dark essence which serves the rebel Elijah seeing her shout, "all power to the workers!" But in the streets outside there's violent killings, there's innocents dying in the moment it takes bombs to burst and gunshots to crack through the night, so many tensions pent up over the hundreds of years unleashed all at once. A young man named Elias is among a group of youths unemployed since adolescence, a group who seize on the chaos introduced by the general strike to sow terror where no terror has ever before been sown.

Although Valeri would rather be taking to the streets and attacking the Home Guard, he and the other rebels under Sister Simpson's guidance spend this time continuing their trek out of London and into the country beyond. In learning the life of the soldier, Valeri struggles to survive, every day fighting hunger pangs and relentless self-doubt that nags at the back of his mind like a predator stalking him, preparing itself to strike at the first sign of weakness. Valeri summons the courage and the strength to push through the pain, forcing himself forward, rhythmically, methodically putting one foot in front of the other and pulling himself through each day. It's exactly as he'd used to make it through his days of work at the old shop, treating his body like a machine, his muscles like hydraulics, smoothly contracting and expanding, each contraction and each expansion bringing him closer to some end. They're in the midst of marching across an open field somewhere in Greater London's outer reaches when they come across a Home Guard position, taken up as the Home Guard is in a train station nearby. Although they're in no condition to mount an assault, Sister Simpson has them take positions across the open field from the Home Guard. "Hold here," says Sister Simpson, "and tell me if they take any action." It seems to Valeri as though they could make around the Home Guard fortification as they've done before, but he keeps these questions to himself. Later, after they've formed a line facing the Home Guard positions but holding half the men in reserve, Valeri asks Tonya, "do you think we can take them?" And Tonya replies simply, "we'll do whatever we have to," then shoulders her weapon and turns away from him. It strikes Valeri how different she looks from the tough and determined wildcat he'd known her as when they'd first met only some months earlier, in the prelude to their stand at Dominion Courts. She's still tough and determined, Valeri thinks as he looks on Tonya sharing a moment with her lover Roger, but she looks as though she's aged many years in those few months. It's not the blemishes on her skin or the accumulated muck that discolours her hair, no, it's the way she seems to take each stride with purpose, her posture seemingly straighter, her stature seemingly taller. But Valeri, in his own self, is becoming more like a machine than he'd ever been.

The young man Elias, meanwhile, is typical of the youths of his generation, unafraid, setting on a rampage in a wealthy district where there happen to be no Home Guard troops. Even as the Home Guard has expanded into the hundreds of thousands of troops, it had to be inevitable that some weak spots would present themselves, the untrained or barely-trained militia inducted into the Home Guard hardly up to the task of policing a nation in the grips of revolution. In the streets Elias and his friends look for blood, happening on a man in an expensive suit and his wife, invading their home and dragging the two out into the street. It's death, their bodies thrown between the youths, with jimmies and a cricket bat striking blow after blow onto their victims' faces. Finally one youth appears with a shotgun, stepping on the back of one man's neck and pressing the muzzle of his gun right against the base of his skull. There's blood everywhere. This scene, during this troubled time, plays itself out many times across Britain, angry mobs seizing on the general strike to exact vengeance for a lifetime of poverty and despair. It's inevitable. But like all things inevitable, it's never assured. It must be won. Elijah sees through the eyes of these hopeless and degenerate young men, the general strike continuing in spite of itself, in spite of the unrelenting cruelty playing out in the streets all things occurring to him all at once. In the streets there's the rattling of gunfire and the bursting of bombs, even in these confused times Elijah seeing through the carnage into a carefully calculated future which we'll all have to imagine before we can have at it. And when Elias sees on his screen the news presenters announcing the capture of several key rebel leaders as well as their impending trial, he knows this is lies, just like the Provisional Government's months-old and still-unfulfilled promises to bring peace and stability to the United Kingdom. But ours is a carefully calculated future unimaginable in the breadth and depth of its horror, time as it is to embrace the horror and let go of all that we've known. Elijah has done this. Elijah does this anew every day. But it wasn't always this way for the leader of the Popular Front. In his youth, in what remained of his youth after the failed rising fifteen years ago Elijah learned a bitter but valuable lesson, visited as he was in his spiritual wilderness by an enemy who would seek to tempt him into a life of debauchery and indulgence. But then, as now, the rebel Elijah proved himself stronger than that. As the general strike continues, the saga of our history's future reaches towards its inevitable climax like the surging of an impossible strength against an unassailable mass.

At this improvised camp, there's much time for introspection, Sister Simpson's fighter facing off over the course of days against a Home Guard fortification. One evening, Valeri and the others are encouraged by Sister Simpson to share their personal stories. "I remember as a young boy always being made to think of myself as a scoundrel," says Valeri, "in school, from a very young age." He pauses to think, then says, "as far back as I can remember." Sister Simpson nods, then looks to Tonya. "I remember fighting a lot," says Tonya, "getting into fights in primary school, fighting with my mother and her boyfriends, but it was always my fault." Sister Simpson nods again, then looks to Roger. "I have no stories to share," says Roger, "I only want to fight for what's right." And Sister Simpson rebukes him, in the even-handed way that she does, saying, "you all have some stories to share, although you shouldn't be compelled to do so. There's strength we all can gain from each of your sharing. But if you're not prepared, then no one ought to compel you." She says this as they speak among themselves behind the line, metres away from the men they've got facing down the Home Guard from across an open field in the outer environs of Greater London, with the general strike raging all around them, just out of sight but never out of mind. It's unnerving, to Valeri, how the Home Guard can be so close while his new leader Sister Simpson refuses him and the others permission to shoot. But greater, to Valeri, is the mystery of why they haven't moved on, their trek out of London and into the company of the Popular Front's men beyond having been stalled. Still, Valeri's learned to accept her decision, in the short months since taking in with her rebels a disquieting spirit having grown in him. Even as there's the sound of gunfire rattling and bombs bursting in the distant night, Valeri later looks to Tonya and Roger, the latter two at this moment together on the line. Valeri sees them share a momentary embrace. The sight still has the power in him to inspire a mild jealousy, even as the better part of him, the disciplined soldier who's only begun to form, knows there should be no jealousy inspired by the sight of Tonya and Roger sharing a small moment of happiness amid such suffering.

Fifteen years ago, the rebel Elijah took to the countryside, determined to wage his guerrilla campaign against the enemy, the hated enemy. But in prison, left to fester, he would soon acquire a learned knowledge entirely unlike the rigid, hierarchical knowledge deemed fit to be dispensed in the halls by the leaders in union. In prison, Elijah met not evil men but the most pathetic and wretched among Britain's working class, and in each of them a receptiveness to his forbidden gospel. Thus began his assembly of they who would go on to be his closest disciples in what would become the Popular Front. All the while, his disciples in the various and sundry working class parties, the progenitors of the current Popular Front, spread his gospel. In every town and in every city, they took to the union halls, universities, churches, even the pubs and the shelters, declaring the virtues of unilateral disengagement, in the wake of the failed rising their audience soon growing to a hundred times what it'd been. Where workers had seized their work, now there were only the smoking remains, wreckage left to fester under the coming rains that never seemed to end. It was declared an economic boom, the screens filled with images of glittering, glass-and-steel towers reaching for the sky, while hunger in the working class districts all across Britain only intensified. It was during this time that a then-young man named Neil Smith came of age, escaping his A-levels only to find no work for him anywhere. Even as the last factories and yards were closing and so many working class Britons were being cast out of work, Neil saw more and more slaves imported from countries far around the world, countries he'd never heard of or had heard of only vaguely. And it made him angry, so angry, soon the young Neil falling in with the nationalist gangs that ruled over some parts of some of the working class districts, much to the dismay of his family from whom he soon became estranged. He eventually became disillusioned with the gangs, around the time of the failed uprising which cost Elijah his freedom. He took in with Elijah's disciples, evading the crackdown that followed the uprising, and now he counts himself among the most experienced in Elijah's new Popular Front. Now, he's in with a group of rebel fighters somewhere in the Manchester area, standing tall as he looks back on the other rebels. He raises his Armalite, and he says, "forward! We take them now!" And he leads the attack on a Home Guard position, as the city of Manchester is fought over the revolution across the country reaching a new apex.

After the rising and its suppression had burned so much, the enemies of the working man took advantage of the opportunity to remake so much of the country in their own image. Where once there'd stood working class apartment blocks, they tore them down, evicting the residents in the process. It was around this time that the cities of Britain, all Europe, even across the Atlantic in the United States and Canada saw a frenetic burst of building, where once ordinary workers had lived in ordinary, working class blocks now gleaming, glass and steel towers reaching for the sky. They'd demolished the working class blocks and put up opulent palaces where once those blocks had stood in order to annihilate the very places where the last uprising had been born from. It was during this spell of renewed expulsions and evictions that the gun was never traded in for the shovel as the weapon of choice for the wealthy men in their campaign against the working. It was during this time that the rebel Elijah was offered clemency, three times in prison told he could receive leniency in exchange for a public renunciation of his forbidden gospel and the rebellion it bequeathed to Britain's working class. But he refused three times. In prison, the rebel Elijah watched, receiving information from sympathetic visitors and from sympathetic guards, even they who were charged with imprisoning him sympathizing with his struggle by virtue of their own pathetic wages hardly enough to live off. But the struggle for all history's future is not won by sympathies alone, a lesson which the rebel Elijah had long ago learned to appreciate at great personal cost. Now, Elijah offers the working class of Britain a new world, one in which they will control the implements of their own work, one in which they will have full rights and profit, if only they dedicate themselves fully to realizing this future. Words like 'capitalism' and 'socialism,' they are merely words which can never fully accommodate what Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front seek to abolish nor establish, even as they describe his ideas perfectly. Representative of his ideas is a woman named Alice Noretti, a woman descended from a long line of prostitutes and drug users, of the unemployed and the unemployable, Alice herself having been raised by a rotating cast of characters in family friends, older sisters, even a shopkeeper who'd used her for work when she was only twelve. As an adolescent she took in with the striking workers and the disenchanted, stone-throwing youths when the first uprising began more than fifteen years ago. In the aftermath, she took refuge on the very streets that'd raised her, along the way becoming one of the rebel Elijah's disciples, now one of the older guerrillas in the Popular Front. Today, on a day only some weeks after the current general strike began, Alice takes to the streets that'd once offered her refuge, holding up her rifle with one hand while she turns back and uses the other to urge the rest of her rebel comrades forward. She shouts, "forward! We take them now!" Before the day is out she'll be dead, but in death she'll be given new life by the promise of liberation by Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front.

Across Britain, the same scene plays out, in the cities mobs of desperate and angry people seizing the mansions of old, finding their wealthy paymasters still inside. After having overcome roadblock after roadblock on their way into the heart of London, Valeri and the others under the command of Sandra Simpson must look past the striking workers everywhere and see their true targets. Suddenly, they're shooting, trading fire with the Home Guard troops across that open field in Greater London's outer environs. Firefights break out all along the line. Valeri looks down the sights of his rifle at two Home Guard troopers, trying to pick a path for his bullets around the ordinary men between them. "Don't shoot," says Tonya, with her own rifle aimed right down the very same street. "Wait for them to make the first move," says Tonya. And Valeri nods, ducking back behind cover, conscious of the magazine in his rifle holding hardly ten rounds left with none to spare. Even lacking in basic supplies and munitions, with many among their ranks without armaments of any kind, still they attack, pressing at the vastly superior enemy with all the passion and intensity of zealots in pursuit of their deliverance. A group of workers participating in the ongoing general strike have emerged on the scene, apparently unaware of the opposing fortifications around them. But when the Home Guard troops shoot they only cut down strikers, the whole lot of the workers scattering, scrambling for cover, the firefight having broken out only moments before when Valeri and the other rebels happened across an enemy unit. It's a moment of intense confusion, with blood spilling and bodies falling broken to the pavement, the anguished cries of the dying rising above the thunderous cracking of rifles and the intermittent rattling of machine guns. "Don't shoot," says Tonya, putting a hand on Valeri's shoulder, seeming to restrain him only through that barest of contact. It's heartbreaking for Valeri, but he must comply. He knows how to do nothing else, given as he is to the unilateral character of the greater struggle. After they'd spent the nights staring at Home Guard troops and escaped in the confusion, they'd resumed their march away from London and off into the countryside, heading in the general direction of Birmingham. When they put down for the night, their study resumes, on the floor of a run-down, old gymnasium their circle forming, with Sister Simpson at the centre, urging them on.

"And as you see yourselves through this difficult early time, know that you are the chosen few," says Simpson, "chosen as you are not by birthright, not by lineage as in the way of old, but chosen by your calling to a higher purpose. The cause of the Popular Front is working class liberation, a cause which requires no noble blood, no title, no riches. The spirit which compels you to act to fight injustice wherever you find it is what calls you to the cause." In her lecturing, she uses terms like 'commodification of men' and 'alienation of the spirit by capital,' terms he's never heard before but which he seems to innately understand owing to his own personal consciousness developing. And by now, Valeri doesn't bother to read, doesn't follow along in the text as the others all do, rather following along every word Sister Simpson speaks. Having already distinguished himself in the fighting, Valeri can only see fit to distinguish himself in the war of words, in the struggle that must occur in the minds of every single man in Britain, across Europe, around the world, even those already given to the revolutionary struggle. There's no one moment when this fundamental truth dawns on Valeri, no single instance of enlightenment; nevertheless, as he experiences this epiphany, he looks on Sister Simpson and feels an immense gratitude for her leadership through this uncertain time. But then he notices, out of the corner of his eye, his friend and former neighbour Tonya interrupted in her reading. She looks at Valeri, and from the vague, almost-longing in her eyes Valeri can tell she is not yet availed of the epiphany which has been visited upon Valeri at this very moment. And this, this is suspect, this is strange, as Sister Simpson speaks, saying, "...but even as we fight against the evils of impoverishment, we fight for something more." Valeri accedes to this lesson. He's not of stock chosen for education in life under the old regime. This fact makes him receptive to these lessons, as the dark essence which guides the revolution should choose those who the old regime had left behind to carry its banner into the wind. In Valeri's current state of mind, it seems as though Sister Simpson is speaking directly to his thoughts, to his innermost beliefs, changing as they are all the time. "We know there is more to life than bread and water," says Simpson, "but our enemies who would perpetuate our impoverishment, they only seek to hoard for themselves, growing fat on riches while the rest of us starve." It's later now, after they've withdrawn to the relative safety of a disused shop, returning not to their study but to the passion of debate. All the while, the general strike continues, life in the streets grinding to a halt even as those streets erupt in an orgy of violence, degradation, and death.

Elsewhere, in the neighbourhoods of Manchester crowds of angry men and women find their way into the enclaves of the city of the city which hold the wealthiest families. Once protected by the Home Guard, these enclaves are now left vulnerable by the recent fighting, the Home Guard driven off but the Popular Front in hot pursuit. One of the Popular Front's edicts is to deliberately leave the wealthy enclaves unguarded, knowing as they do that the angry men and women of the working class will soon do what must be done. A once young man named Zachary Higgins is among the first into one of the houses, finding a middle-aged man among a family. As Zachary drags the man out through the front door and into the street, he hears the man pleading for his life, saying, "please, please let me go," his pleas falling on deaf ears. (This particular man was an executive, and he'd closed several factories in the Midlands and put thousands out of work). When Zachary reaches the middle of the street he tosses the man to the pavement, then kicks him in the side. Zachary says, "come on! Let's give them what they've got coming!" The old man's the first of many to be killed on this day and on the days that follow, these lynchings to begin so suddenly but to last weeks. A black streak seems to curve across the sky, in every city, in every town, in the countryside, too, a river of darkness coursing through the air, seeming to enlighten even as it plunges all Britain into the darkest depths of despair. For Valeri, this is the moment when he realizes his destiny, but not yet the moment when he should reach for the end of the world. There may have been many such moments for Valeri, just as there's been many such moments for each of his newfound brothers and sisters in arms, the whole lot of Tonya, Roger, Michael, even Sister Simpson experiencing their own seminal moment in the development of their revolutionary fervour.

On the screens of the millions, this scene plays itself out a hundred times across Britain on this day, from the ports at Southampton to the shuttered factories in the north, even to the streets of Derry and to the open squares in Edinburgh. It seems, it's made to seem as though the Home Guard's troops are directly attacking the unarmed strikers, and so it is. The mobs cry out for justice, and their cries are answered. After having spent their whole lives consumed in the petty strife and the struggle of subsisting on their steadily shrinking pittance, each of them looks as tired and frustrated as the others. But while the general strike rages and while the Home Guard troops launch their counterattack, the rebel's guerrillas, now Valeri among them, largely remain underground, still committed as they are by their leader, Sister Simpson, to their studies. For the last moment, in their studies Valeri resumes his readings, turning to the word of the rebel Elijah in atonement for his lifetime of idle discontent. Still Sister Simpson stands at the centre of a circle of readers, gesticulating as if for a presence only she can see. "And this is what separates us from they who would deem themselves our enemies," she says, "although we starve, we know there is more to life than meat, to the body than cloth. Take no thought for what your life should amount to now, for no matter what you should eat, what you should drink, what you should put on your body, for when you are passed away, whether in one year or one hundred, all that will remain is the proof on your struggle now." But Valeri, after the discussion is ended and the group have set down for the night, all he can think about, suddenly, is Sydney Harrington, wondering whether she's alive or dead. She might've been caught up in the lynchings, which Valeri and the others under Sister Simpson heard of almost as soon as they'd begun.

It's a fraud, though, that he should perpetuate within himself to even entertain the debate, for the whole of his thoughts are convinced that she is alive, that she must be alive somewhere. It should prove to be a cruel joke when, in fact, he learns she's been killed some time ago. He won't learn this for a while, but the way each of them tends to imagine whatever we want to imagine is a sickly human weakness, an evidence of the work still yet to be done in reshaping his own character, his own moral fibre until he can become the hero he's needed to be. And Roger says, "if only the working men of all our countries could've banded together then all this might've not been necessary." But Sister Simpson interjects, saying, "but you must see how the working men of all countries couldn't have ever banded together before like they're beginning to now. It's the way history is inevitable, but still it must be won by a determined effort and a consciousness." Even while they speak, though, there's the distant rattling of gunfire and the bursting of bombs to remind them on the terror and lawlessness all around them at all times. But it's not quite so simple, as it's never been quite so simple. Blood flows in the streets tonight like a torrent of water bursting through a dam. The Home Guard troops lose all sense of reason and purpose, in the chaos of the general strike the inexperienced men in the Guard firing on crowds of striking workers, filling the streets of British cities with the sound of gunfire cracking heavily through the day and night. Between the lynchings of the wealthy men by vengeful crowds and the shootings of striking workers by the Home Guard enough blood is spilled tonight to fill the rivers and springs of water. But the worst is yet to come. A young woman named Kathy Cox grew up on the streets of Sheffield, taken in from a young age with her aunt and uncle. Her mother had been killed in a botched police raid on a labour union assembly, not long after the failed uprising more than fifteen years ago. She never knew her father. But her uncle beat her, and her aunt had always seemed uninterested in her. After leaving school before completing her A-levels, she became a prostitute, enduring more beatings at the hands of men she never knew, the police uninterested in helping women like her. But then she found the rebel Elijah, albeit indirectly, his forbidden gospel reaching her through a sympathetic, underground church. Now, she clutches her rifle tight as she steels her nerves against the moment, hiding in an alley somewhere in Liverpool, at the right moment taking into the street, firing her rifle at a Home Guard unit. She pauses, leans back behind cover, turning to face her comrades. She says to them, "forward! We take them now!" Before the day is out she'll be dead, but in death she'll be given new life by the promise of liberation by Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front.

But in the darkness of the night, it all seems to be one indistinguishable cataclysm, an impossible inferno burning cold enough to freeze the world in a vast glacier that should reach up to the waist of a typical man. Although Valeri, Tonya, and the others continue their study under the tutelage of Sister Simpson through this dark, dark time, still there's much debate over the proper course of action. The general strike which began only some weeks, barely a month or two ago continues, even as some striking workers have been shot at and beaten by Home Guard troops while others have abandoned the strike to satisfy their long-suppressed bloodlust. Sister Simpson, though, insists on patience, in the relative safety of a disused shop their debate raging like the fires of liberation burning all around them, all the time. "In America," says Michael, "they keep millions of black people in slums, mired in hopeless poverty. And the policemen venture into these slums and attack them, randomly killing their men and terrorizing their women and children. Were that our revolution should inspire them! That they should see our overthrow of the wealthy man's yoke and seek the overthrow of their own oppression! Imagine that!" Already the younger Michael has begun to demonstrate his renewed passion for the revolution, and in this Valeri is finally beginning to accept Michael as one of their own. The irrational and purely instinctive way Valeri used to resent his younger colleague, his brother in arms, is fading away, as the power of the moment seems to impress itself on all of them. It's a strange moment, when Valeri can intuitively sense the growing tendency in Michael to give himself over to the feelings of anger building inside him, even as Valeri himself comes to grips with the slowly mounting consciousness in him. You see, Valeri has always been given to the rebellious impulse of the working man against his masters, but in the time they spend underground after having been unceremoniously expelled from the old liberated zones he is becoming inexplicably steadied in his hand and in his tongue. While talking, they hear more reports of the lynchings that continue to take place in pockets of cities across Britain. Valeri's sure the lynchings are well-deserved, thinking as he does of the massacre of innocent protestors he'd witnessed many months earlier. Troubling to him, though, is the notion that his former lover, Sydney Harrington, might be among those lynched. She'd been of better stock than him. If her family had taken refuge in one of the compounds for the wealthy, and the local militia that made up much of the Home Guard had been unable or unwilling to defend them against the angry mobs, then she'd have been killed, Valeri's sure of it. If she'd survived or if she'd been in a compound not yet attacked, then she'd not have long. But Valeri doesn't know she's not even in the country, nor on the continent, his former lover having fled to Canada with so many others. He'll never know what's become of her. But he'll keep on imagining.

Perhaps, he considers as he listens with the others to Michael's impassioned speech, all these months spent living in the shadows, emerging at night to trade gunfire with the hated enemy in the Home Guard have worn on him in ways even he can't begin to understand. But in the heat of the moment, with the whole group chiming in, they can only give themselves over to the inflamed passions which govern all working men in the throes of a revolutionary fervour. "In all the vast history of the ordinary fighting against their masters," says Roger, "our fight ought to be seen as the culmination of all struggles. Theirs is part of ours and ours is part of theirs. So they rise when we rise and we rise when they rise." In the darkness of their temporary refuge, Valeri sees wisdom in Roger's newfound ideas. "But remember the teachings of Elijah," says Sister Simpson, "that our war to liberate the oppressed can never be won. But it's in the futility of our struggle that there lies the ultimate truth, the ultimate righteousness." Although these are all ideas Sister Simpson has encountered before, even in her own studies as far back as the time she'd spent in university's lecture halls and libraries, she's old and wise enough to know this is the adolescent stage in the development of young Valeri's revolutionary consciousness, even as he's closer to thirty than twenty still the passion of youth beating through his heart. It's a critical juncture in the development of their collective minds, in the space between one half-moment and the next a chance presenting itself for a rare, sought-after consensus to emerge.

As Valeri, Tonya, and the others study under the guidance of Sister Simpson, the enemies of the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front gather their own strength even as they continue to wither and die, the life draining from their bodies more and more with each passing day. But now, Sister Simpson's history is made clear. Born into a wealthy family, she was the daughter of a businessman who owned factories, mills, and warehouses. But she was given from a young age to a passion for rebellion against any injustice, and her sympathies with the forerunners to the Popular Front caused a rift within her family. Once she joined in with the striking workers in the failed uprising, her family's rift widened until she became completely estranged. Surviving, she took in with the old People's Party, living underground, dodging police raids, becoming learned herself in the practical art of making war. As Valeri listens to Sister Simpson explain her own personal history, he looks as though he might see a personal breakthrough in this intimate moment. Elsewhere, in another of Manchester's outer environs, a twenty-something man named Sean Osborne is among a crowd of youths who force their way into a formerly wealthy urban enclave, now left open by the withdrawal of the last Home Guard troops from the area. (Some of the Home Guard ditched their armbands and caps to blend in with the civilians). Now, Osborne carries an old cricket bat, at the head of the crowd when they catch a middle-aged man in one of the many upscale flats in the area. Most of the wealthy men who'd lived in this district have fled, but Osborne and the others have got their hands on one of the few who couldn't make it out in time. "Take him!" says Osborne, grabbing the man by the shoulders and shoving him into the street. There, the man's set upon by the others, bludgeoned and beaten unconscious. This man, he's known locally for his family having evicted working class tenants from their flats to make way for mansions left empty by absentee owners. Among those whose families were evicted was Osborne, the young man growing up virtually homeless, now taking his revenge in a deeply personal way.

Although Simpson is twenty years older than Valeri, she closer to fifty than forty, all that seems to matter in the narrow space between one moment and the next is the shared discourse that chooses them, without regard for such petty things as age, language, the colour of their skin, or the women apart from the men. But Valeri wants to know more, not only about the ideals of the Popular Front but in Sister Simpson's own personal history. Although she might seem a hardened rebel, almost to the point that she's a caricature of herself, on this night when all Britain's aflame she emerges in Valeri's mind as more real than ever. But not all among them think as he does. "In university I studied the classical sciences," Sister Simpson says, "physics chief among them. But soon I learned science can't answer the most important questions of all." And she looks at Valeri with the kind of pointed inquiry that seems to invite him to consider the full implications of what she's said. It occurs to Valeri the question might be the answer, that the path he's on might be more important than the destination. Then, some hours later as he stands watch through the middle of the night, it occurs to him that the path itself might be the destination, in that moment exactly the dark essence which has so carefully chosen its vessels now chooses to flood the scene here in this small corner of the British countryside where Valeri and the others under Sister Simpson's tutelage take shelter for the night. After a pause in the conversation presents itself, Valeri looks over his shoulder at Tonya, his former neighbour and now sister in arms looking on from a few metres away, close enough to watch them but not so close as to hear them speak. In a low but still clearly audible voice, Sister Simpson continues, confiding in the younger Valeri and thus, unknown to the younger Valeri, achieving a measure of closure over her own past. Although Valeri can't know this, he's caught Sister Simpson at exactly the right moment to earn a chance to converse with her as something besides her student. "Are you thinking of something else?" asks Valeri. "Not quite," says Sister Simpson, "you see, one of the few things I've learned in life is that we all learn to express our devotion to one cause or another in different ways. Although there are those who would view us favourably but who would not seek to join our struggle, as you and your friends have, we shouldn't look down on these fellow travelers. In time, they will come around, too."

And so it is seen that this is the decisive moment, the one in which the dark essence abandons its self-selective visitation, infusing itself instead into everyone present, without hindrance or let choosing indiscriminately those who would count themselves among the liberators of all. It's a fraudulent moment, one in which such a small and ragged group of guerrillas should become given to the revolutionary struggle anew, as they have come to renew their commitment and their fiery passion that burns with the intensity of a thousand and one suns. Although there are divisions yet to come, for now they are united. In the night, there are many thoughts running through Valeri's mind, one of them prompting him to say, "I don't know much about consensus, but I know there are people out there who only want to eat. They look at us looting food from their storehouses and they see in that a good thing. But sometimes we take from those who are just as hungry as we are, as is necessary to keep our fight going. They won't count themselves among our fellow travelers." There's a pause, just long enough for the distant rattling of gunfire and the bursting of bombs to tear holes in the silence. "You are right," says Simpson, "we should never be contented with simply feeding ourselves. Although ours is a movement born of poverty and unemployment, we seek not to limit our goals simply to money and jobs. In life we have only one chance to make good on ourselves, and we must seize this chance, lest we grow old enough to look back on what might've been." While the general strike continues, there must be some kind of apex through which the burgeoning revolution can help all achieve some measure of personal redemption. There're so many more lynchings as these nights blend into weeks, responded in turn with so many more shootings by the Home Guard and the various militias who make up the Home Guard's ranks, here and across Britain. Still hearing of the violence inspires in Valeri a bloodlust he's never known, which makes him brim with a kind of seething rage. But still Sister Simpson commits them to the trek out from London to the northwest, with so many exchanges of gunfire with the Home Guard the trek taking so long. "I'm weak," says Sister Simpson, now speaking to both Valeri and Tonya, "I've always been weak. I don't have the moral character or fortitude to be anything but weak. We've known each other for only a short time. I've seen many young men and women come and go over the past few years. We've all been weak, together."

In time, all these will accumulate into a single mass of despair and confusion. Sectarian tensions quietly mount, even as the Popular Front inducts members from all walks of life, without regard for the language they speak, the Church they belong to, the country they or their parents or their parents' parents were born in, the colour of their skin. It's hard to see for so many right now, but the hated Provisional Government is only a passing episode in our shared history, destined to be remembered in books, dictated in lectures, recalled in examinations and speeches by generations to come, the dry facts known but the sensational experiences remembered only by the men and women who lived through it. "Don't make the mistake of letting yourself look to the stars and forget where you've come from," says Sister Simpson, "it's the same place we've all come from. Even if it means becoming something other than what you meant to be, remain steadfast in your commitment to the truth in all things." And Valeri, he's not yet told Sister Simpson of his own personal history, of the time he'd spent serving in union, nor of the sights he'd seen of so many bodies cut down in one of the massacres in the streets. It's a pleasant thought, almost surreal, that only a couple of years ago Valeri should've been so shocked and outraged by the senseless murder of dozens of people in the streets. Now, he's seen so many more killed, it should come as no surprise to him that even after witnessing all this death he's still not desensitized to the power of murder. Actually, as he listens to Sister Simpson it occurs to Valeri that he's never killed anyone, not that he knows of. He may have fired many rounds from the barrel of one gun or another, but he can't recall ever putting anyone down, having ever personally caused the death of another. In the darkness of their one-night only refuge, it strikes Valeri as a strange thing to be so concerned with. His rifle rests between his legs, its muzzle against his knee, while he looks ahead and listens to Sister Simpson speak. Her lesson for the night is over, and they have only a few hours until she's said they have to be on the move again, even before the sun's to rise their tired and sore feet to carry them onwards. But still Valeri can't sleep, mustn't sleep, as the temptation to consider his own personal path forward inexorably draws his thoughts back into the past. A frightened child, a nervous adolescent, grown into a man on the cusp of realizing his destiny, Valeri remains the perfect avatar for our time.

Across Britain, the darkness descends, immersing itself in the sea of rage having spread from North to South. In the night, the fires of liberation burn out of control, without much in the way of lost causes still here to see the country through this time. Although the war at home is in a constant state of flux, its ebbs and flows like the tides, the only constant seems death in mass quantities, bodies and body parts littering the streets where once, not altogether long ago, they'd been swept up by cleaners as quickly as the night allowed. But for the three members of Mobius Squadron, not everything is swept away. While travelling with a group of rebel guerrillas along a back-country road in a rural area between Sheffield and Manchester, they're set upon by unknown gunmen, not the Home Guard but some militia with sectarian loyalties. Walter Wright's shot, but he's going to live through it. Hatfield crouches beside Wright, gripping his rifle tight as he fires at the militia shooting at them from the trees beyond. Hatfield, Wright, Parker, and the other rebel guerrillas take cover behind a low stone wall. It's over as quickly as it'd started. After they'd abandoned their derelict aircraft for the last time, it'd seemed to Hatfield they'd never see their families again. But some small part of him had already come to terms with this fact, knowing as he does that the rebels of the Popular Front offer him a new family. He doesn't actually believe this. He's still suspicious of the Popular Front, even as he's earnestly and honestly taken in with the rebels. As he'd sat in the back of a lorry on their way with the other rebels, he'd taken to talking with some of the other rebels, listening to their stories. "I was working all my life at the plant," one older man had said, "and they got rid of me to make more money." The man went on to talk of the closure of the plant he'd worked at and the decades of unemployment and poverty that'd followed. But the old man's talk of his family breaking up, his son's death in a robbery gone wrong, his wife's leaving him, all the while he'd barely survived on starvation wages from finding work only a few months out of the year. "My wife and children are gone," said Hatfield, "and I may never see them again." But while he commiserated with the older man, a renewed spirit grew in Hatfield, his own personal doubts seeming to recede even as they grow stronger than ever.

But the war on the continent rages, too, stuck as the warring armies are on either side of a seemingly fixed, immovable front line. Winding from Gdansk to Sevastopol, a great wall of death consumes all who would be sent to assail its raw blackness, its gaping chasm into which all life is cast but from which none can return. In the time since war began on the continent, the front lines have moved but a few kilometres one way or the other, the ground carrying the rotted, decayed corpses of hundreds of thousands of men on both sides, in death the vagaries of life disappearing. And in Britain, along the back-country road between Sheffield and Manchester, Hatfield shoots from behind cover, firing at a target he can't see. The sectarians in the trees can't see them either, and both sides exchange scattered, erratic gunfire. After firing a three-round burst from his rifle, Hatfield ducks behind the stone wall, looking to his side at Wright, who lies with his back against the wall. Wright clutches at his shoulder, his shirt stained with his own blood. A couple of rounds whiz past Hatfield's head, almost catching him. But it's over as quickly as it'd started. After they'd abandoned their derelict aircraft for the last time, Hatfield in the back of that lorry listened to another of the rebels sharing her story. "I worked in the shipyards of Belfast," the older man had said, "until they shut down for good. They left the big cranes there as landmarks, and every time I saw them afterwards it made me angry. I couldn't provide for my family. I lost everything." The man went on to talk of the son he'd had, arrested for some petty crime, who died in one of His Majesty's prisons in a riot over the crowded conditions in jail. "I hope my children live through this war," Hatfield had said, "and I believe they will. If I never hear from them again then I couldn't live with myself if they wind up dead, so I'll keep on believing they've survived." But while he talked with the older man, the renewed spirit growing in Hatfield pushed his doubts further into the back of his mind, never to eliminate them altogether but instead to convince him to embrace the path laid out for him despite his own personal misgivings.

Between the front lines there's a strip of land in which no man can live, on that strip the crows and the jackals picking at the putrid remains of human life without care for whose family gave them the corpse, without care for the language any of them spoke, the colour of their skin, the words printed on a page near the front of their passports. As if to accentuate the point, rounds of artillery crash onto the dead zone randomly, fired from some gun, provoking the crows and the jackals to scatter suddenly, their scattering mistaken by some young lookout as movement on the enemy's side, provoking yet more gunfire, yet more death. And in Britain, along that back-country road somewhere between Sheffield and Manchester, Hatfield faces a line of death himself, the firefight with sectarian militia leaving a few bodies before the militia withdraws. They can't carry the bodies with them, and the leader of their band of rebel guerrillas orders the bodies policed and then left to rot. Wright's able to walk, albeit with some help. Hatfield gives him that help. (Parker's not there, having been separated from the other two into another group of rebels). Soon, they're on the move again, making for Manchester, Wright and Hatfield in one of the many Popular Front units ordered to converge on the city. Earlier, before they'd had to abandon first one lorry and then shortly thereafter another in consecutive catastrophic mechanical failures, Hatfield had sat in the back of that lorry and listened to another of the rebel guerrillas, listened to her story. "I was a prostitute in Leeds," she'd said, "and the police would frequently arrest me, only to let me go the next day. It was like that for a lot of people like me. But then one day they didn't let me go." She'd gone on to talk of the charges cooked up against her, various charges associated with public morals and decency. But she wasn't sent to one of His Majesty's prisons, the overcrowding so severe that she'd wound up spending a few weeks in the local jail before being released on probation to an open prison. But she'd broken parole immediately, disappearing into the slums, finding her way into the discipleship of Elijah even before the failed uprising over fifteen years ago. "Sometimes I regret leaving my wife and children," Hatfield had said, "I wish I'd taken care to get them out of the country, if I could, maybe to the States." But while he spoke with the older woman, the renewed spirit kept on growing in Hatfield, pushing his doubts even further to the back of his mind, although he couldn't know it the dark essence which guides the burgeoning revolution acting on his doubts, giving him the courage he needs to take the next step.

In the night, it always happens in the night, Valeri finds himself unable to sleep, looking up as he does at the sky on an unseasonably clear night. The stars are out in full display, so many and so frequent power outages relieving the skies of so much light pollution, revealing a vast sea of little white pinpricks, with the galaxy splaying itself for all to see. It's a rare moment of peace amid a new life of war, and it prompts Valeri to consider the final question which Sister Simpson had asked him before they turned in for the night: "Who are you here for?" But not all is as it seems. In the months since this current revolution began, in all the years since that first failed rising that took the lives of Valeri's mother and father and so many others, Britain has seen much bloodshed, much hatred. It seems almost quaint to consider the shock and outrage that spread across the world when unarmed demonstrators were shot dead in the streets of London, given, now, that scores more die every day in London and in cities from the Channel to the Scottish highlands. But it's far from over. It'll never be over. In the time it takes the death of a young woman, a small child, even an elderly couple to happen, there's a moment of reckoning after which nothing should ever be the same again.

20. Reprisal

Still the wealthy men who form the conspiracy behind the Provisional Government are resourceful and cunning, and they don't give in so easily. Although the mayhem visited upon them has seen millions of working men give themselves over to the budding revolutionary struggle, still millions more remain uncommitted, in this state of mind their vulnerabilities exposed for all to see. The rebel Elijah knows that neutrality in a fight to the death is the same as evil; but the Provisional Government presses forward with its declared plans to stage an election in the coming months, no matter the carnage in the streets. To men like Valeri, O'Connor, and Tonya, it could seem an impossible and futile outing to press forward with the election, but Valeri can feel the vague, creeping sensation in the back of his mind that not all is as it seems. His conceptions of this fight have begun to mature, you see, but still he has much left to accomplish, much left to experience in his journey from hardly-employable malcontent to soldier in the working man's war of self-liberation and, in the future, on to icon committed to the collective consciousness of workers around the world by fiat. But while he continues this journey, their unit working its way through the country through towards Birmingham, the killings which began as lynchings so recently now erupt across the country, so many angered and impoverished people taking their anger out on any convenient target. But the undisciplined and hastily-recruited Home Guard troops across the country seize on the unleashing of anger to exact their own revenge, attacking anyone who fits the vaguest descriptions of their enemies. But the blood spilled over these weeks provides the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front, now including Valeri, O'Connor, and Tonya, the opportunity to lick their wounds and consolidate their remaining forces, in the confusing and wanton violence a decisive next step being reached in their burgeoning revolution. Now, the petty conflict between Tonya and Valeri, their arguments over their own personal pasts and futures, these conflicts seem so distant, even as Valeri and Tonya both take to rehearsing these arguments whenever a spare moment presents itself. "No matter how many times you do it," Valeri says, in the night one night, "it won't ever stop getting on my nerves how you seem to act like you know me." And Tonya, she looks him right in the eye and says, "I haven't known you for very long," then pauses for a moment to consider herself, going on to say, "but I've known men like you. If glory is your prize then you'll do better by yourself to stay alive and fighting as long as possible."

In these, the adolescent moments of the working man's still-maturing revolution, the power of the collective memory to turn on itself should never be underestimated. In the streets of a city somewhere between Birmingham and London, Valeri watches with two young gunmen he's never seen before as a storefront burns. "They won't see us until we shoot," he says, "and we can wait until dark to move." The two young men nod their assent, but like Valeri can't take their eyes off the carnage. When they come under fire, all Valeri knows to do is turn his rifle at the unseen enemy and pull the trigger, loosing rounds randomly into the night. His young colleagues are both struck by the enemy's bullets, killed in the time it takes their bodies to fall limp to the ground. But Valeri doesn't know, can't know the enemy shooting at them isn't the Home Guard's troops, rather an evil far more insidious, far more of a threat, one which should form the core of our way through to the future. But forces which have been gathering strength for many, many years must soon deploy their first brigades in taking to the attack, in turn forcing a dramatic new escalation in the working man's war of self-liberation. "Don't move yet," says Valeri, "just hold the position a little while longer." And still they look past the enemy position, firing their rifles simply to keep the enemy pinned in place. But then the past must make its own resurgence, again. In the ongoing general strike, it seems to Valeri as though the violence playing itself out in the streets all around him is but an echo of his former life, the life of an ordinary labourer become so much more. In truth, Valeri's path is not altogether unlike that of the rebel Elijah, even though they've never met an unspoken bond forming between them. But this is not special, in the hearts of every working man who's become given to dreaming of a better way of life that very bond forming anew. While we fixate on the lives of so many miscellaneous workers, even still there's the pressing need to avert the coming catastrophe, on the continent the changing military situation soon to produce an event so horrific and so devastating that it should make us all stand back and blink.

After having spent some years in prison, the rebel Elijah grew not despondent but emboldened, finding even among his captors a sympathy for his cause. It was this experience that led Elijah to realizing on the universal character of the working class, incorporating into his forbidden gospel this new realization that all those who are given to the struggle will necessarily run towards it. In a desperate bid to arrest the spread of his forbidden gospel, the old Britain banned display of his image and dissemination of his ideas. But it was a futile bid, the legend of the man soon eclipsing even the lost causes and the hopeless poverty meted out on the working man in this country and other countries across the world. It's hard to express that which defies all attempts at expression, that the rebel Elijah could've been only a man even as he was more than a man, but these are the ways in which our history tends to find expression. Logical impossibilities, inherent contradictions, even the loss of what must invariably be found before its loss all seeming to surge, to flow into a single vessel, one person who would purport to lead the working man's cause through a period of time which cannot be led by men. In truth, this is a contradiction which we may never fully understand, much as we'd like to. For the rebel Elijah, this sudden knowledge bestowed upon him by experience came at exactly the right time, at a time so precise that a moment earlier or later might've made his epiphany impossible. Although Elijah had not yet realized the truth of his relationship with the dark essence, it was this moment that the dark essence chose to begin Elijah's ascent. But now, with all Britain plunged into war, there's still much work to be done. In the street Valeri's in the middle of a firefight with Home Guard troops when his rifle clicks empty, and he can't find another magazine in his pack. "Here," says Tonya, tossing a magazine to him, "make it count!" But when he looks back to fire down the way, he can't see the Home Guard's position, obscured as it is by the rising of a column of smoke. All around them, there's screaming and shouting, the wailing of men cut down by bullets, the strikers having cleared the streets in their immediate vicinity but nevertheless filling the cities with the venting of their rage. "What's going on?" asks Michael O'Connor, shouting over the din. "It's happening," says Valeri, to himself as much as anyone else. "What do we do now?" asks Michael. Before Valeri can answer, Tonya says, "pray." And pray Valeri does, silently asking for strength and guidance in these times.

It's quite the sight, to have left themselves vulnerable to the enemy's attacks even as their brothers and sisters among the workers strike. This strike is unlike any of the many that've come before it over the years, taking place as it does while the streets are seized by armies vast and disparate, with all strikers forced to confront the barrel of a gun, whether their enemy's or their friend's. After they've found a moment when silence permits itself to advance on them, Valeri's thoughts drift, taking him from that dingy, dark warehouse to the conurbation of Greater London, once all around him but now so far away. Meanwhile, the reprisals against workers participating in the still-ongoing general strike continue unabated, in the streets of almost every major British city massacres breaking out, death dispensed nearly indiscriminately, the barely-trained paramilitaries that make up most of the Home Guard showing their sectarian stripes in shooting some but not others, ostensibly in retaliation for the lynchings of wealthy men but in truth an expression of so many long-held hatreds. In the midst of all this, illegal assemblies continue to meet, in Edinburgh and Cardiff ethnic nationalists issuing declarations of independence, in Northern Ireland a full-fledged civil war underway between unionists and nationalists. It's all so confusing, such a scattered disarray having set itself upon Britain at exactly the time it's all supposed to be coming together. Still Valeri, Tonya, and the others under Sister Simpson continue their march towards Birmingham, all the while Valeri unable to shake the notion they should be heading the other way.

As the Home Guard metes out death and destruction on the strikers, still the strikers don't yield but intensify their strike, men like Anthony McDonough, a long-unemployed but never dispirited worker from Wakefield, West Yorkshire seeing in the heat of the moment an irrepressible urge to act out. Although Anthony had grown up in the post-industrial wastelands of the north of England, still the prospect of a life filled with unemployment and despair had always moved him to anger. He could never quite become accustomed to the horrors of life in the shadows, with the police raids a daily fact of life. It might seem like he would've been among the first to cast their lot in with the Popular Front, but despite his discontent his is always been consumed in the arduous task of simply making it from one day to the next. As the old order fades beneath a relentless orgy of intensifying violence in the streets, though, Anthony is relieved like so many others of the burdens placed on him by the need to survive through from one day to the next. In the street, he takes in with a crowd of unemployed strikers, hurling bottles, stones, and other missiles at the Home Guard troops who respond with scattered rifle fire. But Anthony is not witness to the worst of it. Across the way a young woman named Eileen Hawkins has taken in with the demonstrators, having begun the ongoing general strike in walking out like so many others but now having joined the angry crowds confronting evil. Already she's lost a brother to the war, her brother having been killed while serving in the British Army on the continent, and with her mother and father long dead she thinks herself now fully alone. It's this loneliness that infuses her body and her mind as she joins in with a group of other youths attacking the Home Guard, the whole lot of them seized by the dark essence which guides the burgeoning revolution and creates in each of them the vague but impossibly powerful compulsion to have at it. That the Home Guard troops are armed means little to people like Eileen Hawkins, even the prospect of an immediate death no deterrent in the face of their overwhelming rage at a lifetime of impoverishment, unemployment, and neglect. Although Eileen will die, shot by the Home Guard troops along with so many others across the country, her death will not have been in vain.

Bodies fall limp to the streets, the pavement soon becoming slick with blood. And Anthony shouts abuse, saying, "I hope there's a place in hell for you!" It's an impossible situation, one which pushes adrenaline through Anthony's body as though he were one heap of flesh, exposing the awful blackness which acts through the troops. It's all a fraud. Anthony is a coward, as all men are cowards. Most of the workers, whether unemployed or employed, drawing pay of their own free will or enslaved in the Labour Brigades don't know what to do, in the span of a few weeks the streets of British cities and towns seized by a few million workers. "And I'm glad that I'm dying," says Anthony, at such a young age already resigned to a short and brutally unpleasant life. it's a criminal act, for the youth to be so deprived of their youthfulness, to be immersed in the horrors of poverty and repression, inevitable as the passage of so much history is. Although the violence in the streets is a new escalation in the war at home, in the working man's burgeoning revolution, it still can't be seen as anything other than an unavoidable catastrophe, so many decades, even centuries of pent-up aggression and anger released by an unlikely set of circumstances aligning at exactly the wrong time.

But the free cruiser Borealis has come a long way from its beginnings. In the waters off the eastern coast she's assembled among a small flotilla of vessels, the turning war having forced an uneasy compromise among ships loyalist and rebel alike. "It's not like you to be so calm," says Mason. "It's been a long time since we've been this close," says Dmitri. They're on the port bridge wing, looking at another cruiser of a different class, her hull and superstructure bearing black scorch marks and gaping holes here and there, the scars of battle declaring where they've been, how many they've left behind. It would seem the waters of the Baltic Sea have become no more welcoming and no less eager to swallow the lives of men in all the time since the Borealis had fought there. And while the Borealis and the other ships sit idle off the coast, Dmitri, Mason, and the others aboard are consciously aware of the slaughter playing out in the streets of their own cities, making each of the sailors feel very much like a useless piece of falling-apart machinery, good to no one, fit only to sit on the sidelines and watch as their brothers and sisters die in the streets, right outside the very homes in which they all used to live, together. "In the end," says Mason, "it won't matter much." And Dmitri agrees, saying, "I suppose you're right. But I intend to be around to see it." Even as they might be shooting at the others on board the other ships at anchor even some days in the future, for now they must feel compelled to act as though they are still brothers at arms. Already they've been made to choose sides in the budding war at home, which has yet to escalate beyond the revolutionary struggle which it is.

The seas lap gently against the hull of the Borealis, rocking her deck in time with the waves. It's unseasonably calm on the North Sea today, as it's been for a few days now, and with chronic fuel shortages crippling all navies at war there's no one who can venture out to threaten anyone else while the real war rages on the streets of cities in Britain and all across Europe. "Are you afraid?" asks Dmitri, turning the tables on his brother. "Of course I'm afraid," says Mason, "but I look past my fears, as best I can. The magnitude of what we do is something we can't always see. I've been thinking, too much perhaps. But I've come to remember the little things. We all come from the same country, and we all need to remember where we come from." Although these words don't exactly enflame Dmitri's passions anew, still he feels a courage drawn from his brother's words, as if to become more assured of himself. But while Dmitri grows into the role he's found thrust upon him, in the country they've left behind the new violence seems to wrought itself on the streets with an increasingly frenetic pace, leaving Dmitri and the others aboard to contemplate disregarding the orders they've been given by their contact in the Popular Front and head directly back into the fray.

It's a little later now, some time having passed, perhaps a few weeks, not quite a month. Sometimes Valeri thinks, in these moments, about what's become of Dominion Courts, the old, decrepit apartment block which served as a bulwark against the Home Guard's troops. Back in those heady days when it seemed the revolution might succeed in toppling the old way of life at any moment, when all it took was the filling of the streets with an irrepressible mass of people, Valeri was only a little younger than he is now, a year or two, perhaps three at most. In these little moments when time permits, he looks back on the strikes he took part in, on the stand he and his neighbours took against the policeman's truncheon and it seems to him to have been a lifetime and a half since all that'd transpired. He would hardly be able to keep track of all the time that's passed but for the changing of the seasons, their extremes in heat and cold, scorching drought and punishing snow accentuated by the world's climate still in the midst of its own inescapable crisis. Now, Valeri is all but resigned to a long and bitter struggle, one which could claim his life at any moment. He feels as though he's aged ten years for every one that's passed since that fateful day when the police raided his shop and took his old friend Sergei. "You're a good fighter," says Tonya, speaking with Valeri. They've put down for the night in some patch of forest along the road to Birmingham, the journey having taken so long owing to repeated clashes with the Home Guard and with the sectarian militia who seem to wander freely. "I'm no fighter," says Valeri, even as he's aware of the rifle in his lap and the dried blood on his face. He'd gotten cut and bruised so many times in the past months but can't remember where any one cut or bruise came from. "You've learned a lot since we left that block," says Tonya. Now Valeri doesn't even think of cleaning his gun or attuning his hearing to that tell-tale sound of boots against the pavement, these things occurring to him instinctively. "We've all learned a lot," says Valeri, "but we've still got a lot to learn." Tonya nods, then says, "and a long way to go until we can go home."

But in the city of Leeds there's no time for introspection, a young woman named Chelsea Schneider struggles like so many others simply to survive from one day to the next. Although Leeds is still in the hands of the Home Guard and the local government still owes its loyalty to the Provisional Government, there's much fighting here, even in advance of the coming election. Chelsea lives in a little flat she shares with two others, roommates she doesn't even known, and she works at a local plant. She's on strike with millions of others when some gunmen come around, not the Home Guard but one of the sectarian militias taking advantage of the chaos to inflict their own brand of terror. A few dozen militiamen set upon Chelsea and the other workers from the plant, swinging clubs and bludgeoning the workers in the face, one young man coming up to Chelsea, raising his hand, about to bring the butt of a pistol he's carrying down. But Chelsea thinks, in the moment of the last thing she'd said to her lover, to the love of her life, a man named Charles, he just as young as she. He'd said to her, "whatever happens to either of us, I know we'll always have each other," before himself turning to the streets. He wasn't to join the strike, but look for food. For the rest of his life, whether a day or fifty years, he'll think of what he should've said. He'll join the Popular Front, but not right away, instead taking in with the striking workers who abandon their strike to indulge in lynchings. Although Valeri isn't taking part in the lynchings, without warning he could count himself among the revolutionary martyrs, among those who future generations should commemorate in song. But it's all a fraud, it's all an illusion, the brutal realities of human misery bleeding all over these quixotic dreams of all our future's past. As Valeri puts one foot down into the muck and pulls himself forward, he peers through the darkness, the lot of them come across another roadblock, this time their commander Sandra Simpson opting not to attack it head on. Already Valeri has come to submit part of himself to the whims of the essence, but still part of him thinks the other way. "We should never lose sight of our goal," he says, looking down the street at the Home Guard troops. "After all that we've been through we can't stop now," says Tonya. But the enemy has too many troops at this particular roadblock, leaving the rebels among which Valeri has come to serve fewer options than ever. It's too far they've come along to give up now, too many of their own they've seen cut to pieces on the very streets they've sought to free. And they've seen their ranks swell with new recruits, with the homeless and the lost, with the most pathetic and wretched among the working men, they who would seek to cast their lot in with the dead and dying. As the men stand behind cover and trade fire with the Home Guard troops, all the streets seem to burn with a vented rage. "We can't take them," says Sister Simpson, after they've spent the better part of the afternoon in action, "but there may be another way around."

A little ways down the line, Tonya and Roger fight side by side, from behind cover pointing their rifles at the enemy, taking scattered shots. Only too late does Valeri realize that this is not what any of them expected when the revolution was set loose, but still it was inevitable that this should come about, the working man's passions unleashed in an orgy of hatred and recrimination. A few hours after turning back to the streets and withdrawing from their latest confrontation with the enemy, Valeri, Tonya, and the others under Sister Simpson's charge cautiously make for the remains of an old motor pool. Formerly used by the local police, the motor pool now looks abandoned, its windows shattered and its grounds littered with spent shell casings, chunks of concrete and asphalt, and miscellaneous human remains. "There was a battle here," Valeri surmises. "No," says Sister Simpson, "there was a massacre. They took prisoners and when the order came down to evacuate they disposed of the prisoners by executing them." And it wasn't all that long ago, either. It's confusing, but not altogether unexpected, this happening upon a mass grave which must have been only hastily abandoned recently. It's not certain why the Home Guard troops had defended the area with such an uncharacteristic spirit to their fighting, but as Valeri steps through the door and into a small building at the back of the motor pool's yard, on finding the building empty save a few bottles and broken boxes Valeri stepping out through another door. Then, in the ditch behind the premises, he finds the bodies.

At sea, the cruiser Borealis is only one ship among many, the vast bulk of what'd been His Majesty's Royal Navy still committed to following the banner of the way of things, still fighting a pointless imperial war against imagined enemies on the continent rather than the real enemies at home. After stepping inside the bridge, Dmitri says, "keep watch through the night," to his crew. The young man at the conn nods and says, "yes, sir." But Dmitri corrects him, saying, "I'm not a sir. Don't call me sir." The young man at the conn says, "of course, brother." Still the old way persists among the men, having been made to infuse itself into the very depths of their collective psyche by generation after generation of subordination to a master neither wanted nor needed. "I'm not so sure there's anything left for us in the near future," says a younger crewman named Harold Albright, who serves in one of the forward compartments flooded in the last battle. "It matters little what's in the future," says Dmitri, thinking of the young wife and daughter who've been ferreted out and killed by the Home Guard, "all that matters is what we can do, now." But with the deck heaving slightly beneath their feet as the cruiser takes a turn to port, the vibrations of the engine seem to magnify, to intensify, drawing the attention of every man aboard. They have placed their considerable faith in the strength of the ship aboard which they've served for so long. Time and again, their faith in her has proven wise, rewarded as they've been with a continued survival. "We've got very little left," says a young crewman, a woman named Erica Ellis who works in the engine room, "fuel's critical again. Starboard engine gone, port engine barely functioning. We can give you fifteen knots, and that's pushing it to the limit. At that speed the other engine could go at any time." But Dmitri, now in the engine room with Ellis and a few others, thinks for a moment before saying, "fifteen knots it is, then." He turns to make back up to the bridge, but Ellis stops him, saying, "Brother Malinin, what's the plan?" Dmitri pauses to consider his words for a moment, before turning to face Ellis. He says, "we're through running," then turns back up the stairs out of the engine room, catching a glimpse of the faint beginnings of a smile on Ellis' face.

It's enough to make both Dmitri and all the others aboard grateful for the guidance they've received, in this, their time of need, maps and charts marked pointing the way through to safety. After this current cruise, the crew of the Borealis put into port not far from where they'd once broken out of the River Thames, a momentary truce called between elements of the navy pledged to the banner of Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front and those who would still pledge fealty to the old Royal Navy, no matter who's in charge. It's quite the trick, to be looking across the water at ships whose sailors had only days earlier been firing on theirs, and when Dmitri is back on the bridge he makes a conscious effort not to look, concentrating instead on the current status of repairs. Still there's Mason, arriving from below decks after another failed attempt to get the engines running up to full power, looking on the scene spread out before them all with a kind of muted enthusiasm mixed with an uncanny, ashen despair. It's impossible for anyone aboard to foresee what's coming, but as Mason takes his post by the conn Dmitri can almost sense the impending arrival of a new phase of violence darker and deadlier than anything that's come before. Finally, Mason speaks, asking, "what do we do, Brother Malinin?" And Dmitri allows himself the beginnings of a smile, then says, "convene the council. We're going home." But even as he says this, he knows it can never be so simple.

A bang, a snap, a flash of light and a voice shouting, barking out orders, not in the sewers where Valeri hides out but in the yard behind a school somewhere in the streets of London's environs. There's the distant rattling of gunfire and the bursting of bombs, growing more distant as they flee the horrific maelstrom of sadistic and wanton violence that London's become since the Home Guard crushed the rebellion and seized the liberated zones. But back at the old motor pool, he can only stand with Tonya, Roger, and the others as Sister Simpson leads them through a brief examination of the scene of a horrific crime. These bodies, Valeri can tell they belong to ordinary workers, but little more than that, his intuition seeing fit to withhold from him that judgement, at least for now. They all stand together, for a moment, and look on the piles of bodies cast into the ditch behind the motor pool. The bodies all look to be civilians, though in this day and age it's often hard to tell the difference between civilian and soldier. Although none of them, not even Sister Simpson can know it, the order had come down from the Home Guard's local command to abandon the post in the face of agitation among the local population. Not wanting to release the prisoners who would join in with the agitation, the local command ordered the prisoners liquidated. None of them can know it, but the dark essence all around them chooses this very moment to assert itself, curling invisibly as it does around their bodies, nestling in the cockles of their hearts, filling them not with a kind of resigned discouragement but a quiet, smouldering anger, from anger the renewed desire to fight through to the bitter end against their hated enemy. It's possible the Home Guard troops they'd recently fought were responsible for this massacre, but this is something they'll never know for sure. There's so much death, so much suffering in the streets it seems unimportant to Valeri exactly who pulled the trigger on whom.

"What should we do with them?" asks Valeri, although he knows the answer even as he asks the question. "There's nothing we can do," says Sister Simpson, "except keep moving." It's impossible for any of them to know just how many bodies are lying in the ditch, but to Valeri it looks as though there might be dozens of corpses. They're all fully clothed. Their skin has begun to turn a dark, disturbing violet colour. But the smell is what strikes Valeri the hardest. He can never get used to the thick, pungent stench of rotting flesh, no matter how many bodies he's come across, he's yet to come across in this long war. Although he tries to muscle a stoic look onto his face, Valeri is seemingly lost, turning to Tonya, who says to him, "there's going to be much worse out there." And Valeri asks, "how can you know?" But Tonya says, "I trust my instincts." And this, Valeri can't argue with, no matter how he might want to try. Before they leave the scene, Valeri takes a handkerchief from the ground near the pile of bodies, the handkerchief so drenched in blood it's completely turned a dull, crimson red. To hold the handkerchief in his hand, to run his fingers gently over the still-wet fabric and imagine the blood not as stains but pumping through some poor young girl's veins is an impossible thing, as if there's some small part of Valeri still capable of feigning outrage, but feigning so convincingly that even Valeri can't help but mistake it for the real thing. He places the handkerchief in his pocket, intending to remember this young black girl's face whenever he takes the handkerchief in his hand and feels the blood-stained fabric anew. Forever the massacre should stay nestled close to his heart, and in time it should inspire him to take a stand for all the innocent young lives cut short.

But we don't know yet where the next step in all our history's futures will take us, instead the grander scheme laid out before us becoming lost in the carnage that seems to envelope the streets anew every day and every night. Although all men on board the Borealis worry for the safety of their loved ones, their wives and children, none feel but the growing camaraderie between them. Again, the lost causes seem to impress themselves upon the moment, astride a wave of enthusiasm their revolutionary camaraderie surging with every powerful jolt of electricity powering through the circuits of the ship's electronics. "Keep your attention focused," says a man Dmitri's working alongside. "It's not impossible for me to do," says Dmitri, "if only I could see anything more than a few feet in front of my face." There's a moment of relative silence, the only sound as Dmitri tinkers with the circuits and wires in the underside of a console. They're not on the bridge, nor in the engine room, but the main navigation room, meant by the ship's architects to serve as the headquarters at sea for an entire flotilla of vessels. But Dmitri only says, "I'm helping as best I can," before reaching into a toolbox for the right wrench. "You're tired," says the would-be electrician, a young crewman named Christopher Hall. "It's true," Dmitri says, "but no more than anyone else." Dmitri feels the twisting pain of so many hours of lost sleep behind his eyes, in the back of his mind, all throughout his body. In all the time since they've struck out on their own and pledged themselves to the banner of Elijah and the Popular Front, the men aboard the free cruiser Borealis have become even closer than ever before, even as Dmitri's their duly-elected captain still his brothers and sisters feeling close enough in spirit to address him as such. But the task of committing their dead to the waters off the English coast is something none of them can ever grow accustomed to, no matter their newfound camaraderie. Sometimes, in those confused times when they're pledged in a momentary truce with the loyalist ships in the Royal Navy, it seems to Dmitri as though the dead curry no favour whether friend or foe, after having left crewman Hall to his work Dmitri seeking solace on deck. But he arrives topside at exactly the right moment to look across the water and see a procession on the deck of a loyalist frigate. They're tossing bodies overboard, without even the luxury of white sheets to cover them. They've weighted the bodies down with pieces of scrap metal, and Dmitri watches as each body disappears beneath the surface within a few seconds of striking the surface, leaving behind no evidence but the memories of men that they were ever there at all. A third of the water in the oceans and rivers have turned to blood, the water a bitter poison, as though infused with toxic sludge.

Through the sewers Valeri chases, every turn seeming to bring him and the others into a new trap. Sticking his head out through a manhole, Valeri sees only fires burning and smoke rising into the sky, the sounds of screams and shouts seeming to blend into a single great cacophony of death. Clambering topside, there's barely enough time for two of his squadmates to join him on the surface before a burst of gunfire kills a third. But Valeri turns towards the enemy, steadies his aim by going down on one knee, and fires, striking down one enemy, scattering fire around the others. It's over as quickly as it started. Valeri approaches the wounded enemy he'd shot only moments earlier, cautiously feeling the ground with every step forward. The enemy trooper's still alive. He wears the uniform of the Home Guard, but he looks unlike any Home Guard trooper Valeri`s ever seen, his face twitching as he seems to cower in fear at his impending fate. In a moment of weakness, Valeri can only look aside. But it`s not time for such things. Tonya approaches him from behind, the rest of their company cautiously emerging into the street. "Valeri," says Tonya, "are you able to do what must be done?" Although it's a question Valeri and Tonya, and men all across Britain and throughout Europe have been debating for many, many years, in the heat of the moment its true meaning becomes known to Valeri. He can't know it, but this is another moment when the dark essence which guides the working man's revolution descends upon Valeri, upon them all, visiting him with the lightest of touches, sending a shiver running the length of his spine as he looks on the pathetic sight of an enemy soldier writhing on the ground. At that moment, Valeri notices Sister Simpson approaching, seeming to look at neither him nor the mortally wounded enemy trooper. "I am," he says. It's merely a coincidence that Valeri and the others should've happened upon a Home Guard patrol on poking their heads out into the street, a rich coincidence bordering on irony. This coincidence comes as reprisals and continue, the Home Guard shooting dead striking workers, some even abandoning their posts to settle petty grievances or let loose sectarian tensions so long restrained. Although Valeri knows of these acts of murder, he knows of them only by the word he's received. Right now, that's enough.

Valeri points his rifle at the wounded trooper's head, and in that fraction of a moment before pulling the trigger some small part of him spares a thought for the barely-teenaged girl whose corpse had been thrown with all the others into that ditch, her rotting, discoloured flesh reaching out to shock Valeri's conscience even as he steels himself against the task of killing. He keeps his eyes open as he squeezes the trigger, a grim look on his face as he deposits a round into the forehead of the trooper, the dying becoming the dead in the time it takes one moment to bleed into the next. It was only a short time earlier that Valeri, Tonya, and all the others under Sister Simpson's tutelage had come across the bodies, thinking themselves happening across a great atrocity even in a time where so many great atrocities mark life as stars mark the night's sky. Although they show no reaction to the bodies they've found, in truth Valeri, Tonya, even Sister Simpson for all the years she's been living the life of the rebel, none have ever seen such a great mass of death. It's telling that even in these times the sight of such a massacre should still have the power to shock the conscience. In the end, Tonya will be proven right; she's already proven right. In the face of the general strike and a renewed offensive by the rebels in the Popular Front, there can be no mercy for the murderers. This current escalation of the war, the combination of the general strike and the rebel offensive, it won't be the last battle to martyr many so that others might live free. But once Valeri and the others under Sister Simpson's tutelage have moved on, they put down for the night, Sister Simpson allowing them only five hours until they must be on the move again. But still Valeri can't sleep, thinking as he does through the night of the look on that poor, dead girl's face, the pale, purple colour of her flesh, the way she'd seemed in death to be screaming even as she'd laid there, silent and motionless. As it is written, the first shall be last and the last shall be first. But the burgeoning revolution which consumes the country requires martyrs, and although Valeri might crave martyrdom himself, it's not to be his fate. As the ongoing general strike degenerates into a maelstrom of violence and degradation, Valeri has much road left to travel before he can reach his destiny.

On the free cruiser Borealis, they have no choice but to dispose of their dead by committing their bodies to the sea, without even the luxury of a dignified burial the bodies simply taken to the side of the ship and hurled overboard. The men left must work double shifts to keep the cruiser running, and this they do willingly, preferring a constant state of exhaustion to surrender. The ship's governing council is to convene soon, at Dmitri's request, all the while his orders to steam west, towards home, are carried out anyways. The debate on Crewman Emily White's proposal continues, even months after she'd been killed in action, with an overwhelming majority of the crew having come to favour rejecting the Provisional Government's offer of clemency. But Dmitri isn't satisfied with the support of an overwhelming majority. In his heart, he requires unanimity, knowing as he does that the will of the crew can't be measured but must be forged as steel in fire. Their brothers aboard their sister ship, the frigate Nix, are not so badly depleted of manpower and send over some sailors, but still the Borealis is undermanned. Although Dmitri is the duly-elected captain of the vessel, he's rarely found on the bridge, working wherever he's needed or sleeping whenever a rare spare hour presents itself here or there. On this day, he's in the engine room following the directions of the closest thing they have to a chief engineer, a gunner who'd received some training in the engine room before all this started. The gunner's name is Rich Rutherford, and he walks Dmitri through the task of bypassing old circuits. "Keep your hand steady," says Rutherford, "and connect the bypass now." But Dmitri struggles through it, fumbling a bit with the soldering iron, striking another circuit just long enough to send sparks into the air.

It's a strange moment, almost anticlimactic, only so recently were the crew of the Borealis under constant fire from the enemy, from any enemy, from everyone who would deem them an enemy, and now they are so helpless and pathetic as not to be worth the ammunition. Rutherford stops Dmitri, saying to him, "you should steady your hands, or you will short the whole circuit and shut the thing down." But the look on Rutherford's face tells a different story, the strain he's been under since having been thrust into the role of the ship's engineer taking its toll on him. Dmitri would've already asked if Rutherford would like to be relieved of duty to return to the guns, but the elected captain knows the would-be engineer would simply refuse. But a new task soon presents itself to them, the ship's engines quitting for good at exactly the wrong moment, when the enemy is bearing down on them. But as Dmitri steels himself inwardly to address the ship's council, he works outwardly to make sure the council will vote to empower him to make the decisions he's already made, meeting with other members of the crew, persuading them to his line of thinking. It doesn't take much convincing, this crew wanting to return home. And by the time a vote is held, they're already back in British waters, back in action, about to assume a role in events larger than any of them could've foreseen.

21. Narrow Margin

Still through the night, that night, and through the days and nights to come Valeri thinks on the massacred men and women at that old, disused motor pool. They'd seemed to range in age from, Valeri guesses, adolescents to the elderly, with one young woman's face in particular making a lasting impression on Valeri's memories. She looked to be fourteen, fifteen, sixteen at most. Although Valeri was present, long ago, when the police shot dead dozens of unarmed demonstrators in the streets of London, this seems different, in ways even he can only begin to articulate. At least, he reasons, as he sits alone with his thoughts, at that demonstration on that fateful day they were engaged in an act of warfare, even if they were unarmed their goals nevertheless making them something of a target. The cities around Manchester, from Sheffield to Blackpool and from the eastern reaches of Liverpool through to the western reaches of Leeds and Bradford all lie more or less in rebel hands, providing a stronghold from which the Popular Front can direct its next moves. But for Valeri, on the road between London and Birmingham, these past months since their expulsion from the former liberated zones have meant one brush with death after another. They've managed a long and roundabout path, interrupted by firefights with Home Guard troops and sectarian gangs. They've lost some of their own, but they're still mostly together. They've also taken in a few new men, here and there. A distance that normally would've taken some hours by car has taken them so long owing to the ongoing action they've seen as well as the need to secure food and other supplies. But even as they've been forced sometimes to take food at gunpoint, other times to accept the charity of the very people they seek to liberate, Valeri can't push from his mind thoughts of that dead girl.

That teenager, her lifeless face will remain in Valeri's thoughts for so long as he has life in his own body, and through his thoughts she should be granted a kind of immortality only through the memories of the living. After killing the wounded Home Guard trooper, Valeri might've felt guilt at having committed a craven act of murder. But as they put down for the night, Valeri can't help but imagine whether that Home Guard trooper had committed a murder, if not against that young girl then of some other young girl, somewhere. There have been so many innocents killed since that fateful day when Valeri's friend Sergei had been hauled away, many more still since the failed uprising that took the lives of Valeri's mother and father. "Do you hate your family?" asks Valeri. "No," says Sister Simpson, "in the cause of the rebel Elijah and the Popular Front there is a redemption offered to all, even to men like my father, should he choose to accept it. But sadly I suspect that is something he could never do. If I ever see him again, I hope I'll have it in me to convince him." In the fields outside the environs of Greater London, special circumstances prevail in this war. Roving bands of armed gangsters loot and plunder the wealth of the country, reserving their greatest violence for the columns of refugees fleeing one maelstrom for another, only some time ago it seeming impossible this kind of war could visit itself upon Britain but now seeming impossible to take hold anywhere else. "What we've been seeing," says Sister Simpson, "is a seminal moment in history." Valeri interrupts, saying, "yes, the revolution." But Sister Simpson shakes her head, saying, "no, it's not only the revolution." She pauses. To Valeri it seems she's pausing to consider her thoughts, but when she resumes speaking he knows she's only been listening to the ambient noise, to the bursting of distant bombs and the rattling of distant gunfire. "No matter what happens here," she says, "what's coming has been in the works for hundreds of years. If not here, if not us, then somewhere, someone. We've been chosen to lead the fight for the future."

A younger man named Clancy McDonald seeks in with the refugees, along with a few friends, his father and his sister making along the side of the motorway on foot for rumoured safe haven in Watford, so close to London but seeming with each agonizing step along the road so far away. There's gunfire, suddenly seeming to erupt all around them, all at once. Clancy grabs his sister by the shoulders, forcing her roughly in behind a broken-down lorry, only to look back in time to see his father lying in the middle of the road. And he can't resist the urge to reach out for his father, stepping back onto the road, daring the gunfire cutting bodies to pieces and spilling blood. But Clancy can only watch as his elderly father dies in the middle of the road, bleeding out while, all around, there cracks gunfire. No Popular Front gunmen can be seen; when Clancy throws himself back behind cover, his sister says to him, "they're killing us!" And Clancy says, "and we're all going to die!" Although neither Clancy nor his sister, nor any of the other refugees fleeing the war in the streets can know it, the attack comes not from the rebels in the Popular Front nor from the hated Provisional Government's troops in the Home Guard but some ethnic nationalists following the edicts of a minister sensing his own opportunity. It matters little, for now, which ethnic flag these nationalists follow, though we'll come to know that fact in time. "Father!" shouts Clancy, shouting at someone, at something no longer there. It's only been some months since he'd reconciled with his father, and now his father has been taken from him in the time it took some gunman to squeeze the trigger and loose bullets onto the crowd. "Father!" shouts Clancy, shouting at anyone, at anything that might be there, over the rattling of rifle fire and the thunderous bursting of bombs in the street. The attack's over as soon as it's begun, and it leaves behind bodies strewn and debris scattered across the road, with Clancy left clutching at the remains of his life. But his sister pulls him to his feet, and soon the whole mass of people resume their march towards an uncertain fate.

Their mass is to become smaller and smaller as they march towards Liverpool, some among them leaving at stops here and there, others killed in further attacks, but Clancy and his sister to make it all the way there. Already forces have been unleashed which should change our lives, in the meanwhile men like Clancy to suffer the pain of living through hell on Earth. But it's not over yet. In fact, it may never be over. For so long as there're people like Clancy to be yearning for freedom, there'll be those who would seek to do them harm. These mass killings have become undisciplined and ill-tempered, with so many Home Guard troops outright abandoning their posts to track down and kill so many innocents, with men like Clancy witnessing the full effects of this horror. But their horror is the Popular Front's redemption, relieving pressure on the Front following its recently-failed offensive. As Sister Simpson expounds on her experiences, she seems, to Valeri, as though she lapses into a kind of daze, peering into her own personal past in order to shed some light on all their futures. "Were there any who hated you for your wealthy father?" asks Valeri. "Some," says Sister Simpson, "but Elijah rebuked them." "You've met Elijah?" asks Tonya. "Once," says Sister Simpson, "I heard him speak at a union hall in Leeds when I was still young. He declared his brother anyone who would commit themselves wholeheartedly to the cause of working class liberation, no matter the language on his tongue, the stock he came from, the colour of his skin, young or old, weak or strong." And this, this Valeri listens to with a mounting excitement, his pulse quickening and an electric sensation running the length of his spine. It is as the rebel Elijah had foretold; those who would give themselves over to the struggle of the Popular Front will instinctively run towards its open arms, while those who would oppose the struggle of the Popular Front will instinctively avert their eyes and turn against it, no matter what. It is the way of things. And Sandra Simpson, now Sister Simpson to Brothers like Valeri and Sisters like Tonya, she saw her own personal redemption in the common struggle of the Popular Front's predecessors, whether the Worker's Party or the People's Party, or any of the numerous informal, ad hoc gatherings of working men who've met to vent their anger.

But soon the Home Guard reveals itself as the true harbinger of the coming revolutionary achievement, its ranks swelling as the Provisional Government sees fit to conscript every available young man into its ranks. It's not yet time, still a thousand years away as we are from our history's future, even as we draw nearer and nearer still to the inevitability we've been headed towards all along. But in the meanwhile, the Popular Front continues its long, slow march towards victory, along the way ordinary men like Valeri Kovalenko realizing their extraordinary destinies. "But I'm not always so sure of myself," says Valeri, admitting, in a moment of weakness, to something he'd never thought to admit to her. So much time has passed since the expulsion of Valeri and Tonya and all the others from the former liberated zones, some months, and yet to Valeri it seems as though it's been days. And Valeri has been told by Sister Simpson they're to retake the attack, in perfect time with the coming election. The election, to Valeri it seems so distant, in the background. He knows in his heart this election's to be as inconsequential as the last, and the one before the last, and the one before that. But he's wrong even as he's right. "In weakness there is strength," says Sister Simpson, "and although you are weak, you are also immeasurably strong. The future belongs to us, the hungry and the tired. I say these things not because I'm required to by the Popular Front, but because they are true. I know you don't see it yet, but it's precisely because you are weak that you are strong." Through the darkness of the night, she nods knowingly at Tonya, who has only just managed to fall asleep a few metres away. She sleeps next to Roger, who seems to be looking out for her. "And so is she strong in her weakness," says Sister Simpson, "as you all are. One of the common sayings that Elijah has taught us all is that we will all have a place." But she sees Valeri's unknowing confusion, even through the darkness of the night her ability to peer inside the hearts of her subordinates making itself acutely clear.

It's not been all that long since they'd taken under her, several months, and still she's not told Valeri, Tonya, or any of the others where she'd come from. In truth, her command is inherited from a predecessor named Christopher Connelly, a former member of the revived Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland who turned to the cause of the rebel Elijah even before the old Worker's Party and People's Party joined to form the Popular Front. But Connelly had been killed, martyred in an attack by the army on their underground hideout, while Sister Simpson and most of the others had escaped to carry on the fight. "But like all true heroes," says Sister Simpson, "he won't be remembered by our future, even after we emerge victorious in our revolutionary struggle. He taught me much. He turned away from sectarianism, giving up on the old IRA when he saw both Catholic and Protestant welcome among the brothers and sisters of Elijah. And it was from him that I learned this." They reflect, and as they reflect, there's civil war already underway in Northern Ireland, the Popular Front weak there, the main combatants sectarian militias owing loyalties to nationalist and unionist causes. As Valeri has always seen these elections as inconsequential, he's always been right even as he's been wrong. This election, as it's little more than an attempt by the Provisional Government to provide itself with a continued legitimacy. When the Popular Front stages its next wave of attacks on election day, they'll attack not the Home Guard nor the sectarian militia, which have become hardly distinguishable from one another. No, they'll attack the election itself, for the very same reason the overwhelming majority of Britons will ignore it, the very same reason the hated Provisional Government has already calculated the results. If ever anyone should doubt the conviction, the ideals of the rebels in the Popular Front, Valeri decides as he listens to Sister Simpson, then this recollection should always serve as an instructive story. But even Valeri sees something that isn't there, imagining as he does a great cloud, a great black cloud swelling on the horizon, as if to consume all the light there is and leave only a deep blackness to spread across the country and around the world.

In the shadows, the guerrillas of the Popular Front withhold their strength, conserving their men and munitions for the coming offensive, allowing the enemy to expend his strength in a futile bid to forestall the inevitability of the coming end. Some of the guerrillas in their troop have survived this far, one or two having been in the Popular Front and its predecessors, the Worker's Party and the People's Party. It recalls a conversation Valeri had with one of the more experienced among the men, not altogether long after they'd happened across the scene of that horrific massacre, when once they'd been alone. A clear divide had come to exist between the younger rebels who'd only recently taken up the struggle, among them Valeri and Tonya, and the older rebels who'd been around various lengths of time, some even before the rebel Elijah had been captured and put in prison. Although we've focused on the younger generation of rebels, the long-serving among the rebels under Sister Simpson's leadership offer a contribution invaluable. Among their names, Joan and Wayne, Joyce and Edward, Daniel and Emily. "Has Elijah taught everyone in the Popular Front?" asks O'Connor, the young man from whom Valeri has heard so little since their unceremonious expulsion from their own homes. "Not all of us have had the good fortune to meet him," says Sister Simpson, "but they may yet. You may yet." As so much time has passed since the beginning of this war, both the burgeoning revolution at home and the more recent war on the continent, it seems to Valeri as though he should've come to know the names of so many men and women, young and old, he's travelled alongside them for months. As there's been so much action, he's had so little time for idle chatter, between studying under Sister Simpson and fulfilling their duties he's failed to learn them.

But their names are not important, not altogether unimportant, each of them containing a lifetime and a half's worth of memories and experiences to bestow upon the next. As they dress their wounds and bury their dead as best they can, at night one night following another long and arduous day of marching across the English countryside, Valeri and Tonya take down not with each other but apart, Valeri sitting with a group of the older rebels while Tonya with some from among the refugees of the old liberated zones. It's dark, the dark essence which surrounds them all choosing this moment to descend upon them, in their moment of need as they both fight not the enemy's troops but the painful emptiness in their own stomachs. Not altogether far from that miscellaneous spot where Valeri and the others put down for the night, a woman named Darla French lives in a small town largely spared by the war at home, so far at least. She lives with the rest of her family in a small house, and she works with the civil engineering corps, keeping the roads open and clear. Though far from the main road between London and Birmingham, the town sits along an alternate route frequently used by the Home Guard, travelling in unmarked vehicles, various officials making personal use of the troops tasked with maintaining order. But when, one day, she sees a new group of vehicles passing through, she makes the decision to do something about it. She's not alone. After having lived all her life in the grips of an unending poverty, spending the prime of her life unemployed more often than not, she relishes the chance. Speaking with her husband later in the night, she says, "the next time we see the lorries come through, we'll be ready." Her husband only nods, forcing down the thin stew they've taken to eating for supper every night. "They're going to take us into the Labour Brigades soon," Darla says, "and when they try, we'll refuse." They both know it'll mean a fight, but at least Darla's prepared for a fight for the first time in her life. By the time the order comes down and the Home Guard come around to take her and others like her in, she's long gone, reappearing barely ten days later when the Popular Front attacks. The few workers who she's among haven't joined the Popular Front, not in the way Valeri has. They're only fellow travelers, but in the burgeoning revolution which the Popular Front prosecutes fellow travelers are good enough.

"I'm hungry," says Valeri, "but I could never be hungry enough to take food from a starving child." And Tonya nods, but says, "if we starve to death then we are of no use to anyone, now or in the future." This is a debate they've been having, off and on, even as they confiscate food from wherever they can find it, from huddled men and women in the basements of old churches, from the backs of lorries they've stopped and searched from top to bottom. One of the rebel Elijah's edicts is that their struggle must be sustained from the very people, the very country which their struggle seeks to liberate. But they turn back to their food, some old tins of beans found among the wreckage of the storehouse in which they stand. They look discoloured, a pale shade somewhere been green and brown, and they smell rancid. But Valeri and Tonya eat them anyways. Each is so hungry they don't hesitate, wolfing down the beans as though the food was fresh off the shelf. "In the Popular Front," says Sister Simpson, to them after they've returned from their hunt for food, "all are judged not by the blood flowing through their veins but by the commitment in their spirit to the struggle." And the spirit in her voice gives away the feeling of authenticity, of genuine affection whenever she speaks of the Popular Front and the rebel Elijah in this way. But there's the gentle rattling of the ground beneath them to give away a distant explosion, the bursting of a bomb followed by the chattering of gunfire. As the summer of our discontent wears on, the setting of the distant sun coats the landscape outside in a silky golden glow, the months having blended together until none of them can tell, at a glance, how much time has passed, how the seasons have started to turn where once there'd been seasons to turn but where now there's only heat, humidity, and death. A little further afield from Darla French and her husband live another couple, a man named Austin Rhodes and his wife. Austin works at a local power plant, having been forced at gunpoint by the local Home Guard detachment to fill in for the workers who'd taken in with the general strike. But Austin, like the others, doesn't know what he's doing, having only a passing familiarity with the machinery he's been tasked with operating. (This kind of mismanagement is common under the Provisional Government). When Austin notices one of the gauges running too high, he doesn't know what to do, nor do any of his co-workers. In a few minutes, the gauge redlines, other gauges and dials following, alarms sounding. The whole plant seems to shudder as the lights fail and the plant goes offline. "You there," comes a commanding voice. It's one of the Home Guard troops, in the doorway. Later, days later, the power's still offline, and a few of the workers find themselves hauled before an impromptu tribunal, commissioned by the local government which is still loyal to the Provisional Government. They're charged with industrial sabotage. One of the last things Austin had said to his wife was something along the lines of, " as long as we stay together, we'll be all right." But as he's sentenced to death, sentenced on the same day as when the tribunal had been hastily convened, he wishes he'd said something more profound. Not all those sentenced are hanged; some stage an escape attempt, only to be gunned down. Austin and the others are all left to their fate.

Sometimes during their discussion Valeri wipes the sweat from his brow, only to have to wipe the sweat from his brow again moments later. In time, they will run out of drinkable water. But for now, the taps still run, even if sometimes they discharge foul tasting and malodourous water. "You see," says Sister Simpson, "the ordinary men and women of Russia are our brothers and sisters, too. As are those in America, in China, in every country around the world. This current war on the continent, it is merely the current expression of the pitting of working men against each other, brothers against sisters. Wherever working class agitation rises, the wealthy men foster war between their powers, attempting to distract from the real troubles. One of the Popular Front's goals has always been to resist this distraction and focus on the real enemy. Would that the working class of Russia would do the same." Although these ideas are not new to Valeri, Tonya, and all the others, in the spare fraction of a moment between the bursting of bombs the thought occurring suddenly to Valeri that there might be something, somewhere in the world worth dying for. It's nothing outright, nothing immediately obvious, not even anything neither Valeri nor anyone else could quite articulate, but it's there, a feeling, nothing more, nothing less, growing steadily, expanding, claiming in the hearts of men new territory in which to plant its flag, to seize his imagination with all the power of a religious fervour. Even further afield, there's a young woman named Ethel Hudson, a single, childless woman who's had nearly everything in life taken from her by the war, whether the war at home or the war on the continent. She hadn't taken in with the striking workers when the general strike began, and now, as it stretches into its sixth week, she still doesn't join. It's not that she doesn't anger for the poverty and the hardships she's been made to endure, since even before that failed uprising more than fifteen years before the current revolution began. Ethel, like millions of others who watch the strike degenerate into violence, remains uncommitted to either the burgeoning revolution or the forces slowly aligning against it. But as she comes home after a twelve-hour day at the warehouse where she works, she can only feel the fatigue in her body, her every muscle seeming to throb and ache all at once. But when the warehouse where she works comes under attack, neither by the Popular Front nor the Home Guard but some sectarian militia, she finds a reserve of energy to draw on in fleeing the scene. But she doesn't make it all the way. Later, when the Home Guard come around, she's arrested, accused of taking part in the general strike. The local authority declares her fleeing the scene to be part of the strike. As she awaits execution, only a few days after fleeing for her life, she says, "I wish I'd joined the strike when I'd had the chance," speaking with her cellmates, others picked up on miscellaneous charges. Her last words before facing the bullet: "you'll all get yours." Her conversion took place in the few days between her sentence being read and carried out.

But where Valeri and the others under Sister Simpson put down for the night, tonight, l there's the gentle rattling of distant explosions shaking loose dust all around them, causing the lights to flicker off and on for a moment, then another, then another, until finally the room is plunged into a darkness broken only by the last few rays of sunlight coming from the late-summer's sky to the west. If it's late-summer, it should be sometime in August, maybe early September, but in fact it's closer to the end of October, the steadily warmed climate having pushed the boundaries of the summer season much closer to the end of the year than past generations were used to. "If we should succeed in establishing a democratic government here—and we will, because we must—then it would be the first in the world, the first in history," says Sister Simpson, "and it'll be the target of all the world's ire. But it'll overcome. It must." For a moment, it seems as though Sister Simpson is lost in her own thoughts, neither looking forward nor back .but still there's the distant rattling of gunfire, subdued, a dull, low chattering that studs the silence with a stark reminder on the death lingering in the countryside and the cityscape. And finally, a young man named Oliver Lynch takes in with the striking workers, too, but in a way unlike most. As he'd come to see the striking workers as part of the mob, living as he does on the outskirts of Birmingham, seeming to be right on the edge of hell. All through the nights, the sky's coloured a sickly, pale orange, and he works through the nights at a church, tending to the wounded and homeless who seem to form an endless mass seeping in like water flooding in through a ship's breached hull. But Oliver is here to feed the hungry, and it falls to him to water down the already-thin gruel they've been serving. He's at it in the kitchen when there's the sound of shouting mixed with the trampling of boots. This doesn't alarm Oliver, who continues with his work, adding even more water to the gruel. A few moments pass. Gunfire cracks, sending Oliver to the floor. A few more moments pass, then a few more, then more, soon Oliver summoning the courage to edge towards the church's front doors, poking his head out, hearing still the sound of gunfire cracking, the cracking seeming to fade in the distance. The next thing Oliver sees are a band of gunmen cautiously working their way up the street, and for a moment he's not sure whether they're Home Guard, Popular Front, or some sectarians. A gunman approaches. Oliver steels himself inwardly. He says to the gunman, "there's no war inside our church." But the gunman only says, "and we aim to keep it that way." The gunman identifies himself as a fighter in the Popular Front, they who've seized much of Birmingham having now seized this district on the outskirts. Later, not much later, Oliver announces this news to the parishioners, but admits he doesn't know what to make of it. They have no more food than before, and the power continues to fail intermittently. But some taking refuge in the church seem to welcome the news, preferring the unknown in the Popular Front to the known in the Home Guard. Still others look crestfallen, fearing an untimely demise at the hands of the rebels. They'll soon find out the liberation offered by the Popular Front is unlike anything either could've expected.

But this time, as Valeri, Tonya, Sister Simpson, and all the others know, there's no response, no possible counter to the new wave of attacks. It's impossible, and yet it is, a great bundle contradictions presenting itself as a steadily intensifying war not only in the streets or on the continent's distant battlefields but in the hearts and minds of working men. The election, the election to be held by the hated Provisional Government is imminent, being mere days away, but still the rebel Elijah can't but remind himself, when in a brief time alone with his thoughts, on the need to atone for his lack of faith. Temporary though it may have been, and forgiven as he may have become by the dark essence which guides the working man's revolution, still the rebel Elijah can only seek a relentless atonement, even as he earns a personal redemption through the collective struggle. "Those were the days," says Sister Simpson, "when the screens would carry advertisements for luxury cars even as fully half of Britain walked to work for all the broken down buses and trolleys and trains left to rust. Even though you could fly halfway around the world in a day, hardly anyone could leave their own hometowns for want of the money to move. So many ordinary people would live and die without ever seeing any of the wonders of the world. Even in the twenty-first century with the ability to exchange information with those from foreign countries thousands of kilometres away, but still working people both here and there are trapped, mired in a hopeless poverty dulled only by the relief of surrender to the evils of drugs." Sister Simpson pauses, as if to consider her thoughts before continuing, a momentary quiet allowing the distant wailing of sirens and the rattling of gunfire to permeate the night. She goes on, saying, "there was a time when the old governments here in Britain and in other countries would flood the streets of the working class districts with drugs, by deeming them legal for sale by merchants, but it was only ever a scheme to keep the working class seeking the relief of drugs rather than the relief from the way of things which could only come by revolution. This is our revolution, now." As Valeri and Tonya listen among the others not on watch, Simpson explains on the heated mania that'd characterized the old way of life, before even the failed rising fifteen years before our current revolution began in earnest. In the early decades of the century, it'd been a time of a reckless and frantic pursuit of wealth, with no regard given for the essence of life. More than anything else, the working people had cried out for dignity, but once denied had sought freedom through the revolt of the rebel Elijah and his disciples, then a disparate and loosely-organized group but to become something so much more. These bare facts Valeri, Tonya, and the other young rebels might've known, but hearing Sister Simpson describe it in the way she's learned to gives the story of all history's past a new life.

But abroad there's no remittance from the death. If it seems hard to imagine an election taking place in these times of ever-mounting disarray and violence, then it must only be so hard. Neither Valeri nor Dmitri, in their respective roles, can see through one day and on into the next, but still they must drudge through the muck and grime, they must make their way through the scattered debris, still-smoldering, of the old way of life. For Valeri, what once began as an undisciplined and ill-tempered desire to rebel against an authority, against any authority, to protest any injustice, no matter how subtle or gross, no matter whether imagined or real, now having become something beginning to resemble that of the disciplined soldier of the revolution burgeoning around us all. With each day producing new reprisals against the current general strike, still the working class refuse to relent, intensifying their actions even as their strength fades. It's all so deeply confusing, in this in-between time when the working man's revolution could fail at any moment. Meanwhile, the three remaining pilots of Mobius Squadron find themselves taken in with rebel gunmen, around the city of Manchester withdrawing into their underground lairs during the day, taking to the streets at night in support of the striking workers. In the basement of an old church, Hatfield loads spare rounds into magazines for his rifle, going over the task again and again, loading one magazine before emptying it out and then loading it again. He's been at this for some time. "Are you going to keep loading that gun all night?" asks Wright. "I was thinking about it," says Hatfield. Pilot Linda Parker isn't there; the three have been separated, not by order of any of their brothers in the Popular Front but by happenstance, Parker in with a group of rebel fighters taking refuge in a church on the other side of Greater Manchester. They don't know what's become of her in the recent weeks, managing only sporadic contact through their screens. The data networks are down more often than they're up. But the networks are also unsecured, with the threat of monitoring everywhere Wright and Hatfield could go. The commander of the rebel band they've taken in with has forbidden access to the networks, and for now this is an order Hatfield intends to comply with. But not everyone will. When Hatfield next finds Pilot Walter Wright, the junior pilot and one of Hatfield's closest friends, is on his screen, Hatfield catching him in the act of surreptitiously trying to place a call to Linda Parker. For a moment, it seems as though Hatfield might look away and pretend he hadn't seen anything, but when their commander appears behind Hatfield and looks over his shoulder, the former captain's hand is forced.

Even as the general strike gathers strength, the Provisional Government which seeks to suppress it remains stronger still, the Home Guard's ranks swelling with the increasing number of men drafted into its ranks, sometimes at gunpoint. The Provisional Government has already issued a decree mandating an intake of any able men deemed fit for service, but it takes parties of armed troops to collar many. It's like the way of old, when the police would venture into the working class districts in search of rabble to arrest for something, anything at all. It becomes clear that the Provisional Government, for all its promises at reform, is but a continuation of the old United Kingdom. Everyone knows this, even the men at the heart of the Provisional Government itself, but in the annals of power still there persists the fevered dream that there might be hope left for the past. The lynchings, the mass reprisals against anyone who looks vaguely like a rebel, the sectarian militia taking advantage of it all, these have become facts of life in the weeks since this current spell of violence has begun. But for Valeri, the continued march through the countryside to Birmingham represents a choice he'd made a long time ago, even before they'd taken up arms in defence of their own homes. But while the general strike continues unabated, on the other side of the world it finally happens. Following a decades-long trade dispute fuelled by centuries-old nationalist tensions, in the seas somewhere in the western Pacific shooting starts between warships flying different flags. Sooner than anyone realizes what's happened, Chinese bombers and submarines range against targets in Japan, Korea, and Indochina, pleas from allies finally prompting the isolationist Americans to join the war. As the world watches, the American war machine lurches into action, confused, disoriented, its first strikes easily repelled by the better-organized Chinese forces, setting the stage for a war long and bloody. By the time it's over, enough blood will be spilled to make the whole western Pacific's waters run a deep, dark crimson. Though the main focus of our narrative must remain on the revolutionary struggle playing itself out in Britain and across Europe, we look to the still-escalating struggle which has now become a global war, the likes of which the world has never seen. The rebel Elijah has his allies in China, America, and all the other countries which now eagerly deliver working men to the slaughter by the thousands, and for a little while at least he must consider carefully which of the working men who will be sacrificed to the slaughter are worthy of recognition, in this life or the next. The rebel Elijah hasn't met our heroes yet, hasn't come face to face with men like Valeri and Dmitri, even as he's all around them, all at once. This is the character of the rebel Elijah, in that he's everywhere and nowhere, inhabiting every working man's mind and soul even as his is confined to the vessel offered by one man's body. It's his struggle, to reconcile the irreconcilable, to redeem the irredeemable, to take upon himself the struggles of the working class, past, present, and future, and through his person, his very body all can achieve the salvation which they've so long sought but which they've been so long denied. The rebel Elijah, though, only looks on the hatred and recrimination gripping the streets from Inverness to Plymouth and sees only the inevitability of his own history. After he's had his way with the Popular Front, he commands the dark essence in ways even he never could've anticipated. This newfound power must lead somewhere glorious for the working man, but in the meanwhile it must take him through a hell the likes of which none have ever seen.

It's almost time for the election which the Provisional Government thinks should legitimize its regime, but which'll could never have any effect but the exact opposite. It's almost time for the general election, and still the rebel Elijah has not yet instructed his disciples in the Popular Front as to what their response should be. Sympathetic parties see fit to contest the election, the social democrats and the liberals, along with they who would oppose the Popular Front, the conservatives, the nationalists, the royalists reborn. "But it's all a fraud," Sister Simpson says during their final lesson, "whether they in Westminster are sympathetic or not, whether they realize it or not, the roles which they play and the purposes which they fulfil are greater than they could ever be. Although the Popular Front has sought to destroy the Provisional Government, in truth, there is a larger struggle to contend with, a struggle which the rebel Elijah teaches us can never be won." Although the rebel Elijah is not yet revealed to be the true character he is destined to be, and although neither Valeri nor Tonya, nor even Sister Simpson can know the true character he is destined to be, there occurs to Valeri a sudden epiphany, the latest in a series of sudden epiphanies. But Valeri can't yet know, doesn't yet know of the dark essence which guides the ebb and flow of the revolution, fulfilling the promise to the long-suffering working men in Britain. And in this confusing, disjointed in-between time, when the war in the streets seems to rage anew with each day that passes, all Valeri can think of is the death of his mother and father, all those years ago, feeling as he does a surging pride, an impossible sensation coursing through his veins with every pump of his heart felt acutely in his chest. It's strange, it's all strange, even as it's perfectly natural, normal, a healthy reaction to be so inspired in a deeply spiritual way after having been kept so impoverished for so long. As they listen, Sister Simpson talks, leading them through a final, critical part of the dissemination of the rebel Elijah's forbidden gospel. This is to be their final lesson, their final session of reading guided by the steady, learned wisdom of Sister Simpson, with not one among Valeri, Tonya, and the rest reading from their texts long since read through. No, at first they only listen and watch as Sister Simpson says, "...but even now, your study is not yet complete. Your study is never complete. Even as you've read through Elijah's forbidden gospel and acquainted yourselves with the knowledge you must use to win through an unwinnable war, it's something entirely different to put theory into practice. Soon enough you will discover this, something that you've known, in the way that you have, for as long as you can remember." As Sister Simpson pauses, still there's the gentle rumbling and rattling of the ground, the bursting of bombs and the chattering of gunfire in the distance acutely reminding Valeri, Tonya, and all the rest of Sister Simpson's students on the war raging around them. It's the perfect setting, the perfect unknown, in the darkness of the night an opening presenting itself for an uncharacteristic camaraderie to form. At this time, all the men of Sister Simpson's unofficial unit are present, the veterans of the old Worker's and People's Parties as well as the new recruits who'd been taken in when the liberated zones were crushed, among the latter Valeri and Tonya, among the former men and women with names like Cameron and Carmen.

"While you are not yet ready to become the next generation of leaders which the working men of this country, of all countries' needs," says Sister Simpson, "it's precisely because you're not yet ready that you are the very leaders which the working men of this country, of all countries should need. Remember this. Remember your place. Never forget the humility which is essential in the struggle. As it is written, the first shall be last and the last shall be first. If you are not among the most pathetic and wretched in Britain, then you will be humbled by what the rebel Elijah and the Popular Front seeks to build." But the election is imminent. Although Valeri has long heard of the rebel Elijah's gospel of unilateral disengagement, it's only now that this gospel must be coming to its inevitable culmination. Once the Provisional Government is left listless and without purpose, deprived of legitimacy by the outcome of the coming election, the time should be come when the gospel of unilateral disengagement will be obsolete. And so it is that the rebel Elijah readies himself, in a place not altogether far from the ruined cityscape where Valeri puts down for the night. But he readies himself not for the impending obsolescence of his long-disseminated strategy, but rather, for the coming fire which should threaten to consume us all. The rebel Elijah doesn't know it's coming in the way you or I might be able to predict something, nor can he articulate the vague sensations which guide his intuition to the knowledge that something is imminent, something that should follow the election, some horrific atrocity which each of us should've seen coming all along. But then, Sister Simpson recalls the failed uprising more than fifteen years ago, the very uprising which took the lives of Valeri's mother and father. "As the last generation gave their lives so that we might prevail," she says, "so may we yet be called on to give our lives." In their choice to give their lives to the revolution, the weakness of their forces is granted strength. In the wealthy man's inability to compel this kind of loyalty and dedication, the strength of their forces embodies weakness. And it's this kind of contradiction the dark essence which guides the revolution uses to shape the flow of events to its needs.

Amid the chaos, the dark essence watches from above, called upon by the rebel Elijah and his Popular Front. It's almost time, Elijah knows, for the all-important move to decapitate the hated Provisional Government and with it the last vestiges of the old way of life. But it's not to be easy. The dark essence which compels Elijah to begin planning his next move should have its own way forward, looking as it does without hindrance or let towards a future free from the disgusting and wretched mess of corruption and impoverishment that's long been the bane of the working class, for so long as there's been a class to work. But it's not yet time. The rebel Elijah remains, for now, in his shadowy lairs, hiding in plain sight among the masses of the homeless, the hungry, the tired and the diseased, seeing as he does in their rotting flesh and decaying spirits the salvation of this world and its beginning anew in the next. Beaten and flogged, his flesh flayed open and his body scourged until his is but a stream of blood and sweat flowing into the dirt beneath his feet, the rebel Elijah knows what his future must entail. But far from resent it, he embraces it, seeing in his own demise the path forward through relentless attack to victory. Watching the general strike unfold in the streets of Britain's cities large and small, the rebel Elijah senses an opening, his senses guided by the dark essence sent to him from someplace altogether unlike this. It's almost time.

22. A Final Overture

At last, election day arrives. The election itself is almost anticlimactic, given that everyone in Britain has known for months what should eventually happen. Even before all votes are tallied and the results announced, it becomes clear the votes left blank or spoiled outnumber those cast for candidates endorsed by the Provisional Government. The rebel Elijah doesn't watch as so many others watch on their screens, but takes to the crowded yards in the homeless camps, to the storefronts and the factory floors left vacant by the ongoing general strike, the widest and most devastating yet, to the hospitals filled with bodies dead and dying, his presence everywhere, all at once seeming to reassure his disciples that theirs is a cause that should be won through, no matter the cost. And so it is. As they'd made sure, select members of the Provisional Government, including Nathan Williams and Colonel Douglas Schlager, win seats in the new parliament. It was always to be the case that the new government should be much like the old, made up of men in service of the wealthy man's insatiable greed. For in as many years, the second election held in Britain by the current occupant of the Palace of Westminster had failed to bring a modicum of stability to Britain. As Nathan Williams watches the results come in with some of the others assured seats in the new parliament, he's somehow confident, placated by the day's events, the angel of light who will soon seek to oppose the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front whispering silently into the ear of the businessman and former Minister. But what the angel of light tells Williams, he can't understand, even if he's convinced that he can. By the time this fraudulent election is through, the hated Provisional Government will be deprived of its last, true hope for legitimacy, the screens across Britain filled with images flashing of blank votes, of votes cast for 'none,' even of votes spoiled by streaks of red and black felt across their whole face. This is the public face, the open display of contempt for they who would deem themselves the working man's new masters. But it's not come about by accident, no, it's been won, forged, as all consensus must be.

When Valeri feels the pain in his body, the pain seems no longer confined to a single part, instead present in every last part of him. Clutching the rifle given to him as though it's an extension of his person, Valeri is not a soldier, even if he's come to live the life of one. No, he'll always be that ordinary worker who lived in an old, decrepit flat and who fell in love with a woman he barely knew in the time it took to fall into bed with her. Although he'll never see Sydney Harrington again, he'll still think of the time they'd had as something of a turning point in his life, a transitional period in his journey from the life of an ill-mannered malcontent to that of the passionate revolutionary fighter. Off the motorway to Birmingham once again, he checks the houses with a few of the others, moving from house to house, looking for supplies, for food, anything that could sustain them in these trying times. Impossibly, he's found his way into an old house once lived in by scores of slaves warehoused twenty to a flat by the managers of the local industrial firm. They scavenge arms and ammunition wherever they can find them, then come under fire from Home Guard troops down the street. A hail of bullets cut down two, three young men, Valeri kneeling to steady his aim, shooting right back at the enemy. But more rounds crack aimlessly through the air than find targets, soon every gunman firing, the streets a deafening orchestra of shots. At a polling station somewhere not altogether far from the countryside mansion where the hated Provisional Government makes its de-facto capital, a young man named John Thornton takes in with the men and women huddling in the relative safety and security of an old bomb shelter. He works at a local armaments factory, but every day he faces the possibility that the day's shift might be his last. As he walks into the street with friends at his side, he says to them all, "if the pots and pans can hold on for one more day then we can survive," receiving shouts of agreement from his friends even as they all know there's no chance of that. But still they walk along the street, leaving behind the yesterday and heading into the future. And the rebel Elijah orders his disciples in the Popular Front to use this critical juncture to expend the last of their strength on a renewed offensive, attacking polling stations, dockyards, trains carrying armaments from one stockpile to another, Valeri and Tonya among them as Sister Simpson leads an assault. This election, it's almost anticlimactic, the war in the streets having reached an entirely new apex. It might be hardly conceivable that such grinding poverty and wanton violence could've emerged out of Britain, once so prosperous. But never was Britain so prosperous, its prosperity confined to a small group whose rule Elijah has always opposed. Now, with many generations of poverty having led to this, something so simple as a fraudulent election could never overcome so much rage.

For Patrick O'Sullivan, these are the times that try his soul, more than anything else the futility of the struggle before him made evident by the roving bands of thugs terrorizing locals wherever they find them. His own family are all dead or missing, and it wasn't all that long ago that Patrick could remember them all living together in the same city, the same neighbourhood, some even on the same block. Patrick works himself ragged, tired and sore as he pushes aside his worst fears, in the shop still under the lash of the Home Guard even as the election makes clear the Provisional Government is like the walking dead. Patrick says, "the local authority is still in power," looking around before continuing, "and they've got everything they need." Talk abounds, talk of where each worker's family and friends are, where they're going to find anything even remotely resembling safety and security in these times of war in the streets. Once they've finished retrofitting a lorry's engine with parts scavenged from the charred wreckage of another, Patrick stands back and says, "we've been putting together their weapons long enough, I think." And while Patrick determines to join in the ongoing general strike, seeing it as he does not as a strike but an uprising, the wealthy boss man who owns the shop hides in his home, under siege by crowds of workers, fearing for his life with only the few guns of the Home Guard keeping them alive. One of Patrick's fellow workers, an Irishwoman named Emma with fire-red hair and a temperament to match says, "it's been that way for a while. I say kill 'em all!" this debate they've been having long enough to have exchanged all possible viewpoints. But a third worker, another Irishwoman named Amelia says, "all are going to die soon," saying it as she does with the conviction she can muster, then going on to say, "I fear for my family more than anything else." At the factory where he used to work, a group of survivors huddle, having taken to this place as a sanctuary of sorts. "None of this is good enough," says Patrick. Frustratingly, he's stuck here too, lacking as they are in armaments to join the fighting. But while Patrick and Emma prepare themselves inwardly to join in the general strike, larger events continue to mount, the lynchings and the reprisals seeming never to intensify but to linger in the background, the gangs of angry workers abandoning their strikes to lay siege to the wealthy compounds that dot Britain's cities. And the militia which form out of elements of the Home Guard, they're only happy to reply in kind, shooting into the crowds with a reckless abandon. But it's not to last forever. A final overture's in the works, one that'll change it all.

As Patrick and his fellow workers have refused to vote, as have so many others, the election seems almost anticlimactic, with hardly any votes cast, fewer than five percent across England, even fewer in the provinces, Scotland, Wales, and the republican parts of Northern Ireland's cities and towns. The designs the Provisional Government had on legitimizing itself, neither carefully laid nor skilfully executed but committed to nevertheless are now abandoned. Still the fires of liberation burn, columns of smoke rising from the streets, the election derailed even before it'd gotten underway. But more than a hundred kilometres away, Valeri and the others fight their way across the country. Valeri is becoming increasingly given to acts of heroism in spite of all the evil he's seen, summoning a hidden reserve of strength as he rushes with the others at a Home Guard position, knocking one soldier with the butt of his rifle before stabbing the enemy through the heart with his bayonet. But the general strike continues, even in this critical, still uncertain period, when the awkward, listless authority of the Provisional Government remains. Facing down a Home Guard unit, Valeri and the others look for any sign of weakness in the enemy formation, finding none, pressing their attack anyways. At the head of their formation Sandra Simpson's shouting something indistinct to Valeri. At his side, Tonya looks to him and says, "you remember what Elijah has told us." And Valeri nods, then says, "relentless attack." Valeri feels his pulse pounding, feels the surge of adrenaline coursing through his veins with every slam of his heart against his chest. In a suicidal charge, they take the enemy position, their war having become so unlike its old character, the war itself having grown into something entirely unlike what it was before. But still it retains that basic shape, its form guided by the dark essence which none of us can know but which we all feel anyways. As there's the rattling of gunfire and the bursting of bombs in the streets, there's always been, for so long as anyone can remember, with even the rebel Elijah himself unable to recall any time when there might not've been war raging in the streets. "Don't you ever forget where you've come from," says Tonya. "But always, always look forward," says Valeri. For her part, Tonya nods and says, "if it comes to this, I won't have any regrets when I die. But I won't think of anything else until the murderers are brought to justice." Already, the truth has become known to them, the hated Provisional Government concealing within its inner workings an awful corruption, a lightness that should stand in stark opposition to the darkness guiding the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front. And once they've secured this position, Valeri sees the striking workers across the way, striking even as violence erupts all around them. But they're all dying, they're all dead, in the heat of the moment Valeri contemplating the possibility that he's seeing something that isn't there. It's all a fraud, it's all an illusion, foisted upon each of them as they negotiate a tricky and dangerous path through this tentative period.

Although the hated Provisional Government has failed in its bid to cement its place as the stewards of all our history's futures, still there's the uncertain question of what could, what should replace it. With the Popular Front fighting a still-escalating war against the Home Guard, the latter's forces swelled by a huge wave of new recruits. Some of these recruits have been compelled to join, often at gunpoint forced into the uniform, while others volunteer in search of food and lodgings. And still there're the nationalists, the chaos of the war at home allowing so many grievances to air after decades, even centuries of simmering just below the surface. It might've seemed, to the casual observer, as though merely overthrowing the old United Kingdom and its successor, both in spirit and in form, the Provisional Government, would've been enough to earn the Popular Front loyalty from all men and women in Britain. It might've seemed enough, but history, as we'll all bear witness, has other plans. "If you march forward," says Sister Simpson, "it sometimes happens that you must go against your own heart. You must be willing to give up everything that you have. And so it is, that you've taken a stand in favour of the coming victory." She pauses, then says, "but you haven't yet been called to make the ultimate sacrifice, not death, but life. You can choose to live through the most painful and destructive of times, you can choose to push through the suffering of your own and of the people you've loved." They're nearer to Birmingham than ever before, in the night a momentary calm having emerged, as the lynchings and the reprisals lift for the night here. But this can't, won't last.

Again she pauses, looking them each in the eye even as she seems to look right through them, then says, "and as you make the choice, you must know it will only lead to further pain and suffering for yourself and for those you love. The rebel Elijah teaches us that this suffering will never, can never end, until all men are free, something none of us will ever live to see, no matter whether we die young, in action, or old, frail and decrepit. Do not fear this, but embrace it." But it's never enough. To keep fighting is the only choice, even in the face of such unrelenting hatred. It's always better to die on your feet than to live on your knees. This is part of the ethos of the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front, and everyone in Britain seems to have acceded to it, even if they must turn it against the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front. For this reason, already the many dissident factions from within the Popular Front and from without have begun spinning their own lies, their own contracts, forming a convoluted network of alliances and factions. Some of these are based on old ideals, some new, some fall along sectarian lines hundreds of years old, some spring from the chance to put new ideas into practice. All will seize the vacuum left over when the Provisional Government falls, the rebels in the Popular Front far from capable of seizing control everywhere. In the streets, Valeri's group encounters a Home Guard unit on its way to attack the strikers. Taking position behind a low retaining wall, Valeri's the first to shoot, scattering fire across the way. But his shooting attracts return fire, erratic and disjointed, as he ducks behind the wall bullets ripping chunks out of the pavement. In the midst of this firefight, the striking workers all around are caught in the crossfire, blood and flesh and bone soon strewn across the street. Death visits indiscriminately on all, Valeri's friends falling, the Home Guard's troopers too. But the strikers are cut down in greater numbers than the rest, so many killed in the few minutes it takes the warring sides to separate. It matters little which side wins or loses, even as Valeri's side gains valuable ground on their road to Birmingham. The bodies that lie limp on the pavement tell the stories of a hundred lives cut short and a thousand more ruined by proxy. "Don't stop now," says Tonya, "if you give up after all that we've been through together then you'll have sacrificed so much for nothing at all." Although Valeri and Tonya have become friends in ways neither could've ever expected, they are still as rivals, friendly, but not without their own petty divisions. "Look out!" says Valeri, pointing his rifle at a Home Guard trooper who stands over a young man, Valeri squeezing the trigger, putting three rounds into the trooper's chest. It's the first time Valeri can recall personally being responsible for the death of an enemy, the first time he's seen a life destroyed before him, by his hands. But he has no time to think on the finer points of moral questions, consumed as he is in a frantic bloodlust, Valeri rushing forward to the spot where the Home Guard troopers had stood only moments earlier.

But there are other spots, elsewhere in Britain, where masses of workers pledge fealty not to the Popular Front nor the rebel Elijah, counting themselves not among his disciples but among his enemies as they are seduced into following the banner of another, whether the nationalists in Scotland, Wales, even parts of England, or the power of some wealthy man to manipulate the tendencies of others into supporting a small empire for himself. This is even as regional assemblies crop up in towns and cities across Britain, in stark opposition to the local committees pledging unwavering loyalty to the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front. Although Valeri is not in with an assembly, he fights for them anyways, even if he may not realize it. Off the coast, the cruiser Borealis and the frigate Nix have been joined by a pair of smaller vessels, unarmed civilian ships seized by the Popular Front and given an informal commission into the rebel forces. On the bridge, Dmitri and his lead-hand Mason are going over plans for their next move when the sonar operator reports new contacts. "Sounds like Russians," says the operator, "one, maybe two. Due east." Mason and Dmitri exchange knowing glances, Dmitri saying, "awfully bold of them to venture this far west without air cover." Mason walks over to the sonar operator's station, taking a look at the reading before saying, "and they're not even bothering with a silent running on electric. They're snorkelling with their diesels." Neither for the first time nor the last, Dmitri orders manoeuvres, but this time he orders a speed slow enough to allow the smaller, unarmed vessels in their company to keep up. Together, the four vessels churn a course along the coast, taking care to stay in waters shallow enough to deny the Russian submarine the ability to come close. But the Russians don't attack even as they themselves manoeuvre into attack position. When they turn away without firing even one torpedo or missile, Dmitri doesn't know what to make of it. He doesn't know, can't know the full extent of the disorder even within his own country, let alone in Russia. He doesn't know, can't know the crew of that unknown Russian submarine have their own loyalties divided, as the crew of the cruiser Borealis once were.

And deep inside the British heartland, there're loyalties divided as well. These loyalties, they're immediately apparent even as they're impossible to see, stuck as the country is in some ill-defined place between the two, yet occupying both points simultaneously, somewhere between all and nothing, nothing and all. For Patrick O'Sullivan, his faith his not broken or strained but reaffirmed and strengthened by the thirst he feels, a thirst that can never be quenched, not by the water. It's final, that Patrick O'Sullivan should reach for the last-minute search, grabbing a weapon and marching into the local union hall to join with the men already there. "I'm here to volunteer for the union," says Patrick, "in whatever way I can." The local committee examines him, along with the others who've turned up that day, and accept him into service. Although this may be an old union hall, the particular union which controls it has expanded its membership in recent months far beyond the few hundred workers who'd once paid dues. Their immediate task is to seize the factory where they work, the factory still running despite the ongoing general strike owing to the Labour Brigades which the Home Guard has forced onto the line. But in this new union which plans to seize its own factory the vast majority of new members, Patrick O'Sullivan included, pay no dues, as this particular union is no longer something that should negotiate with the private holders of wealth whose greed counted among the chief causes of this revolution. Soon, they'll rise, and brook no interference in their plans to run the factory themselves. Left unsaid but understood is their agreement in principle to produce their goods for the rebels in the Popular Front, provided those at the docks and those at the warehouses follow suit. But nearer to Birmingham, the rebels under Sister Simpson find themselves under attack. Pinned in the streets, Valeri huddles with his back pressed against a dumpster, Tonya at his side. Almost to Birmingham, they've become bogged down in a public square, across which Valeri can't see the enemy shooting at them for all the debris and smoking ruins scattered across the open space. But he recognizes the square as reminding him so much of that place in London where once he'd taken in with the angry crowds crying out against their own impoverishment, the old Victory Monument at the centre of that public square where once they'd stood. Not quite what he'd remembered from the early days of the revolution, from his childhood spent in the streets and alleys between working class apartment blocks, the Monument's obelisk now bears cracks here and there, the odd bullet hole, too. But Valeri imagines the monument still stands tall, in spite of its damaged, decrepit state reaching into the sky as a monument not to the victories of an empire already consigned to the pages of history but to the triumphant rising of the oppressed over his oppressor. Suddenly, even while under attack here and now Valeri feels the urge to be back in London, to reach out to the old Victory Monument's surface, as if to confirm it's still real, still there, not merely a figment of his imagination given to him by the very dark essence which guides all the revolutionary struggle, all at once. "Keep shooting!" shouts Sister Simpson, herself shooting at the enemy from behind a wrecked lorry on the side of the square. "There's too many of them," says Tonya, in her normal speaking voice barely audible to Valeri. "What are we going to do?" asks Valeri. But soon he has his answer.

Earlier, much earlier, when they were still days away from the outer reaches of Greater Birmingham, Valeri, Tonya, and the others under Sister Simpson had come across a band of Home Guard troops attacking some striking workers, and it fell to them to intervene. "Are you still thinking yourself a criminal?" asks Tonya. "We never were criminals," says Michael O'Connor, the younger rebel who's been in the background for most of their long trip from London. Valeri's still suspicious of the younger rebel, but less than he'd been, coming to be almost comfortable with Michael at his back. "We're all criminals in one way or another," says Valeri. A few more words are exchanged among them but Valeri says nothing more, not right away, yielding the moment to the dark essence which he feels acutely aware of for the first time in his life. The four of them are only four among a group of fifty or so, but with most of the others from the various occupations in the former liberated zones already killed or too badly maimed to be of much use, the four of them are all that's left fighting, at least among those rebel fighters under Sister Simpson's leadership. This knowledge which Valeri is come to have doesn't give him comfort, for he has no special skills, no qualities of leadership, lacking as he is in tactical acuity. But what he lacks in the qualities of a skilled tactician he more than makes up for in vigour, amply displayed by the way he smashes the butt of his rifle against the monument's plaque, repeated hammer blows succeeding in dislodging the plaque. Although this monument isn't London's Victory Monument, Valeri relishes this moment all the same. It's a small moment, lost amid the carnage and the chaos that's come to seize the whole country. It might not've even happened at all. But that's not important. After having been made to linger in the afterwhile of a dead era come to life, all that truly matters is the spiritual character of the revolution itself, embodied in the men and women assembled here. Finally, after having dislodged that plaque and replaced it with nothing, Valeri turns back to the others and says, "now I think the real work will begin." And it's true. All Britain's aflame, the fires of liberation burning from the Channel to the Orkneys, from the Firth of Forth to Land's End. But the cruiser Borealis doesn't waste time in pondering the finer points of their encounter with the Russians, Dmitri working to ensure he has the full confidence of the ship's governing committee even before a vote is held. In the ship's engine room, crewman Sean Collins and the others assigned to work on the ship's engines have their work cut out for them. With only the one engine working, and not very well, Dmitri has much time to supervise, worried as he is about the support he has from the engineers. "Brother Collins," says Dmitri, standing next to the young crewman, Collins working on the stream turbines with a cross look on his face. Dmitri says, "if you vote in favour of returning to the fighting in the country, then you may see your family again." But Collins doesn't reply, not right away, focused as he is on working the ship's broken-down turbine, hoping to restore it to operation and thus give the ship two working engines again. "Brother Collins," says Dmitri, about to try again, when there's the blaring of a klaxon, the loudspeaker crackling, calling Dmitri back to the bridge. Dmitri knows it must be the Russians again. Before he can confirm his suspicions, halfway out the engine room he's turned around by the voice of none other than Sean Collins, the young would-be engineer saying, "Brother Malinin, I'll vote for you." And Dmitri nods, before turning to face the threat, whether from without or within.

Still, death awaits around every turn, in every shadow, lurking behind every upturned lorry on the road and within every darkened, burned-out shop lining the road. After trying at his loss, the rebel Elijah orders a renewed round of attacks, each devastating loss in men and materiel only compelling him to instruct his disciples on the necessity of continued attack. For Patrick O'Sullivan, his new role in the union is something he takes to with a renewed vigour, the act of having taken the struggle on his own shoulders making him feel like a new man. Soon afterwards, "If they come around here, what do we do?" asks Patrick, speaking to another young man who'd also joined the union recently. They're talking about the rebels in the Popular Front; this is an area where there's still some semblance of order. "I don't think the committee knows that," says his fellow gunman, "but maybe we won't have long to find out." They're standing guard outside the plant's front, watching as the miscellaneous people hurrying about their business. But when the Home Guard's patrols come around, there seems to be a tense almost-standoff, the Home Guard seeming to let them be, so long as they're not in open revolt the local's militia along with the other paramilitaries that've sprung up here and there, all over the country. But at this plant it's a work day, with workers manning the line as though they'd never stopped. When a shipment of parts arrives from a nearby warehouse, Patrick and the others find the chance to test themselves. And for the Borealis, the waters just off the coast of Northumberland continue to provide Dmitri with the distraction he needs. It turned out to be that same Russian submarine again, or so the sonar operator says he thinks. Again the Russians don't attack, don't bother to hide their presence or movements, but adopt an aggressive posture anyways. This time, Dmitri doesn't order manoeuvres to counter the Russian threat, instead ordering the four-ship rebel flotilla to hug the coastline, knowing full well this will only incite the attention of whatever Home Guard troops might be out there, and draw their artillery. "Brother Malinin," says the sonar operator, "I hear the sounds of ballast blowing. The Russians are surfacing." He gives a bearing, and Dmitri looks through binoculars to port. A Russian submarine surfaces, only a couple of kilometres away. "Main gun aim at target," says Dmitri, before quickly adding, "but hold fire." He goes out on the bridge wing with his lead-hand Mason and a few others. A few men appear on the submarine's conning tower, with one man in particular standing out as wearing an officer's insignia on his shoulders. Before the day is out, the Russians will have disappeared again, provoking much discussion among the men aboard the rebel cruiser. Some think they've been reconnoitered by the Russians and tested, the Russians hoping to identify rebel ships so as to exempt them from future attack. But Dmitri has his own theory, one which'll help him gain the full confidence of the ship's governing committee. But between now and the next critical meeting of the committee, he'll bear witness to events he could never have predicted but always should've.

And still Patrick and his newfound brothers in union listen, the rattling of gunfire and the bursting of bombs in the distance to remind them on the revolution's steady advance towards them. But the civilians see this, looking on Valeri and the others from a distance, watching the rebels attack the Home Guard fearlessly, without regard for their own bodies, choosing to sacrifice their own flesh to shed even one drop of the enemy's blood in a bitter fight to end centuries of oppression, exploitation, and death. In this, Valeri becomes something of an icon unto himself, an image snapped by one of the young women watching from a distance capturing the exact moment he turns to look back on his brothers in arms and urges them forward, shouting at the top of his lungs, "...for all the working men, attack!" And the striking workers heed the call, leaving the picket lines to march on the nearest Home Guard position. It's only due to happenstance that Valeri and the others under Sister Simpson have arrived on the outskirts of Birmingham at exactly the right moment to see Patrick and his fellow workers take their stand. It's this image of him that the ragged, haggard masses should commit to memory, of blood wet and dry on his face, of his hair shorn off in places, of his clothes down to threads, still urging on the attack. Although Valeri doesn't think of it at the time, consumed as he is by the thunderous rapture of battle, this is the moment his mother and father, killed in the failed rising fifteen years ago, would've looked on him at their proudest. But as he's come a long way from the intemperate, ill-mannered youth who would sooner cry out in anger than lay his life down for the working man's cause, still he has a long way to go before he can realize his destiny. Although Valeri is only a man, he is a symbol for all working men, and his step, today, towards the seizure of his own future is a great leap forward for us all. When he storms the Home Guard's positions and shoots dead the last two remaining troops there, he's running on the adrenaline coursing through his veins. Still he stands over the bodies of their dead enemies and urges on the others, Tonya, Roger, even Michael O'Connor following him as they seize an old army base and with it supplies and munitions to sustain their next moves. All this, only a small part of the rebel Elijah's carefully-executed designs on making sure the Provisional Government can be only a short while longer. After this latest engagement Valeri and the others are closer than ever to their destination in Birmingham, but the pain in his muscles and the fatigue in his nerves make it feel to him like they've got a thousand and one kilometres left to slog, each exactly as hard as the last. But in the aftermath of their latest attack, it becomes clear they've suffered a devastating loss. Roger, Tonya's lover, is dead, killed by a burst of rifle fire through the chest that filled his lungs with blood, drowning him. "Roger," says Tonya, "I don't know how I'm supposed to react to this." But Valeri says, "there's no way to react, except to keep on with the fight." And Tonya nods, then says, "until we find death or victory." There's no time to give Roger anything like a burial, and like all the others they're reduced to tossing him into a nearby ditch. His boots were still in better condition than most of the rest's, and so Sister Simpson has them taken off and given to another gunmen. His clothes, too, are soon worn by others among them. Although they've been able to more or less replenish their losses in men by taking in volunteers on their long and winding path through the English countryside, by now the war in the streets has consumed so many and marked so clearly the lines against which all future wars will be fought that they can find no volunteers. It seems to Valeri as though they're nearing the end of their struggle, something that he relishes as a chance at his own personal martyrdom. But then he recalls his own mother and father, killed in the failed rising fifteen years before this one began in earnest, and how they were denied anything resembling a respectful burial, their graves which Valeri used to visit instead filled with personal effects. As the old way of things is in its death throes, it must lash out in ways even it can't understand, for reasons that are altogether visceral and instinctive, like a cornered animal fighting for its life. Although these indignities we've seen may seem horrific, even bestial, what all our history's futures have in store will reveal fates even more horrific, even more bestial still. But that is the way of things.

We might think of the rebel Elijah as something more than what he is, and we'd be correct to do so. While he was in prison following his role in the failed rising fifteen years before this war began, the rebel Elijah grew his legend in scope and in breadth, learning to find friends and allies wherever he could. In truth, there was no prison which could ever contain men like him, and he chose to view his continued imprisonment as a time of ministry in the night. Already having been subjected to the indignities of criminal punishment, he began to endure beatings, sometimes his assailants beating him half to death. But when his assailants left him in a pool of his own blood, there would always be some mysterious figure to reach out to him, to tend his wounds, to lift him onto his feet and let him stand again. Although he didn't know it, couldn't know it at the time, this mysterious figure, whether a sympathetic guard or a prisoner serving a life sentence, acted each and every time as an unwitting agent of the dark essence, filled by the dark essence with an overpowering and incomprehensible loyalty to the rebel Elijah. And through this time, Elijah was offered the chance at an early release, the enemies of the working man demanding he denounce the cause of the rebel and renounce his ideas of unilateral disengagement. Elijah was never tempted, never, even three times over called before the magistrate and asked to endorse the right of the way of things to be. But he held firm. Even as he was returned each of the three times to his cell and subject to the continued attacks by the apparatchiks of the wealthy men, as if to pin the fault of the first rising's failure on him. The screens of the millions were flooded with fanciful denunciations of him, of his allies, of the few disciples he still had at large. But this only grew his legend, when the inevitable should come a new force should, in turn, arise to lay the ground work for the future. In his temporary headquarters somewhere in the Midlands, Elijah sets down for the night, even as all around him the rattling of gunfire and the bursting of bombs has begun to taper off, the rebel's gunmen, the Home Guard's troops, and the sectarians of all stripes feeling their strength peter out as their offensives and counter-offensives linger. The results of the election won't be officially announced for some time, says one of the talking heads left on the screens of the millions, and while Elijah watches he foresees the results never being announced at all. It's the way of things. It's always been the way of things.

The Provisional Government can't announce the actual results, too embarrassing they would be to admit that votes left blank or deliberately spoiled vastly outnumber those cast for the Government's permitted candidates. Half of those candidates are dead already, anyways. But nor can they fabricate results, because no one would be fooled. Instead, the rebel Elijah knows, this election staged is now the Provisional Government's undoing, sealing its fate and cementing its legacy as weak and inept, as corrupt and ineffectual, with all that remains for the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front being the act of seizing power for themselves. But that won't be the end of it. Still Valeri can't help but think on the man named Owen Young. "With brothers like you," Owen had said, "who needs enemies?" But this doesn't ring hollow, the way Valeri's old nemesis, Ruslan, had licked the boots of the managers before being unceremoniously fired. "If you would look past your own petty concerns," Valeri had said, "then you'd see we're fighting for you. We're dying for you. I've seen men willingly march into a hail of bullets for you." But Owen had only shaken his head and insisted, saying, "I'm not afraid of you. I don't seek to challenge you, but I won't leave here. Try and see this for what it is, if you can. We're in the church across the street." In the end, Owen Young hands over what Valeri and the others demand, albeit at gunpoint surrendering all-important food and fuel. They're in the outer environs of Birmingham, and Sister Simpson has tasked Valeri and the others under her leadership with bringing control to this district. It isn't immediately clear when they became ordinary members of the Popular Front's armed strength, only that they've become a band of fighters increasingly disciplined and proficient. Although Valeri knew, then, that Owen may believe with all the sincerity of feeling that his scepticism is well-founded, still Valeri's rising consciousness can only allow him to feel a blinding rage at the very notion of an ordinary working man like Owen taking up against the revolution. In the night, it always happens in the night, there's too much at stake, there's the rattling of gunfire and the bursting of bombs in the streets all across Britain, while Valeri, Tonya, and all the others lie in wait for their time to strike. They're to move further into the city, as soon as the security improves and more rebel gunmen arrive from the south to form a defensive line. Valeri doesn't know this, of course, as he's but an ordinary soldier. He's told simply to keep moving. It's in this confusing, disjointed in-between time, when Valeri ought to be fighting in the streets with all the rest, that he finds himself instead idle, in an idle moment given to allowing thoughts subversive and sublime to run wild through his mind. "As you can feel guilt in killing one man," says Sister Simpson, "the enemy feels nothing at signing the death warrants for millions of people, ordinary people, whether through denying them medical care, food, clothing, even a home to live in or security of the person."

"A death is a tragedy," Sister Simpson goes on to say, "any death is a tragedy, even the death of our most hated enemies. Elijah has said that it's this recognition that should separate us from our enemies, our capacity to empathize even with those we must determine to overcome at any cost." But Tonya still can't seem to overcome the death of her lover, even as they continue to trek through the outer environs of Birmingham, heading for some indeterminate point on the map. But further inside the Birmingham area, a woman named Rebecca Sullivan looks down the street she lives on and sees a column of Popular Front gunmen advancing towards her. She's unsure what to do, knowing as she does that the rebels have taken to confiscating anything they need from the local population, as she and the others she lives with are powerless to resist. Out of work for so long, many years, she and the others who live in her little flat are the very people the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front seek to free from the shackles of unemployment, poverty, and despair. Yet, Rebecca feels only a nervousness when the gunmen advance down the street, betrayed by her terse exchange with one of the gunmen who knocks on her door. "The Popular Front is the authority in this area now," says the gunman. "If it's true then I suppose we'll have to accept it," Rebecca says. She isn't sure what else to say. "We'll try to restore services," says the gunman, "but in the meantime you're under a strict curfew. All gatherings of more than three people except by members of the Front are banned except by express permission of the local committee." He gives her information on how to get a copy of the order on the screens from the networks, even though the networks are down at the moment, then leaves. Still Rebecca doesn't know what to think, what to feel, as she turns back to face her family, her husband, their three children, and two elderly relatives. They're safe, for now. The news they've heard over the past few weeks, of the lynchings and the retaliatory killings, she's frightened they might come here, that the Popular Front or anyone else might appear and take her family or burn her home. In time, she'll come to accept the protection of the Popular Front, in this area authority passing seamlessly in the night.

Although Valeri has become accustomed to struggle, as he trudges along the side of a road with the others it seems as though he's suddenly at a loss over what to say. With the night's skies burning a deep, dark orange, he marches on, thinking to himself until there appears at his side an older fighter named Martia, from the old People's Party, back when the Popular Front was only a dream. And she has something to say to Valeri and the other relatively new recruits. She says to him, "we've heard from London. The old union leaders are still live. They're calling for an end to unrest and for everyone to pledge loyalty to the government that's coming after the election results are finalized." Valeri doesn't ask, but he knows instinctively that his old mentor Mark Murray must be among them. The man's still alive. But elsewhere, others aren't so lucky. A young man named Eugene Goodwin also lives in Birmingham, only a few kilometres from the spot where Sister Simpson and her rebel fighters put down for the night. Eugene doesn't sympathize with the rebels in the Popular Front, but neither does he view favourably the Home Guard and their masters in the Provisional Government. Instead, he buries his loved ones, his sister and his mother, both having been killed in the fighting that's so recently consumed the area. Scarcely a few days after the last Home Guard troops have been expelled and he's already at it in a local cemetery, with a couple of others taking to some plot with shovels they'd found. It's a gruesome, grisly task. Once the hole's deep enough, they lower a pair of makeshift coffins, then shovel the dirt they'd piled to the side back in, filling the hole. After their task is finished, Eugene delivers something of a eulogy. He says, "I don't know if it'll happen anytime soon, but I know we'll see you again." The others nod, but say nothing, the three of them turning away from the task to face the day. They'll arrive home to find their little flat having been broken into, the Popular Front's efforts to provide security to the area having mixed results. No matter what, Eugene has come to believe, he'll find some way to survive, even if it means taking in with the rebels, should they prove a lasting power.

A man named Clarence Daniels has been a minor player until now, one of many that should seek to influence events for a higher purpose. But Daniels is no businessman, nor an officer in the army, rather a commander who must carefully negotiate his own battlefield. Aware of his rivals' designs on the failing Provisional Government, he senses the opportunity to act and doesn't hesitate. He contacts the rebels, not directly but through an intricate and highly roundabout series of informal relationships, his message filtering through whispers here and there, only after some days reaching the rebel Elijah. In his headquarters somewhere in the Midlands, the rebel Elijah weighs this new information carefully, aware of its source. In the end, Elijah sets down the pad displaying the information and turns away, stepping outside onto a landing from which he can see the night's horizon burning a dull amber and orange. He doesn't consult with his disciples in the Popular Front, alone as he is for the moment, but with the dark essence that guides him through this revolutionary epoch. And the dark essence responds, speaking without words through the ethereal link between them. Although the dark essence does not answer Elijah's search in the way he might've sought, nevertheless the electric sensation Elijah feels running the length of his spine, setting every patch of skin on his body alight tells informs his decision. Whatever the motives this Clarence Daniels might have in passing this information on to the rebels, they must act. It might be a trick, but it's also an opportunity, and the rebels in the Popular Front may not find another like it.

We won't learn the true identity of Clarence Daniels and those with whom he works for some time, although for now we should take care to reaffirm his true name is Clarence Daniels. He's something of a relic, an artefact of an era long past but which can still reach through the pages of history to influence the course of current events. And when Clarence says to his wife, "if this war could ever end then we might be able to have normal lives again." And his wife, named Alexis, says, "and a land of confusion would disappear. But that's a long way off." And so it is that Clarence and Alexis, a miscellaneous married couple somewhere in Oxford, come to place their support, in spirit if not yet in fact, in the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front. We've heard from many, many men and women who've come to enthusiastically embrace the cause of the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front, but these are the majority, the noncommittal, they who would remain steadfast in their refusal to firmly take a side. But the rebel Elijah has expected this, as it's been his experience since even before the failed uprising fifteen years before this one that few will dedicate themselves wholeheartedly to the cause of freeing the working men of the world. But then, in the night it happens.

The rebel Elijah and his disciples learn of a place they've been seeking for a long time. A party of the Popular Front's gunmen happen across the secret location where the families of men like Nathan Williams and Colonel Douglas Schlager are kept. It's a brutal moment, in a confused exchange of fire the Home Guard's troops falling to the ground, leaving only the women and children inside the old manor. But once the rebels realize who they've happened across, the determination is made to leave no survivors. And so it is. The bodies of so many people, the Home Guard's troopers, women, children, soon lie in a ditch outside. It may seem harsh. It may seem like the sort of thing that would cause one to sour on the revolutionary cause, not only to sour on it but to turn against it. Rest assured, this is war, and war is never for the timid. An atrocity this is, but only a small one compared to the many atrocities which have already been committed against the working men, so many thousands, even millions of broken, lifeless bodies lying cold. As difficult as it may be to imagine, the greatest atrocities are yet to come. With the general strike having degenerated into a maelstrom of hatred and recrimination, it might seem as though there's no end to it all. But with the breakdown of daily life in progress across Britain, something must inevitably transpire that could shock even the most hardened of hearts into a disquieted stupor. When it comes, all will be too frightened and confused to distinguish friend from foe. And this, this will give the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front the opportunity they need to seize victory and take their burgeoning revolution to its next phase. As the bodies are dumped into a ditch, far away the angel of light exerts its insidious influence, creating in the hearts of Schlager and Williams the temptation to pursue a pogrom, to give in to the wishes of the most radical and hate-filled among the Provisional Government. Although few of the country's Jewish population have fled the war, all will soon wish they had. For the rebel Elijah, what's to come will challenge him, murder provoking his campaign to free the oppressed from the most evil and insidious oppression of all.

Much is to happen in the coming weeks, too much for anyone to make sense of. More than anything, we all seem to be struck by the sudden and shocking turn of events which, looking back on it, were the only possible outcome of so many years of proffering a solution to the stalemate. As if there could be any outcome satisfying, any final victory to decisively resolve the interminable civil war, we see ourselves through this time.

23. Into the Wind

As the last few days pass between now and the end of the world as we know it, a listless sort of energy takes hold in the streets. After Roger's death, it seems to Valeri as though Tonya has become a different person, more given to quiet reflection than to her characteristic assertiveness. They march on, and Tonya keeps near the head of the group, among the first to reach their destination, the old market town of Birmingham. They march on, and Valeri finds himself carrying up the rear along with a few other gunmen among the veterans of the armed wing of the old People's Party, one of the predecessors of the rebel Elijah's Popular Front. When once they stop and take positions outside the old county hall, long abandoned as the revolution came to engulf all Britain, it occurs to Valeri that he should speak to Tonya, to reassure her on the recent death of her lover, but the dark essence which reaches out to them all silently and instantaneously convinces him on the need to devote all their attentions to more important affairs. But in Manchester, a young man named Lloyd Harker has already lived through what he thinks is the most violent part of the burgeoning revolution. Before the current general strike began, Lloyd had worked at a machine shop manufacturing plant, one which'd been contracted to provide tools and implements to the Provisional Government, for use in the war on the continent. But as with so many other factories in and around Manchester, Lloyd's had been falling behind on its production targets every month, falling further behind as the rebel offensive had reached a violent crescendo. When they went on strike, they'd not been paid in four months. Lloyd had come to rely on the charity of the local church to feed his family. Many others fell on similar arrangements. But one young worker had nowhere to go, nowhere to live. The day before the general strike had begun, Lloyd watched the young man die, at work the man collapsing suddenly. Now, after the general strike has largely degenerated into wanton violence, Lloyd and the others return to their plant, intent on seizing it. "Forget everything you've learned," says Lloyd, speaking with his fellow workers, "now we've got to take what's rightfully ours." Lloyd has been reading literature disseminated by the Popular Front and its forerunners in the Worker's Party and the People's Party for some time, and it's only now, after having witnessed so much death and destruction that he sees the right time to act. With the families of many of the workers brought in, they seize the plant, then fortify it, and fly the banner of the Popular Front from the flagpole at the plant's front gates.

The county hall, a fifteen-story tower made up of raw concrete and protrusions of glass, has survived more-or-less intact, thanks to the relative ease with which the Popular Front took over this town. Although neither Valeri nor Tonya can know it, this abandoned school is the place they've been working a long and winding path towards ever since they were expelled from the old liberated zones. Soon, night falls. More groups of rebel gunmen arrive, each made up of men looking every bit as ragged and haggard as theirs. While Valeri, Tonya, and the others man their positions around the old school, Sister Simpson heads inside, emerging hours later with news. "It's the moment we've been waiting a long time for," she says, "and once you all see through the night everything will change." Valeri's seen signs in windows, in the spaces where storefronts and lived-in flats would normally have windows, the signs painted with some of the Popular Front's various slogans. It vaguely recalls the signs he'd seen throughout the crowds during demonstrations against the government preceding the hated Provisional Government which retains a tenuous grip on power in Westminster. Now, the Provisional Government orders the British Army on the continent to prepare for an attack, knowing as it does of the Russians' state of near-total collapse. The length of time needed to prepare for an offensive will give the Russians plenty of warning, though, and this warning will lead the Russians to make a decision that should change the course of the war, both abroad and here in Britain, forever.

Over a dinner consisting of food given by the local population, Sister Simpson explains their purpose at having come here. Although the Popular Front has been gaining strength and expanding its ranks since even before there was a Popular Front to strengthen and expand, this gathering is a critical moment in the development of the Popular Front and the working class revolution. As we are still in this awkward, uncertain time when the course of events could still turn inexorably against the rebels in the Popular Front and their campaign for freedom, the gathering here is seemingly the best possible chance any of us have to push through this time of weakness and forge an impossible strength that might last forever. But while Valeri and the others eat their first proper meal in weeks, in Leeds a woman named Velma Glover keeps walking the picket line, braving the threat of the Home Guard's bullets and the beatings of the sectarian militia to carry on with their part in the general strike. Like many others, Velma and her fellow workers at this particular warehouse have not only gone on strike but have now seized their place of work, the picket lines becoming ramparts for workers like Velma to man. They've brought in their families, believing this warehouse the only place to keep them safe. No one knows what to do with an empty warehouse now that they've got it, with neither outgoing nor incoming freight on the docks, but it's theirs. At night, one night, the power fails. Velma and the others all expect it to come back on soon, the power having intermittently failed nearly every day for months. But this time, the night passes without the power coming on, drowning them in a persistent darkness that only lifts when dawn arrives. Later, after hearing reports that the Home Guard has been driven from the area, Velma turns to her young daughter and says, "it won't be long now until we'll be free to go." But the forlorn look on her daughter's face makes it abundantly clear to Velma her attempts to assuage her daughter's fears are in vain.

And as Valeri mans a position in the streets, he has the chance to catch a glimpse of some figures emerging from the old union hall, spotting one man in particular. He thinks on his old mentor, Mark Murray, still hardly able to believe so craven a betrayal. These figures, they're mid-level apparatchiks from some of the labour unions in the area, and they've come to make peace with the Popular Front, or so Sister Simpson says. The revelation of the conspiracy in union against the burgeoning revolution had come at exactly the right time for Valeri to have been receptive to the news of this betrayal. It'd come exactly as Valeri had already begun to rise, but before he'd given himself irrevocably to the struggle. Although he'd been, then, willing to lay his life on the line, he'd yet come to see his path through to the future lying not in a blaze of glory but in helping to build something which has yet to be. Later, during a lull in the action, Valeri, Tonya, and the others listen to another of Sister Simpson's impromptu lessons. "You see," says Sister Simpson, "the Russian government is our enemy, as is the Provisional Government in London. Our leader Elijah has taught us that the working man should yearn for freedom and should find unity in this yearning, without regard for the language each among him speaks, or the colour of his skin, or the arbitrary spot on the map from which he hails." She pauses, and turns away from them, looking through the night at the clearest of skies one has ever seen. Even as it's late-summer, still the heat and humidity of the day persists through the night, causing Valeri's shirt to stick to his skin and making the dried blood and caked-on mud on his face seem to have an almost waxy sheen. But as they listen to Sister Simpson instruct them on the accord that's being reached by the representatives of various factions in the Popular Front, all Valeri can seem to focus on is the remembrance of his friend Tonya's sullen mood. It was not altogether long ago, some weeks, when she'd lost her lover Roger, and it seems Valeri had failed to realize the true character of their relationship even as they'd been carrying it on in plain view before him.

As Valeri takes up the next watch around a critical intersection in central Birmingham, he recalls the last conversation he'd had with his old mentor, one Mark Murray. It'd come as Valeri was only beginning to turn to the cause of the rebel, and well before Murray had betrayed them. His mentor had told him, "if you do this, you'll be dead to me," referring to his desire to abandon his duties to the union in order to be with his then-lover, Sydney Harrington. And one of the things Valeri's sure he's said is, "I don't care if I'm dead to you," even though he knows he'd never said that. They'd started at one another, arguing as good friends can, only to never see each other again, each man having changed so radically in the months that've passed. As Valeri listens to Sister Simpson's lectures later in the evening, after his watch has ended without incident, he still thinks on his old mentor, prompted as he's been by the sight of that square which resembled the one in London. "Although we have all been following the banner of Elijah and the Popular Front," says Sister Simpson, Valeri listening to her through his thoughts, "it has been difficult for each of us to coordinate our attacks in such a way as to bring about a final victory over the enemy and free the working class of this country. That ends now." This is a revolutionary teaching, as it'd been a revolutionary teaching to generations past who'd dared to dream of freedom for themselves and for their children. But elsewhere in Birmingham, a middle aged man named Spencer Pratt survives by his penchant for hard work, with the rest of the workers taking control of the railyard where he's worked for a little over a year. The trains have all but stopped coming through, leaving Spencer and his fellow workers little work to do. As they've received word that the Popular Front has seized the area, along with much of the Midlands, Spencer and the others anticipate the arrival of some of the Popular Front's apparatchiks, as their rail yard is a critical junction through which much of the region's traffic should pass. In the meanwhile, Spencer spends his time not at work with his family, like so many others Spencer having brought his wife and two children here. Actually, many of the workers who now man this yard Spencer doesn't recognize. He learns that many of them have simply taken in with the striking workers, seeking to join the cause. The burgeoning revolution which has seized almost all of Britain has also enticed the millions of unemployed and homeless to join forces with the millions more who've been working. At night, one night, Spencer speaks to one of the unemployed who've taken in with them, saying, "they used to threaten us with sacking. Then we'd be like the unemployed and the homeless. But now, look where we are. They were right, but not in the way they'd meant it." He's got a wry little smile on his face as he speaks. The next day, the Popular Front arrives. "You've already formed a governing committee," says the lead Popular Front man, "now form a new committee, and receive your orders from the local Popular Front committee. You'll be asked to work hard for the revolution. I hope you're up to the task." Spencer and the others readily agree, forming their committee, working exactly as hard as they'd once worked for the old wealthy owners but now working hard for themselves and their children.

It's inevitable that each passing generation should encounter ideas already encountered by many generations past, yet should believe in these ideas as new and ground-breaking with all the sincerity and fervour of a zealot eagerly awaiting the surely imminent delivery of the faithful to their paradise. Although we look ahead, now, we must always look back, the secrets to our history's future lying in the memories we've learned to forget. It seems the days which pass in between sessions inside the old school are marked by an unusual calmness. The other rebel forces gathered in this little, nondescript section of a seemingly random city somewhere between Manchester and London all wait for the same thing Valeri, Tonya, and the rest under Sister Simpson's tutelage are waiting for, if only they could know it. after so many months of relentless violence, of trekking across the country one way or another, of witnessing so many cold-blooded murders and of exacting their own brand of vengeance against those who would commit acts of cold-blooded murder, to Valeri this sudden period of stopping to wait and see seems very much like the antithesis of the rebel's ideals, such as they'd been explained to him during his time in with the rebels. But this, this line of thought causes Valeri to reflect further on his betrayal by his former mentor, Mark Murray. After his and the others' expulsion from the former liberated zones, in London and across all Britain, the confidence and the strength of the hated Provisional Government and its forces in the Home Guard had seemed to grow with each passing day, even seeming to grow whenever the rebels in their various forms took the lives of soldiers and made good on their war. But in the distance, there's still the fires of liberation burning, the sound of distant gunfire rattling through the day and night, the sight of columns of smoke rising from the cityscape seeming to mark the exact spots where the old regime's funeral pyres burn. It's important to remember, as we witness this gathering, this conference, to know that the worst is yet to come. Although Valeri has experienced his first taste of bloodlust, in killing the disabled Home Guard soldier, still he has yet to become the passionate, fervent devotion to the cause of the Popular Front, in time his life will turn like the river coursing through tumultuous rapids. In this, Valeri is becoming like a machine, learning to devote his body to the rehearsed, ritualistic acts of fighting, just as he'd used to devote his body to the rehearsed, ritualistic acts of work. And as his reflections lead him to thoughts on his old mentor Mark Murray, thoughts that must inevitably lead him to a dark place, Valeri's interrupted by Sister Simpson. "You should get some sleep," she says, "there's no telling when we'll be going on the attack again, so you should take the opportunity to rest while you can." But Valeri only looks away and says, "I'd rather be awake right now." Sister Simpson asks, "why?" And Valeri looks back before saying, "I've got a lot to think about." But Sister Simpson won't have it, ordering him off. As Valeri puts to bed, he is becoming more like a soldier, at exactly the right moment to witness history.

It's a confused, disorienting time, that Valeri should be here to witness a moment of tremendous significance but the significance of which should only become evident to him in time, for now the bulk of his thoughts devoted to affairs more personal, much closer to the heart than he should ever care to admit. But in the distance, still there's the fires of liberation burning, the sound of distant gunfire rattling through the day and night, the sight of columns of smoke rising from the urban landscape seeming to mark the exact spots where circumstance has conspired to place the funeral pyres of the old way for all to see. Although Birmingham may be a large city, it's close to Oxford, the scene of bitter fighting between one of the Home Guard's few competent battalions, the Popular Front's gunmen, plus some of the various factions that've emerged recently. This means any of the rebels here in Birmingham could be sent off to reinforce their brothers fighting in Oxford, including Sister Simpson's. The ethnic nationalists in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are in revolt, but here in Birmingham those are absent. And then, out of the corner of his eye, Valeri sees someone he thought he'd never see again. So sure is he that the sight confronting him must be something other than what he thinks it is that he avoids speaking out, at first. It seems as though Valeri is becoming like a killing machine, detached from his feelings with each life that he's taken, with each life he's seen taken, the totality of these experiences slowly alienating him from the person he'd been. But when their eyes meet, it becomes unavoidable that they should speak. "Maria," he says, approaching her cautiously, "it's good to see you again." She looks Valeri once over, then says, "and you." There's an awkward, uncertain silence, broken only by the distant sound of gunfire rattling and of bombs bursting, until even Valeri can't stand it and begins to speak again, compelled to do so by some unseen force which must watch them at all times. It seems absurd, impossible even, but it's the truth of the matter, even Valeri seeming incapable of simply accepting what must be and feeling himself put towards some impossible fact, some mutually exclusive truths forced together by conspiracy of fate. But elsewhere, in nearby Coventry, a woman named Mai Nguyen has little time to ponder the finer points of revolution, consumed as she is in her struggle to survive a war zone. The descendent of Vietnamese immigrants to Britain, Mai had lived in a small enclave of such people in Coventry. Their council flats, once let to them by the local authority, are now controlled by a small committee of residents formed in the breakdown of the Provisional Government's authority in the area. Food is scarce, but there's enough to feed everyone for now. Some of the other council flats in the area are governed by their own informal committees. Tonight, one night, Mai keeps watch, hoping this to be the first night not to see fighting outside after five straight days of gun battles between the factions. Outside the block's front, she hears the distant sound of gunfire rattling, but she notes that it never seems to draw any nearer. She says to her fellow resident, "I hope the war never comes here," before speaking at length about her family and all they've sacrificed to be here. Her fellow resident, a young man says, "it'll come, sooner or later," before speaking at length about his own family, all dead or gone. Their committee—they don't call it that, but that's what it is, a committee—is an illusion, a fraud, without armaments or outside support its chief task being to reassure its own members. Mai knows this, although her young friend doesn't. Until the Popular Front can impose itself on the area, an illusion and a fraud are the only things she'll have. She'll take them.

But the dark essence which guides the working man's revolution has designs on all those gathered here, even as we focus on the few still the countless others each having their own narrative, their own stories, each with a curious and roundabout sequence of events having led them here. The dark essence which guides the working man's revolution has guided them all here, with a deliberate purpose, just as it has guided some with deliberate purpose into death. "Elijah himself is not here," says Sister Simpson, "but he's close, much closer than anyone can guess." In truth, it matters little where the rebel Elijah is, for he is everywhere in Britain where there is a working man yearning to be the master of his own destiny. It becomes readily apparent even in these confused and dangerous times that the power of the way of things to maintain its grip on the imagination of the masses is dying, permanently caught in a downward spiral from which it must always struggle in its delusion to overcome. On the next moment, there's a listless energy, a vague sensibility that this moment must be almost anti-climactic. On the continent, the British Army and those of its allies achieves a tactical breakthrough, on the road to some miscellaneous town in eastern Poland. But beyond that miscellaneous town there lies an open highway to Minsk, and beyond there, all Russia. We pause to examine the course of the war on the continent. In Moscow, the generals of the Russian Army also realize this breakthrough by their enemies, and resolve to put a halt to their advance, no matter the cost. In the night, it always happens in the night, a decision is reached on the other side of the front lines which should set in motion a final sequence of events, sure to change all our histories forever. But first, we must continue to follow this new development in the war even as we pause to consider the lives of some of the war's individual fighters. Elsewhere, the remaining pilots of Mobius Squadron face a dire fate. Pilot Wright had his screen confiscated following his unauthorized call, as well as a lengthy interrogation to see if he was contacting anyone in the Home Guard or Popular Front. It struck Hatfield as excessive but not altogether unwarranted. They'd all heard the stories of the Home Guard placing informants in the ranks of the Popular Front, as the Provisional Government and its forerunners in the old United Kingdom's security services. More than a few rebels had been lost owing to attacks staged on the advice of such informants. But the next time Wright and Hatfield are able to speak, Hatfield says to Wright, "you've done the right thing." Wright says to Hatfield, "I should've listened to you." The younger pilot's referring to a conversation they'd had when Hatfield had encouraged him to set aside his doubts and embrace not the Popular Front but the choices they've all made, together. "You don't have to disregard your doubts," Hatfield had said, "you just have to overcome them." And it's then, after Hatfield and Wright have spoken for the first time following Wright's interrogation, that they learn Mobius Squadron is down to only two survivors. Linda Parker's dead.

"The rebel Elijah is only a man," says Sister Simpson, "and our war is not led by men." If it seems this, the story of our history's future is a disjointed and confusing mess, then that's only because all history is little more than a series of unlikely coincidences guided by the unseen hand of forces so much greater than any of us could ever grasp. And so it had been that Sister Simpson had come to teach Valeri, Tonya, and the others on the full story of the rebel Elijah's life, even as the whole lot of them had already known the vague outline of his identity, it's only since they were so unceremoniously expelled from their home at Dominion Courts that they've come to be a coherent unit, a single force, a single force among many, many single forces across the country, Western Europe, all the world. Although Valeri is not privy to the goings on inside that nondescript union hall, he should take some interest in the fact that his is here to witness the joining of so many single forces, the uniting of so many dissident factions, the making whole of them all with the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front. All across Britain, the general strike which so recently reached its crescendo continues in earnest, providing the rebels gathered with a backdrop for their ongoing internal negotiations, leaving even the most learned and wise among them to embrace a confidence which has never before been known to them. But as the rebels inside work, Valeri looks on Tonya with a kind of muted despair, as though there's some small, instinctive part of him that knows there's nothing he can do, nothing he should do to console her in this, her grieving period. He remembers Roger, the way Roger would stand by Tonya's side in all things, sleeping when she did, waking when she did, without need for so much as an alarm clock their lives having come to synchronize with each other's perfectly. All across Britain, the general strike which sought to be the death blow against the regime that's spent so many years consolidating its strength is coming to a sputtering, tuttering conclusion, as if timed perfectly so as to reach its crescendo at exactly the right moment. As for the pilots of Mobius Squadron, the moment Hatfield and Wright learn of their comrade Linda Parker's death is a moment almost anticlimactic. Both men have already begun the long and arduous task of coming to grips with the loss of their loved ones. As they keep watch one night, having found themselves taken in with a particular unit of Popular Front fighters, neither Wright nor Hatfield can think of what to say. Both expect action at any moment. Both can hear the distant sound of gunfire rattling and bombs bursting through the night. And both know the general strike and the reprisals against it, never mind the lynchings and the massacres, continue to claim lives. It recalls an earlier conversation Wright and Hatfield had shared with Parker, the last time they'd been together. They'd been in the pews at an old church, a church long vacated by the mother church but the pastor still tending to the flock. "It'll never end," Hatfield had said. "The war will end someday," Wright had said. As for Parker, sitting between the two she'd said, "look at that pastor, and how he minsters to the needs of his congregants." A little while later, the pastor approached the three, offering them some meagre food. All three refused.

But as the rebels inside Birmingham reach their secret accord, to be made public over the months to come, Valeri looks on Tonya with a kind of dulled sympathy, unsure whether to approach her and try to console her or to let her be. The young woman he'd come to know so well over the past year or so would insist she needed no help, and perhaps it's true that she needs no help at all. But as Valeri speaks with his old friend Maria, it becomes readily apparent even to him how much they've both changed, how their lives have taken such divergent, yet roundabout paths in leading each of them to the very same location. "I joined the Front before you took part in that uprising," says Maria. "I thought you might've," says Valeri. "And I thought you'd have been killed when the enemy took the liberated zones," says Maria. "I nearly was," says Valeri, nodding over at Tonya who seems to be watching silently, "but I survived in spite of myself." And Maria looks over at Tonya, then back at Valeri before saying to him, "well, I suppose that without a woman you'd have been killed a long time ago." Valeri laughs, escaping himself momentarily, allowing a glimpse of the humanity which he is so sure he's left long ago. Elsewhere, the two remaining pilots of Mobius Squadron are soon sent not into battle but into another church, this time sent with some of their newfound brothers to rally the pastor and his parishioners to the cause of the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front. As they approach, the church's front doors open. The pastor, a tall, slim man, exits with several others in tow. The pastor, he doesn't wear the robes of a cleric but an ordinary shirt and slacks. He's emaciated, with a frame much larger than his thin figure should allow. "We welcome you," he says, seeming to speak to every gunman at once, "but please, leave the war outside." As Hatfield and Wright watch, the priest agrees to follow the banner of the Popular Front, while their leader hands a set of rules to the priest which the priest readily agrees to follow. "If the churches join us," says Hatfield, later, as they're marching between places they've been ordered to, "then there must be many others who will join us, too." Wright walks alongside, and says, "something big's in the works." Hatfield nods. Both men want to see their loved ones again, but so have both men become increasingly certain they never will.

Emerging from their latest shelter, the men and women under Sister Simpson's leadership take to the streets. They find a hopeless evil having taken hold, all order having given way to a relentless orgy of violence. After taking position near a an old, bombed-out storefront, the whole lot of them look to Sister Simpson for guidance, even Valeri and Tonya able to put aside their personal concerns for a moment. Then, after another hours-long meeting inside the abandoned secondary school, Sister Simpson emerges with news. "It's finished," she says, Valeri, Tonya, and all the others listening intently, "the way forward is agreed on." Soon, she explains the various factions within the Popular Front, not only the old Worker's Party and the People's Party who formed the genesis of the Popular Front but also the others, have agreed to finally put aside their internal differences and pledge unwavering fealty to the coming future. Some of these factions, she explains, were civic organizations, some were labour unions, still some were representatives of universities both public and private, while the greatest faction were the churches. Many of the churches are formed in the time since the failed rising fifteen years before this war began, many of their members drawn from among those who'd defected from the Anglican and Catholic churches, in roughly equal numbers. Although Valeri has had a casual relationship with the church throughout his life, on this day he sits in the pews and prays genuinely, even enthusiastically, something he hasn't done since even before his parents were killed in that failed rising more than fifteen years ago. "It's not something I'm used to doing," says Tonya, sitting as she does in the pew behind Valeri. "Nor I," says Valeri, "but I am becoming more comfortable with admitting who I really am." It causes Valeri to think, again, on his betrayal by Mark Murray, wondering as he does if his former elder in union would be surprised on where he's ended up. It's been nearly two years since they'd last spoken, but after having been all but raised by the elder it's hard for him to get over the loss. But these thoughts ruminate in the back of his mind, even as he discusses with Tonya the ongoing war. And Tonya agrees, saying, "as am I, if only I could figure out who I am." In the church, there's too much of a commotion for anyone to be bothered much by two unknown fighters speaking. And after Maria and Valeri have first reconnected, it seems inevitable that they should become friends, where once there'd only been a cautious and uncertain mutual suspicion now their shared fate enabling a camaraderie that can only be bred by shared service. "It's not like you to be so enthusiastic," says Maria. "Maybe not," says Valeri, "but we all change sometime. If we didn't change, then the world would be stuck in the same hopeless situation forever." And to this Maria can only respond by saying, "you're not the man you used to be." And this, this pointed statement bothers him.

"But you never knew me that well," says Valeri. "You used to look down on me," says Maria. "It was a mistake for me," says Valeri. "No, it wasn't," says Maria, "I only joined the Popular Front because I had nowhere else to go. They would give me food and shelter, and all they asked was that I fight for them." "Do you still see the Popular Front in that way?" "No." "No?" "You and I might've joined up for different reasons but I've come to see things the way you have," says Maria, a slightly forlorn look on her face as she keeps talking, "it's too much for me to explain now. But the things I've seen since you and I last saw each other..." In the half-moment she lets her voice trail off, Valeri can tell she's seen many of the things he's seen, only much, much worse. It's the way her gaze seems to focus on some unseen point a thousand yards away that most unsettles Valeri. Still she seems to come to, regaining her composure, returning to the form of the disciplined, determined soldier she's become. But even while underground the debate among Valeri, Tonya, and all the others continued, in the moment when their work must continue. But Valeri, in a moment of diversion, chooses to keep on speaking with his old friend, Maria. "We work hard all our lives," says Valeri, "and now we must work harder than ever before. Not even a moment of relaxation is allowable. And we must work harder than ever before so that, perhaps, someday in the distant future there will be generations who don't have to work so hard, who don't have to become slaves to their wages." And Maria nods, saying, "you've changed so much since we last saw each other." Valeri places a hand on Maria's shoulder, and says, "this is all new to me, but my instincts tell me that these are the times that change people quickly." Although they may never see each other again, this small moment, one among so many on this day, is but a measure of solace to ordinary men like Valeri called to an extraordinary purpose. In the pews at that little makeshift church where Valeri and Tonya came to pray, they fall silent when a mysterious figure takes the pulpit. "...I do not ask that you renounce your faith," the mysterious figure says, "in fact, I demand that you remain steadfast in your commitment to your faith, in all things, now and always." He's been speaking for some time, a few minutes, and as he continues it dawns on Valeri who this man is, who he must be. Suddenly, Maria's gone, with Valeri and Tonya seemingly alone in a crowd of so many tens of millions. It's quite jarring, the way Elijah can make each person before him feel as though they're being spoken to personally, the way the rebel Elijah can seem to form a deeply personal relationship with each and every person before him, Valeri included. But Elijah's charisma extends far beyond the way he speaks.

The rebel Elijah came dressed not in a politician's suit and tie but in an ordinary soldier's fatigues, as he is always dressed, there to lead an army of men through the darkest of nights. You see, the rebel Elijah has long insisted that his disciples in the Popular Front don't make him into an icon, that they don't disseminate the image of his face to the working men of Britain, lest he become an idol to them. "History is not made by idols," as Elijah is fond of saying, "nor by the leaders of men. Although I am the leader of the Popular Front, I am only a man." And he says this as men are dead and dying, in this city and in cities across Britain the revolutionary struggle leaving so many maimed and wounded, leaving flesh torn from bone, leaving bodies to lie lifeless in the streets. And in this church there're some of the walking wounded, civilians and combatants alike having taken to this refuge in their time of pain and suffering. Of course Valeri is wounded as well, wounds he's come to conceal from the others, a wound that causes him significant pain, but the kind of pain that seems to dull the senses, to linger like a strain somewhere in the side of his chest. But now Elijah is here. It's quite the trick, to keep one's composure while meeting such a legendary figure, and it takes several moments for Valeri to realize himself, as his mouth hangs open and he's stopped breathing. A look comes across the rebel Elijah's face as he stands at the pulpit, as though he senses the awestruck mood, which leaves him disappointed. "I come here today to give myself to you," says Elijah, "but it is true that I've always been given to you. Although there is a Congress underway not far from here, held by the Popular Front, it is here that I choose to be, so that the wounded and the weary might receive some comfort, so that I might give the wounded and the weary some comfort. As I have said, as it is written, the first shall be last, and the last shall be first." As Valeri watches with all the others, he feels a momentary lessening of the pain in his chest, a very slight lessening, only enough to be noticeable. And he's not the only one. Among the wounded in the pews is a young man named Roland, not of the Popular Front but among those wounded in a battle between the Popular Front's gunmen and some Home Guard troops. He'd been waiting with dozens of other young men at the local shop to see if there was any work for the day. It was only when he'd reached the front of the line that the shop's foreman stopped taking in workers, saying to Roland simply, "go home, lad. Try again tomorrow." And at that moment, when Roland let out a sigh and began contemplating the rest of his life, there was a sudden explosion, the bursting of a bomb nearby followed by the rattling of gunfire. Men scrambled for cover. It happened too fast for Roland to remember. When he'd gathered himself, there was a feeling of intense heat along with a dull pain where he'd caught a stray round in his shoulder. "Are there any others?" a voice could be heard to ask. "Keep moving!" another voice could be heard to say. "Watch for traps!" "Do we police the bodies?" "If they're dead just move on!" "Could be rebels, sir!" "Well if you find one still alive put a bullet in him then!" And the next thing Roland knew, he was crawling across the street, finding shelter in a shop with a half-dozen others, in spite of his wounds surviving to return to his family, but not the end of his story. Now, here in these pews, Roland is among the crowd who receives from the rebel Elijah a momentary wisdom, a moment neither Roland nor any other will forget.

But less than two hundred kilometres away, in the Palace of Westminster the men in control of the hated Provisional Government assess their options, still believing as they must that theirs is a cause not doomed to failure, not that it ever stood any chance of success. Colonel Douglas Schlager, of all people, is a pathetic figure, tragic in his steadfast commitment to a failing ideal, even as the walls come crumbling down all around him still Schlager must cling to the faded ideals that he's built a life around. Impending doom changes nothing. It recalls the image of the propagandist sitting in front of his cameras, insisting with all the passion and intensity of a demon fallen in love with the image of himself that the current way of things is just, that the war is to be won even as it is past the point of having been decisively lost. And so it is that Douglas Schlager looks over charts, considers the disposition of his forces all across Britain, realizing that every marker representing one of the Home Guard's units marks not strength but weakness. It's come this far. Even as the Home Guard's ranks swelled with a wave of new recruits over the past few months, it's become clear that their vast size, their near omnipresence in much of the country makes them not strong but in fact makes them weak. As the table before Colonel Schlager rattles gently in time with the bursting of distant bombs, he looks at one particular marker, representing a single unit left somewhere in County Oxford, and imagines himself there, with the men of that unit, whoever they might be, from whatever ranks they might've been pulled. It's quite the trick. But as Colonel Schlager loses himself momentarily in thought, an aide approaches him from the side, Schlager able to see the man just out of the corner of his eye. He carries news, of course. Schlager turns to face him, instinct telling the Colonel the news even before his subordinate can speak. And just as the news is about to be broken, there's the rumbling of the ground beneath their feet along with the muffled chattering of gunfire filling the air, a gentle rattling shaking them both out of their self-imposed stupor.

"Are you ready?" asks Schlager, of himself as much as his subordinate. "It doesn't look good," says his subordinate, handing him a few sheets of paper with all the information printed out, so far gone is their Provisional Government and its machinations, large and small, that they can no longer rely on screens to do business. Schlager looks over the papers, leafing through them, giving each a cursory glance; he knew already the news, not by clairvoyance but by the intuition of an officer with decades of service in the British Army. The recent election, meanwhile, has left the Provisional Government in an unfortunate situation. This, Colonel Douglas Schlager considers as he looks over a map concerning the situation throughout the British Isles. Red markers denote known areas of rebel activity. Green markers denote loyal Home Guard units. But the true situation can't be marked on a map. "What can we do now?" asks his subordinate, an officer named Isaac Jones. "We have no choice but to launch another offensive," says Schlager, "at dawn, we start to gather the last of our strength. Then, when the timing's right, we go on the attack." Isaac Jones asks, "where?" And Schlager looks up from his map to say, "everywhere, all at once." The political situation, the failed election, the parties continuing their squabbling in public and in private while many more wait and see all weigh on the minds of the generals, as they're scattered across Britain. Colonel Schlager, as he insists on being called, is scheduled to take one of the seats in the new government and to become formal head of the armed forces, beneath the symbol of the King. Schlager turns away from the map and says to another of his subordinates, "call Minister Williams and all the others." He pauses for a moment, before saying, "and tell them I won't be taking my seat in the new Parliament." They say this as the current general strike continues, in the weeks its lasted the strike becoming the longest strike since the failed rising more than fifteen years ago. And now, with the country immersed in a confusing and disorienting maelstrom of violence, it seems to men like Colonel Douglas Schlager that the only way forward can be to look into his own personal past.

24. On the Edge of Tomorrow

But so, too, does Nathan Williams consider the predicament facing the Provisional Government, in an office he'd taken for himself in the Houses of Parliament. It seems arrogance was sure to be his downfall; he'd moved into this office fully expecting the new government to provide at least enough stability and security to help him loot the treasury to the fullest extent possible. Now, as he prepares to convene the new Parliament and take his seat in the new Constituent Assembly, all he can feel is a mounting sense of gloom. After the election, the general strike which has seized Britain doesn't end, with deaths by starvation failing to entice the striking workers back to their posts. But the thought of lynch mobs strikes fear into Williams' heart, sending a shiver running the length of his spine, raising the skin on the back of his neck. "What can we do now?" asks his subordinate, a man named Lee Calder. "We have no choice but to go ahead and convene the new government," says Williams, "we can't refuse to seat the parliament, just as we can't declare this to be a moment of stability. Call Schlager and the others. Tell them we go ahead as planned." The former minister and armaments mogul doesn't understand this turn of events, even as he'd known them sure to take place all along. The angel of light whose whispers he'd heard at every key juncture had promised the election was to be a pivotal moment in the reestablishment of the old British Empire. Of course, both Schlager and Williams are aware of the rebel Elijah's campaign, as are the other miscellaneous corporate officers and career politicians who comprise the bulk of the Provisional Government's new legislative body. Williams seeks the guidance of the angel of light, even if he's entirely unaware of they whose guidance he seeks. But now, all there is from the angel of light is a deafening silence. It's a hard truth to accept, one which men like Nathan Williams can't bring themselves to accept even as they're confronted with irrefutable evidence proving it to them. In this, they are tragic figures, governed by their own weaknesses rather than their strengths, their avarice and their insatiable lust for power rendering them pawns of evil in its larger struggle against the forces of good. In truth, the Provisional Government is a passing episode in the course of our history's future, its imminent demise part of the rising of an evil the likes of which none of us have ever seen. And this, this passing episode, passing though it may be, will prove to have been a critical moment in our march to the future that awaits us, if only we could see it. Now, with the latest major battle in the war on the continent having produced thousands of fresh bodies to fill coffins across Europe, the Provisional Government's fate seems to hang in the balance.

As negotiations continue in Birmingham between representatives of the Popular Front and those of various groups, Valeri, Tonya, and the others spend their nights in an old, half-fallen apart hotel not far from the county hall, spending their days patrolling the streets and keeping defensive positions here and there. But even while resting from their constant action, the debate among Valeri, Tonya, and all the others continues, in the church Valeri and Tonya listening as the rebel Elijah himself delivers an impromptu speech from the pulpit. It recalls Valeri's time among the ordinary men and women who'd seized their own homes and took control of the liberated zones. In those confused times immediately after that first rising, not the first rising in recent British history but one which should go down as a critical moment in the burgeoning revolution. But in the midst of their rising, after they'd repelled that first assault by the Home Guard on their liberated zones, a moment of clarity had presented itself amid the chaos and amid the carnage. In the aftermath of another exchange of gunfire with Home Guard troops outside the liberated zones those months ago, Valeri had seen Tonya with Roger, the two recuperating in his flat. Valeri had entered through the flat's foyer, and turned a corner to see the two in the sitting room, Tonya tending to a wound Roger had sustained some days earlier. It was a wound on his head, a gash sustained when Roger had been knocked back by a stray mortar round that'd landed ahead of him, his head striking the pavement at an odd angle. It'd been a time when everyone had been forced to fight through the injuries, with the nearest hospital shut down and the next nearest hospital under Home Guard control. As they'd lacked even basic medicines, there was little Tonya could do but apply a warm compress made from a spare cloth. They've heard of the recent battle in the war on the continent, the Provisional Government's apparatchiks on the screens proclaiming victory, still forced to proclaim victory even as Valeri, Tonya, and everyone else in the country can see defeat through their lies.

After walking in, Valeri began speaking, but got only halfway through a thought before Tonya said, "we can't win the war by ourselves, but if we go out together then we'll have done all we can." For his part, Roger had seemed half-forgetful, as though he could keep up but had some slight difficulty in doing so. Compared to all the limbs blown off and the blood spilled on the pavement, such a simple thing as a knock to the head might've seemed rather innocuous, even banal. If Valeri had known Roger's injuries would cause him to be less capable of fighting, he still would've asked his friend and neighbour to keep on fighting. Tonya would've too. In fact, Roger would've insisted on it, wanting to fight to the bitter end. It wouldn't have changed anything, Valeri now realizes, and it's in that fact that Roger's death, that Roger's enthusiastic sacrifice in their struggle for freedom from the injustices and indignities of poverty and unemployment that makes his sacrifice noble. As Valeri sits in the pews of that old church and listens to the rebel Elijah give his impromptu speech from the pulpit, Valeri is put, for a moment, at ease. "Time may show our future destruction to have been inevitable," the rebel Elijah says to his disciples, to the wounded in the pews at that old church in Birmingham, "a firestorm that should serve to purge Europe of the last vestiges of the old way, of the decadence and debauchery that came to be the bane of all our lives. What's to follow, I predict, should be a tumultuous time without parallel in human history. I tell you this: recall my words. I come not to bring you peace, but suffering. I come not to lead you to heaven, but to lead you through hell. Recall this promise as we descend further and further into the maelstrom of war. As you are come to suffer, remember the suffering even greater still of the indignities of the old way of life, of hopeless poverty, unemployment, and despair. Your wounds will heal. The indignities meted out upon you will not; they must be done away with."

As the rebel Elijah leaves the pulpit and walks down the vestibule, there's a lot of shouting and rushing, people trying to reach out to him. And Valeri is caught up in the moment as well, feeling at that moment as though he's become more than his body, more than his vessel, as he reaches for Elijah like all the others his grasp falling short by a half-inch, a half-inch that seems like a thousand and one miles. After Roland had narrowly escaped death, he managed his way home, having walked back despite the pain. But he arrives to find the windows of his flat shattered, and a trail of spent shell casings winding around the street. The war was here, too. Inside, he finds his family, his young wife and their young son, hiding in the cellar, his wife rushing out to tend to his wounds. Still there's the muffled sound of bombs bursting and gunfire rattling in the distance, seeming to fade in from someplace beyond. "We're not safe here," says Roland. "Then we'll leave," says his wife. A few years earlier, before the current wave of revolutionary unrest began, it might've been like Roland and his wife to argue over their future, but the war in the streets has changed even the little things in life. Now, they agree. In the morning, when the rattling of gunfire and the bursting of bombs in the distance came to subside, they left, having packed up what little they had into a couple of suitcases, and they made for the city of Birmingham. There, they took in with a cousin of Roland's wife. There, they remained, when a few weeks later the Popular Front took the city, in so taking the city making it into a place of great significance in the course of the revolution.

"You have seen the enemy in Westminster change their weapons," says Elijah, "in our lifetimes, they have gone from using the fountain pen to the truncheon and onto the bullet and the bomb. But I tell you this: all these weapons are the same. All are massed against us to arrest the development of our history's future. All are futile. As our struggle reaches new achievements, so must our enemies resort to new, more violent means to stop us. They will fail." These were among the last words Elijah had spoken to those gathered at that little church, before leaving the pulpit and walking through the congregation. It seems now, as Valeri reaches for the rebel Elijah, like all the others in that church, that he could see something that isn't there, that he could make himself a part of something that isn't there, Valeri's hand reaching out but finding only a momentary lightness. And this moment is Valeri's personal arrival, the moment in which he learns to become something more, something better than what he is. It wasn't all that long ago, in the grand scheme of things, that Valeri, Tonya, and some of the others here were taken in with the liberated zones, their revolutionary consciousness still in its early period. In its early period, they were given to the fiery passions of youth, with Valeri himself determined to make a martyr out of himself. But now, after Valeri's listened to the rebel Elijah, he leaves the church a new man, with a renewed essence of feeling at the centre of his chest. It must've been, he realizes, the rebel Elijah. As he approaches the others, the whole lot of them about to take position for the night, Valeri recalls a moment from one of their last study sessions under Sister Simpsons. "Remember," Sister Simpson had said, leading the session as the group continued their readings, "that our revolution, our struggle does not seek to bring peace but war. We do not promise to end war, but to make it. As the rebel Elijah has told us, our rising must necessarily provoke the rising of an evil the likes of which we have never seen, the enactment of justice will necessarily be met with a campaign aimed at restoring injustice. Remember this, as we prepare to take the next, decisive step towards our history's inevitable future."

Although Valeri doesn't know it, the rebel Elijah has designs on him, on men like him, on Tonya, Roger, on all the others under Sister Simpson's tutelage. But much is yet to happen between now and the moment when Elijah's plans are to be realized, in the meanwhile a sequence of events mounting that should point the way through to the future, if only any of us could be wise enough to see it for what it'll truly be. Among the faithful, not here in Birmingham but in the post-industrial wastelands of County Durham, a woman named Amy Sadler working to clean up the rubble from the most recent burst of violence. In the streets of the small city of Darlington, Amy lives and works not far from the nearest rebel stronghold, with the Home Guard so sparse it's almost as though the Popular Front is the real authority here. But when Amy's out, today, on the day when the Popular Front consolidates itself across the country, Amy evades the lone Home Guard patrol she's seen and ducks into an old union hall, there meeting with a dozen others. As the north of England has always been a hotbed of revolutionary fervour, on this day Amy meets with others who are ready to dispense with the government in Westminster, once and for all. They all have their own reasons for being there. For Amy, the memory of her brother, killed in the war on the continent, is motivation enough, the Popular Front long promising an end to the senseless slaughter on distant battlefields winning her over.

In fact, the rebel Elijah has been guiding the strategy of the Popular Front for so long that this war is his war, this war is his ministry, this struggle to liberate the working men of Britain, Europe, all the world his struggle, with every passing day adding to his righteous cause. As Valeri watches the rebel Elijah leave the church, it seems to the young man as though something strange is amiss, something vague and imperceptible, but surely there. Valeri is only beginning to become attuned to the existence of the dark essence which guides the working man's revolution, and he can only sense the vaguest of its tendencies, like a blind man first learning to see again who can only tell the vaguest of differences between light and dark. But there's another present, along with the dark essence the angel of light watching, waiting, not yet seeking to manipulate the thoughts and feelings of ordinary men like Valeri but the time of its so seeking almost arrived. It may be the case that seeing Tonya's quiet mourning of her lover's death has caused Valeri to reconsider his own future. "Are you ready to do what must be done?" asks Sister Simpson. "No," says Valeri, "but I'll do it anyways." And so it is that Valeri's service among the ranks of the Popular Front is guaranteed, he having signed no membership card, having been assigned no number or rank, but a member, a fighter nevertheless.

At last, two women named Judith Watson and Donna Patterson reach their destination, finding the local transit unexpectedly shut down with no word on when it'll be running again. They're not friends, not family, not even co-workers, but they come from the same stock. In the streets of Bradford, County Yorkshire, women like Judith and Donna are desperate for work, the war at home having ravaged the local industry and prompted the remaining merchants to hoard their goods, as they've been hoarding goods across Britain, only here to a much greater extent. Theirs is a chance meeting, Judith's and Donna's, but in the time it takes them to reach the bus station and realize it's not running, a small bond is formed. But then, a nearby bomb bursts in the streets, rattling and rumbling the ground beneath their feet, a battle erupting between the Popular Front's gunmen and some Home Guard troops. Judith dies, killed by an overzealous Home Guard soldier who mistakes her for a target. Donna escapes with her life. But after seeing her new friend killed for no reason, her life will never be the same. Also meeting at this old union hall is a local committee, formed under the auspices of the old Worker's Party but not yet committed, like so many others, to the Popular Front. On the committee's a younger man by the name of Nick Sutton. At the union hall when they meet there's a storm of debate, with angry men shouting at one another. At the head of the room, Nick Sutton asks for calm, saying, "if you can't agree to stop fighting each other then what hope do any of us have?" But it's no use, as the men continue their angry debate. "I don't want them here," says one man, referring to the rebels of the Popular Front. "They're better than the Home Guard," says another, "all the Home Guard did was take our children, murder them in cold blood, and then throw their bodies in a ditch!" Still another man says, "and the rebels kill people too! It's not enough that we can't stop the killing, now we have to choose between murder by the Home Guard or the rebels!" Amid the din, Nick Sutton stops his pleading for order, and agrees to hold a vote immediately. It wasn't all that long ago that any of them were on the edge of starvation, and now they have to contend with the constant threat of bombardment. In truth, these men are more sympathetic to the Popular Front than they let on, but as the factories, mills, universities, and railyards, among so many others, have formed their own committees for self-governance under the Popular Front these men have become resigned by this wave of organization to their fates.

As the rebels have confiscated all the food and supplies they'd needed on seizing the town, there's precious little left for the locals, who must now survive on the strict regimen imposed by the committee that Nick and Morgan serve on. But events are afoot. Having witnessed the rebel Elijah speak, now, Valeri can only imagine himself carrying the struggle on, no matter the cost. Where once Valeri looked forward eagerly to his own death, longing as he did to make himself into a martyr for the struggle of the working class, now Valeri considers the possibilities the future should hold for him, if only he should live through this difficult period. Still, even as the rebel Elijah visits with his disciples in the Popular Front he's acutely aware that events are imminent that should change everything. Valeri knows this, too, in the vague and instinctive sort of way he can, their betrayal by the elders in union only some months earlier giving him so much to think about. And Elijah's address at that little, nondescript church somewhere in the city of Birmingham has rejuvenated Valeri's passions, causing him to burn with anger at grievances past. He doesn't know whether his former mentor Mark Murray is still alive, as it's been several months since their betrayal by the elders in union, but that doesn't matter. As the rebel Elijah leaves the company of the men, he casts a long gaze out at the sky to the south, imagining all that awaits him. If Westminster is in his immediate future, then the rebel Elijah will find not deliverance from evil but a continued immersion in it, knowing as he does that his fight to free the working man from an interminable oppression can never be truly won. But there's something else on the rebel Elijah's mind, something even he can't quite articulate, something which can't be there but which weighs on him all the same. There's so much in revolutionary Britain that's changing so fast, and even the rebel Elijah himself can't help but marvel at the sheer rapidity of events, that all history could be coming to a head in the span of only a few years. For Valeri, the extremely rapid pace of change, the way the old order could've seemed to come undone in a matter of just a few years is a vindication of the sacrifice his mother and father gave when they were killed in that failed uprising that predated this revolution by more than fifteen years.

But these personal concerns which could serve to distract Valeri from the path laid out before him are present in others as well. Despite the gathering of many of the different factions here, still there's that stubborn feeling that the first act of the revolution is not yet played out. For Nick Sutton, the meeting held at the union hall is a chance to forge some kind of working order, out of a sense of civic duty Nick and a few others compelled to act. "But with the rebels in control here," says Morgan, Nick's friend on the council, "we have no choice but to obey their edicts." In this, Nick Sutton can only agree, for the time being, even as the crowd assembled in the hall roars their demand for a vote. "You may be right," says Nick, "and I'll support whoever can bring an end to the war." As Nick has his own concerns weighing on his thoughts, so does Morgan, each of them unsure where they'll see themselves in even a few days' time. They're both married, they both have children, and they both see it as their most important duty to safeguard their own families. With so many workers, churches, and even some of the universities forming their own informal governing committees, most of these committees pledging loyalty to the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front, there's little left for the old city and county governments to do but yield to the inevitable. But there's nowhere safe in revolutionary Britain. It's ironic, perhaps, that Valeri should realize the need to live through this at exactly the moment when his counterpart should realize the opposite. Although Tonya grips her rifle no tighter than before, it seem as though she could snap it in two at any moment. It's been said that in times of crisis relationships tend to progress much faster, on the likelihood that they should be torn apart by circumstances beyond their control.

And this, this place, not only the little city of Birmingham but all of Britain is become an icon for the tides of history rising across Europe and all over the world. But when the Popular Front staged its uprising in the city, it fought gun battles lasting a few weeks with the local Home Guard before the demoralised survivors among the latter threw down their weapons and fled. Already the locals had organized a governing committee, among them Nick Sutton and his friend Morgan, and for now the Popular Front is content to allow them to handle the miscellaneous tasks that fall under the rubric of day to day life. But as more and more rebels gather in the city of Birmingham, it becomes clear to the residents that the Popular Front has special designs on their hometown. Some speculate this could be the new capital, when the Popular Front declares victory in its revolution, but they who so speculate are looking ahead, forsaking the now. And still they persist in their lingering doubt, as if, in the case of many of those gathered here, there was the continued belief that the Popular Front should merely be the latest in a long line of would-be governors, that the various factions about us would give way to a permanent peace. "Then the vote is taken," says Nick Sutton, "and the decision is reached. The local council will support the Popular Front." He looks over at his friend Morgan, only briefly, long enough to catch the glimpse of uncertainty in Morgan's eye. Each man will go home tonight to families uncertain where their next meal will come from, something none of them could've imagined even twenty years ago in Britain but which all now have to grapple with. For Nick, life in post-industrial Britain was never easy, but now he must grapple with the thought of absolute helplessness against the circumstances massing around them. But if most of these urban committees now forming in factories, churches, and even universities, among other places, are loyal to the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front, a great deal of the country remains in the hands of they who would seek to oppose him. Valeri and Tonya are among those mustered into posting notices around Birmingham, advising local residents to stay in their homes, that the authority of the Popular Front has prevailed in this area. They've heard the city and county have sent messages to the Popular Front agreeing to submit to the Front's authority, but they've also heard the rebel Elijah has ordered the old city and county governments dissolved, the messages sent ignored. "Elijah has said there's no authority from the old way of life that we ought to recognize," says Sister Simpson, later that night, "because we answer to a higher calling. And Elijah answers to the same higher calling."

Although much has been accomplished in the weeks the Popular Front has occupied the city of Birmingham, Valeri is reserved against the subdued melancholy reflected in his friend Tonya's general demeanour since Roger's death. He approaches her as they put down for the night, saying, "your loss is great." They're in a room with bunk beds hastily assembled, and Tonya's already sitting on her bed. "I won't stop fighting," says Tonya. "You never should," says Valeri. "But now I have nothing left to go back to," says Tonya, "if this war ever ends then I'll be alone." But Valeri won't accept this. He sits on her bunk, and rests a hand on her back. "You're never alone," he says, "you'll always be among brothers here." Although she looks at him and offers a weak smile, Valeri can tell she's not convinced. It'll have to do, for now. In the afterwards, as they get to work, Valeri contemplates telling Tonya about his epiphany at having seen the rebel Elijah for the first time. But as they get to work, moving to take up their new position further along the highway in relief of another group, Valeri keeps quiet, the better part of him realizing Tonya must have her own epiphany if she's to make the transformation that he's made without anyone seeing it, knowing it. Now, Valeri thinks on Maria, his friend having disappeared seemingly as quickly as she'd reappeared. They'd only known each other for some months—in fact, Valeri can't remember the exact date when they'd first met, when he'd first found her on the street—it's entirely typical of men and women in this day and age to form close bonds so much faster than men and women in generations past would've. If ever they see each other again, Valeri will be a changed man, changed much more than even he's already become. But Maria seems to Valeri to still be Maria, as she'll always be Maria. Although he tries to push these thoughts from his mind he can never seem to. As Valeri and Tonya take up their positions for the night, covering a key intersection not altogether far from the city centre, the silence between them is overpowering, Valeri thinking to ask about Roger but unable to muster the courage to broach the topic. But when they hear of the British Army's victory in the war on the continent, they don't know what to think of it.

At some point in the rebel Elijah's time here, news breaks of the Provisional Government's intention to form a 'Constituent Assembly' in Westminster, as soon as all those elected in the recent election can arrive. But when a young man named Nigel sees the newly-elected assemblymen pose for the cameras, he feels neither disgust nor acceptance. Nigel lives in Blackpool, in one of the few districts still under control by the Provisional Government. A few kilometres away, the rebels lie in wait. Still unemployed, he spends this day lingering outside the front of his flat. But then the Home Guard comes around, taking him in, with a hundred or so others conscripting them at gunpoint into the Guard. Although Nigel has no employment, he doesn't want to go, and it's only when a rifle is pointed at his forehead that he agrees to go. He leaves behind a young wife, but no children. She's given no warning, no notice that he's taken, and it's only when he fails to return tonight that she'll know anything's wrong. He'll die in the short time he's in the Home Guard, and he'll die far from home. She'll live through the war, never knowing what happened to her husband. The fighting in the countryside is yet to resume in earnest, despite the sporadic bomb and gun attacks by the Popular Front, the Home Guard, and the many militias forming in various parts of the old United Kingdom. Only the rebel Elijah knows the imminent firestorm of death which must be visited not upon the cities and towns of Britain but the armies in the midst of a pitched battle on the continent. As the day ends, the rebel Elijah ventures to the top of the old county hall in Birmingham, looking out over the city, spotting in the distance columns of smoke rising from the countryside beyond, despite the lull in the fighting the fires of liberation burning brighter and hotter than ever. In truth, the rebel Elijah is most uncertain of himself as any, even as he exudes a raw confidence everywhere he goes. He looks out over the darkening sky. Briefly, Elijah contemplates calling on the dark essence to purge all Europe of the evil which lurks in the shadows, which masquerades as good bent on arresting him and his campaign. Elijah knows the dark essence, due to his personal relationship with it, would readily comply. But he can't bring himself to do it. As painful, and as bloody as the course of events is to become, Elijah knows on their necessity. The Popular Front is ready. Elijah isn't, but he'll never be, and it's because he'll never be ready that he must do it. But in this moment, the rebel Elijah is made by the dark essence to remember the foreign slaves imported from all corners of the Earth, the shuttering of so many factories, even the demolition of so many blocks. After Elijah had spoken to the crowd at that little church where Valeri and Tonya had taken in, he'd returned to his disciples, from among their varied but equally impassioned arguments a new direction emerging, the dark essence exerting its influence over Elijah's plans in ways it never has before. The way forward for the Popular Front will be published in a compendium of writings. Its title: 'On the Way Forward For Our Revolutionary Struggle and Its Components.' By the time Valeri will read it, everything will have changed again, the plans put into action against a backdrop of murder and mayhem. All the constituent parts of this compendium are already known, already published, each of the groups assembled in Birmingham having submitted their own pieces for editing to inclusion over the past years anyways. Valeri's read some of them, and has a passing familiarity with others, and remains completely ignorant of still others. But that doesn't matter now.

As the distant rattling of gunfire and the bursting of bombs sounds out through the early-evening, late-summer's warmth, all can see for themselves only uncertainty in the near-future, and with uncertainty, one's mistaken, there's only death. But events are beginning to mount that should change all our lives forever. On the very precipice, we look over the edge and into the new world that awaits us if only we should have the courage to cast ourselves off. At almost exactly the moment that Valeri and Tonya should aspire to reach their destinies, there occurs an event so horrific and so catastrophic that none could've ever seen it coming, even as we all should've. In the night, it always happens in the night, the course of the war both at home and abroad changes, and with it the course of history, forever.

25. Paradise Falling

All will remember where they are on this day when they first hear the news, when they first see the images of mushroom clouds rising over the battlefields of Eastern Europe. At the moment the Western armies achieve their long-sought breakthrough, the Russians use short-range missiles armed with tactical nuclear warheads to halt them. Over eighty-eight thousand people die when seven warheads strike the front lines, Russian, British, French, German, even Canadian troops blown into the next world. One can only imagine the flash of light and the wave of heat, the men on the front lines able to see the shockwave approaching them at nearly the speed of sound. For the rebel Elijah, this is a moment of truth, a moment of realization, a moment in which the future so long heralded is finally come. At night, overnight, a third of the stars seem to fall from the sky, turning the lakes and rivers of Europe into a bitter poison. Although the eighty-eight thousand troops killed will never be back, there's hope, still, even in the darkest moments for they who would resist the idols of men. In his headquarters somewhere in the city of Birmingham, the rebel Elijah address his disciples, at an emergency meeting saying to them, "fear not for the dead, as they have died so that others may live. Know that the ashes of the dead should lay fertile the fields so the future shall rise. And now our future is come." But there's much debate among his disciples, some arguing the best course is to form a government here, in Birmingham, while others argue for a withdrawal to Manchester and the forming of a government there. Still others argue for Liverpool, or even Sunderland. But one disciple in particular argues against the formation of a new government, that disciple given to turning against Elijah since the very beginning of their revolutionary struggle. But now, with the stakes having been raised by the nuclear fire, the rebel Elijah can foresee the world turning against him, rallying around the cause of the angel of light.

Although Elijah remains in Birmingham, already he has laid plans for his triumphant entry into London, pending the arrangement of forces in key positions around the area, waiting as he is for a final betrayal to take place before he can proceed to the next step in his campaign. While his disciples argue for every course of action but one, Elijah consults the dark essence in determining that one course as the one his disciples in the Popular Front must take. For Valeri, this turn of events, the nuclear firestorm on the continent, the meeting with his old friends, it's all been an impossible burden on his person, on his psyche, but one which he finds himself able to grow into. Today, he stands watch with the others at a defensive position just outside Birmingham, blocking the highway, stopping every vehicle for a cursory inspection. In revolutionary Britain, all roads must lead to London, and this fact is not lost on Valeri as he looks down the road, towards London and in so looking he peers into the very heart of evil. But at Valeri's side there remains Tonya, even after the sudden but not unexpected death of her lover, Roger. As Sister Simpson orders them, along with the others, into the street, neither Valeri nor Tonya broach the subject of Roger's death, either of them hardly able to focus on anything but the task in front of them. As Valeri marches, he considers the true horror facing them; at any moment, they could all be vaporized, sent into the next world by a nuclear blast. But far from terrifying him, this knowledge engenders in him a renewed confidence, his every stride forward along the road a little stronger, a little more purposeful. When he looks over at Tonya, he sees her taking the same carefully measured paces she'd always taken, her face an indecipherable, straight-jawed look. "Keep moving," says Sister Simpson, "keep moving forward, to victory!" She's urging Valeri and the others into position, their march taking them out into the countryside beyond the city. It's cold out, too cold, unseasonably cold, the cold unseasonable even in this time of a rapidly warming climate. As they take up positions, Valeri can see his breath, every deep, purposeful exhale loosing a wick of steam into the air, blending with the sky beyond. "Don't let the fear of death influence your judgement," Sister Simpson says, "you know that we'll all pass when our time is come. But until our time is come, we have to use every day to make good as we can."

And in their barracks further back in the city each of Elijah's closest disciples nods knowingly even as one among them has already begun to secretly scheme a betrayal. His name's Damian, and it's precisely because he's one of Elijah's most trusted and closest disciples that he should inevitably be chosen for betrayal. Although Damian has been working behind the scenes for many, many years, it's only with the nuclear fire consuming tens of thousands of lives on the continent that Damian has seen fit to make public his ascension to the highest throne in the land. Now, as the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front make their bid not to inhabit the halls of power but to distribute them to the people, so, too, must there rise Elijah's counterpart in Damian to take for himself what Elijah seeks to distribute to all. At a gathering of disciples, the rebel Elijah says to the others, "the time is nearing for our decisive offensive, as you know. But I caution you. Although we seek to decapitate the Provisional Government and install in its place our own rule, this act will necessarily provoke the rising of an even greater evil against us. Although we look forward to victory, we must also look forward to the inevitability of defeat." His disciples voice their agreement and reaffirm their loyalty, not to him but to the Popular Front. But among them there's dissent. Among them, there's a single voice, coming from a man given to It's almost Damian's time to rise. And Valeri keeps watch, at one hour seeing a convoy of lorries approaching. He readies his rifle, and the others under Sister Simpson follow suit. But the lorries aren't carrying enemy troops. No, as the lorry at the head of the convoy comes to a stop just metres from him, Valeri can see into the back that they carry only ordinary people, frightened families, women, children, and few men. He steps up to speak with the driver. The driver, an elderly man wearing glasses with one lens cracked, says, "please." But the old man says it with a voice hoarse and tired. Valeri steps down and turns to face Sister Simpson, who says, "we'll have to inspect them. If we don't find any weapons, they can proceed." They quickly set about the task.

Then, elsewhere in Birmingham, in the midst of a heated discussion on the Popular Front's strategy, the disciple Damian denounces Elijah. In turn, the rebel Elijah casts Damian out, all of Elijah's remaining disciples watching as Damian seems to disappear instantaneously. In the aftermath, as they finalize their plans to take Westminster, one of Elijah's disciples says to him, "he'll tell the enemy everything he knows." Another says to him, "we should've had him executed, or at least kept under armed guard to prevent him from betraying us." But the rebel Elijah looks on his disciples and says, "it was always to be the case that some should turn against us, even among our closest brothers and sisters. Let him go. His actions cannot change the course of history." Inwardly, though, Elijah understands the magnitude of what's transpired, that Damian has been secretly working for the enemy all along even if Damian himself had never realized it. But Valeri, like all the other gunmen assembled in Birmingham thinks his fate is not soon to be revealed. Their inspection of the convoy, a tedious task itself, reveals no weapons, only lorries full of frightened civilians. A brief discussion with one of the few men in the convoy reveals that they were hiding out in a church, and after the nuclear firestorm on the continent took to some abandoned lorries so they could flee London, fearing the next barrage of nuclear-tipped missiles would be targeting not soldiers on the front lines but cities across Europe. Valeri turns the man over to Sister Simpson for a full debriefing, the information on what their convoy has encountered on their trip valuable to the Popular Front. But Tonya is with him, all the way through the night, speedily checking refugees through. All the while, neither Valeri nor Tonya can help but wonder if the next nuclear barrage could be headed for them, with death to be visited upon them at any moment, without warning. It's a testament to how much they've grown into the roles of revolutionaries that they can keep about their work, screening refugees, detaining few, waving the rest through even as their own deaths could be imminent. But Valeri thinks of the last argument he and Tonya had before the nuclear fire on the continent changed everything. "If you're done talking about a blaze of glory," Tonya had said, "then keep your thoughts on the matter in front of us. None of us are any good to Elijah if we're not focused on the task at hand." She'd said this as they'd been returning from seeing Elijah speak at that little church. "It was never a blaze of glory I wanted," Valeri had said, "but to make good on myself to the war we're all fighting. Whatever I can do, however I can make myself into the greatest use. But now I'm starting to think we all might have something better in store." At that, they'd shared a knowing nod, then put to work, keeping order in the city. Valeri was right when he'd said that, but in ways he still couldn't have known, can't know now.

Off the coast, the cruiser Borealis is docked in Sunderland with the other vessels in their little flotilla when the news comes through. On the bridge, Dmitri and his brother Mason listen jointly to the radio. "What do we do now?" asks Mason. After thinking about it for a moment or two, Dmitri simply replies, "I don't know." There might've been friends of theirs, old friends from the streets of Britain drafted into service in the army, killed on the continent in a nuclear firestorm almost without parallel in human history. After all they've been through, it takes such a horrific event as this to shake their conscience to its core, creating in each of them a sudden and seemingly insurmountable doubt. For his part, Dmitri's sure they'll be killed soon anyways, expecting as he does the next nuclear exchange to be already taking place. These men have faced death many times before over the last year or so, and have lost many of their own to its clutches in that time. Now the prospect of imminent death for millions and millions seems overwhelming, overpowering the senses, rendering each and every one of them nearly catatonic. The hardness of the deck is felt beneath their feet acutely, every groove and every slight bump sensed as if it's a tsunami that must be surmounted. Death could visit them at any moment. The next nuclear barrage, they believe, is hurtling towards them at supersonic speeds, each contact in the skies a missile, a bomber, something, anything at all coming to kill them. But they've come too far to be done in by something so impersonal as a

Although the war has been raging for many years, whether on the foreign battlefields or in the streets of our own cities, now is the moment when all must reckon with the possibility they could die at any moment, without warning, without mercy to the sick, the enfeebled, the crippled, the young and the old alike. Don't stop to think about it too long; the rebels must seize this opportunity and press on towards their goal. This is the truth behind what's happened: after having fought for over a year, the forces of the western countries had achieved a strategic breakthrough, with the United States coming out of its self-imposed isolation to join the war, not only against the Chinese in the Pacific but also against the Russians in Europe. The breakthrough and the American declaration of war together formed a twin shock on the psyche of the Russian leaders, compelling them to deploy their tactical nuclear weapons against the frontlines in a bid to halt the eastward advance of the Coalition armies. It worked. In the weeks to come, the Coalition armies, among them the bulk of the British Army, throw down their weapons and agreed to a truce, so horrified as they are by the prospect of nuclear annihilation. Sporadic fighting continues, though, on other fronts, in the Balkans, in the Aegean, and across the Middle East.

But elsewhere, the nuclear exchange has inspired only a new revulsion for those who had plunged Britain into the war on the continent. It's only been seven months since Valeri, Tonya, and the others were expelled from their own homes in the old liberated zones. And now they are faced with the question of what to do with the few men they've rounded up from that convoy of refugees. They're former Home Guard troopers who'd ditched their uniforms and deserted from their posts soon after they'd first heard the news about the nuclear weapons used on the continent. "I say we shoot them," says Tonya. Although it's not the first time Valeri's heard Tonya speak since Roger's death, it's the first time he's heard her speak with any emotion, any intensity. "I say we shoot them, too," says Valeri, before quickly adding, "they'll report on our positions and strength if we let them go." But Sister Simpson asks her higher ups for instructions, and after a minute or two says she's been told to wait. At the side of the road there's an older woman, seemingly hysterical, between sobs accusing the Home Guard soldiers of killing her son in cold blood. And there are others, a small crowd gathering from among the refugees to heap accusations on the captured soldiers. Soon, Elijah himself appears, having left the counsel of his closest disciples to witness what's transpired here. He offers the men a choice. "You can choose to pledge yourselves to fight for the liberation of the people under the banner of the Popular Front," says Elijah to the captive troops, "or you can choose to die." But the Home Guard men remain unconvinced, a few seeming to murmur amongst themselves, the rest simply looking up at Elijah with a kind of muted despair behind the whites of their eyes. A deathly silence falls on the scene. "As I have told you," says Elijah, "I promise you not peace but war. I offer you not leisure but struggle. And I ask of you not blind faith but loyal service, service loyal to a cause that will put you through Hell before it can lead you to Heaven." Although Valeri doesn't know it, can't know it, the moment is yielded not to the power of Elijah's charisma but to the influence of the dark essence impressing itself upon them all, even the captured troops. "Let it be known," says Elijah, speaking not only to the prisoners but to everyone who can hear him, "whoever pledges to serve the cause of the Popular Front is forgiven of their crimes against the working class. As the cause of the Popular Front is the cause of the working class, whoever serves the Popular Front serves the liberation of the oppressed, the impoverished, the most pathetic and wretched among us. But whoever is confronted with the choice to so pledge and chooses not, all his crimes shall be held against him." All but a few agree to join the Popular Front, with those few taken to a field and executed. Valeri is among those who volunteer as executioner. He takes to the task without considering the implications; the many atrocities he's witnessed personally combined with the nuclear firestorm on the continent have pushed these considerations from his mind. Although Valeri doesn't know it, can't know it, he is witnessing the newest of Elijah's sermons, the next sermon in his forbidden ministry becoming less forbidden with each victory whether large or small.

And on the other side of the world, still the Chinese and the Americans engage in their pitched battles in the air and on the open ocean, even below the surface where no one could survive. It's in this confused and disjointed time, when even the final apparitions seem to conceal themselves beneath an infernal storm of thick, black smoke and bright, blue flame that Damian makes known his bid for power, not seeking to preserve the old order but seeking to rise a new order out of the old, in stark contrast to the rebel Elijah's goal of freeing all the oppressed peoples, first in Britain, then Europe, even across the whole world. Before even the dead have been buried and the mushroom clouds have faded into the late-summer's sky, Damian has left the country and found safe haven in the United States. There he meets with Lucius, and the two form plans. Damian will soon return to Britain, while Lucius will remain in the United States, for now. With the angel of light, they form an unholy triumvirate, to fill the world with carnage and misery unlike anyone has ever seen before. It's hard to foresee what might come from this, over ninety years it's been since the last nuclear weapons were used in anger. These instruments of destruction, unimaginable and horrifying though they may be, were made by the hand of man, and their use represents only the gravest and the greatest destructive power man could imagine. In truth, the rebel Elijah had not foreseen the use of these weapons, even as he'd been aware, all along, that the possibility could never be dismissed. As Elijah stands on the brink of realizing his destiny, he thinks forward to the next moment when all will be made to see the truth for what it is. But Elijah won't live to see it. The illness to ravage his body is still in its early stages, still using his body to incubate itself, but soon enough will come the time when it will ravage him with full force. All Elijah's life and work have led to this point, his own personal moment of reckoning inextricably linked with the fate of the nascent revolutionary movement here in Britain, across Europe, around the world. In truth, even Elijah could've never foreseen the course his life has taken, from anonymous worker, descended from a long line of prostitutes, drug users, hopeless addicts, even petty criminals and crippled beggars only to become the leader of all our futures. In fact, even Elijah has always seen the way to the future, his person marking the exact point at which the dark essence which guides the revolution has chosen to grant itself form. Even as Elijah isn't, he is. It's in reconciling these irreconcilable truths that Elijah is become the vanguard of our way to the future. Now, after a nuclear fire has been unleashed on the continent, Elijah can sense his time is finally come. Whether in the homeless camps, the pews of abandoned churches, or on the assembly lines of one of the few still-operating factories throughout Britain, the rebel Elijah realizes his next move should be to enter London. With his disciples at the highest levels of the Popular Front, he begins to form a new plan to triumphantly enter London and seize once and for all what rightly belongs to the working man: power. In all Elijah's life, he's known nothing but suffering, and he's come to believe with every fibre of his being that in suffering there lies the path through to righteousness, at least for himself and his disciples.

But as Valeri, Tonya, and the others return from that field off the motorway leading into the city of Birmingham, they encounter Elijah again, Valeri catching a glimpse of Elijah's eyes on the way in. Still swept up in the revolutionary fervour, Valeri can only imagine what the future must hold. But his performance, his growing dedication is noted by the rebel Elijah, and it's this noting that should lead to something much greater. Beyond, deeper in the city an older man named Hugh Carr looks to the banner of the Popular Front with a kind of dulled enthusiasm. His enthusiasm isn't dulled by the steady rains that've come to beat down on the city in an unseasonable late-summer storm, but by the weariness that's taken hold of his body. He's tired, too tired to muster the strength needed to feel passionate for anything. Instead, men like Hugh look to younger generations for leadership, younger generations like Valeri's which'll prove capable of taking that next, critical step forward for all. Hugh works and lives among a force who've seized a local factory, but with the news of the nuclear exchange on the continent many of his fellow workers have abandoned the factory. They've fled the city altogether, leaving only a skeleton crew to govern the factory. But there's no work to be done. Tonight, one night, Hugh meets with his love, a younger woman he'd just met. "We don't have much time," he says to her, "and I'd like to marry you while I can." She agrees, even as she's still mourning the loss of her husband only recently in the war on the continent, killed as he'd been in a battle months earlier, the news only having filtered back to her a few days before the world had changed. The head of the committee the workers had formed to govern the plant marries them. In the time Hugh and his young wife have before they're separated, they'll share a closeness and an intimacy beyond any physical bond. They receive a visit the next day from the Popular Front, whose apparatchiks come to tell of Elijah's plan through this crisis for them all.

It's not yet the beginning of the end for Elijah and his revolutionary movement, and still he instructs his disciples to be mindful on the future, with several of his closest disciples assembled he doesn't outright predict but hints at something which is still to come. He speaks not of the death of his own self but of the end, whenever the war must come to an end and give way to the next. "Fear not for what the future may hold," he says, standing at the head of a table with his innermost circle of disciples flanking him on both sides, "for it's a certainty that every day we advance into the future brings us a day closer to realizing our victory." Their next move is to advance on London and link up with the men they have slowly tightening the noose on the hated Provisional Government. And after Valeri had taken part in the execution of those Home Guard prisoners, the rebel Elijah is sufficiently impressed to ask that Sister Simpson's unit be among those at the head of the Popular Front's thrust into London. They'll have to leave soon, at dawn's first light, and it's already after dark. In late-September already summer has waned, the days growing shorter and shorter even as the swampy heat lingers through the night, each night. But already winter threatens. And in this day and age, no one has forgotten the bitterly cold winters that sweep over the British Isles every year, with the country on the verge of disintegration and civil war this coming winter sure to threaten a misery never seen before. And with winter threatening, there comes the threat of freezing death for so many. Among the homeless crowded into a column of refugees is an older woman named Sophie Hale who's seen even more difficulty and suffering than most. There're a few foreign slaves mixed in with the group of workers she's a part of, but for the colour of their skin the hardship and privation seeming to take them all down the same path. Actually, Sophie's been living with this group of workers for a few weeks, after having lost her family, one by one, over the past months. Now, she's taken in with something resembling a new family, their faces unfamiliar, their skin an array of colours and tones. But tonight, after news of the nuclear exchange breaks, Sophie turns to one of the others, a young man named Gurpreet, and says, "it's all or nothing now." He's one of the foreign slaves, once so ubiquitous across British cities but now having seemed to fade into the background. Together, along with some of the others, they group into a column of refugees streaming out of London, the panic, the fear of death by nuclear inferno having forced so many pathetic and wretched into a single mass. After Gurpreet and Sophie put down together for the night in a burnt-out shop along the road, in perfect English he says to her, "I know we`ve only known each other a short while, but I think I love you." Before they're separated, they'll have a romance that'll fit decades of love into a few days of passion. It's the way of their generation, as it'd once been the way of Valeri and his old lover Sydney Harrington. But Valeri knows his old lover Sydney could very well be dead. It's not knowing that makes him feel most helpless. But even though he doesn't know, can't know what's become of his old lover, he can choose to take solace in the not knowing. Both Gurpreet and Sophie, like Valeri, are tired and hungry, just as ordinary people like them have been tired and hungry for many, many years.

But even as their time is almost come, not one of them knows what can come next. Even Elijah must contemplate the first way forward, in this darkest moment something occurring to him that the dark essence would give him through. In his secret hideouts in the homeless camps, the picket lines, the half-crumbled apartment blocks still housing workers employed and unemployed alike, the rebel Elijah plots his next move, not some grand offensive but a skilfully orchestrated surgical attack. The rebel Elijah will make his triumphal re-entry into London and deeper into Westminster, his seizure of the halls of power and his casting out of demons from the old seat of power to change the course of all their lives forever. The dark essence which the rebel Elijah consults is made dark not by its inherent character, but by its being made to thrive in a world where the light is obscured by an impossibly boundless dark. Although the rebel Elijah must consult with the dark essence every step of the way, in truth, he knows as well as anyone that the dark essence doesn't exist, isn't real, that the higher power which all men are called to serve is incomprehensible to any man, even as it calls out to men for an embrace. In this dark moment, the rebel Elijah calls his disciples to action, their next offensive to take them right into the heart of darkness. But the nuclear fire on the continent only provokes uncertainty in everyone.

In the moments immediately after the nuclear strike, men, women, and children across Britain scramble for bomb shelters and basements, some even seeking shelter in the collapsed rubble where once there'd stood apartment blocks, others hurling themselves into ditches still filled with stagnant water, all waiting for an annihilation that should never come. But in the bowels of the streets of England's cities, we look to the future as something uncertain, even as its certainty bears down on us with all the power of an immovable object meeting an unstoppable force. As for the foreign slaves, once so ubiquitous a sight in the factories and the construction sites across Britain, one man named Bhupinder Maan sleeps tonight in an old tube station. The station's been shut down for many months, since even before the general strike began, but it provides a makeshift bomb shelter for hundreds. A good half are foreign slaves, imported some years ago but left to wither away when the factories and the mills proved unable to carry forward. Above all, Bhupinder has been cut off from his family abroad, like many of the foreign slaves in Britain the war having severed their connections to his loved ones in India. But this, this nuclear fire, it could kill him at any moment, a fact he's acutely aware of as he tries to sleep through another sleepless night in this little tube among the hundreds of others packed in. He tosses and turns all night. After the night's through and he's survived, rather than look for food he resolves to leave London altogether, setting out among a group of other foreign slaves for unknown territory to the north. "I'm waiting to die," he says, speaking with another former slave. "No matter what happens," says the other slave, a younger woman named Harpal, "we'll be with our loved ones again." Both Harpal and Bhupinder have converted to the church since arriving in Britain, he four years ago, she three and a half, forsaking their original faith for something true and pure. And in each of their families, their conversion provoked not anger but a new union, their families in India each converting to the church, following their distant example. Now, both Bhupinder and Harpal know that if this war should take either of their lives then at least they'll be taken into salvation and not into damnation.

In Valeri's life, this can only provoke a certainty that death visits upon him without hindrance or let every waking moment of his life. Still in the innards of Greater London, he and the other rebels are closer than ever to the annals of power, gradually tightening the noose around Westminster with each passing day. It's starting to occur to Valeri that these friends he has, the Tonyas and the Rogers and the O'Connells among him are all that's left of his old life, given as they've become to the passions of revolution just like him. As the closing of this tentative, early stage in our revolution comes to be, Valeri can only clean his gun and imagine it holds more power than it does. Little does Valeri know that the dozen or so parties which formed in the wake of the fall of the old United Kingdom are now each formed into a dozen more parties, from the ashes of victory rising the burning flame of defeat. Still, when he thinks on the life he used to live, that of an ordinary labourer, he thinks on the friends he used to have, the young Sergei who was taken in one of the police raids even before all this transpired. And now Sergei's dead, Valeri's sure of it, as sure as he was the day he believes he heard of Sergei's brutal murder at the hands of the policemen. It's appropriate to draw a link between the vicious killing of an ordinary worker like Sergei and the nuclear firestorm in Poland, regardless of who pulled the trigger in either case.

For the first time since the failed rising that took his mother and father, Valeri can't hear the rattling of gunfire in the distance nor feel the bursting of bombs vibrating the pavement beneath his feet. It's deeply unsettling, not to feel the sensations which've come to mark life in the streets, on the streets of Britain for so long as anyone can remember. But it doesn't have to be this way, it won't always be this way, as Valeri steels himself against the task ahead he finds a certainty in the chilling echoes of all things past lingering even through the new history they're creating with each passing day. Soon they'll find themselves on the streets outside the Palace of Westminster, then to find themselves standing on the verge of history, looking forward into infinity. But the foreign slaves are only a small part of what has become a wretched and pathetic mass of people, a mass of people so wretched and pathetic there's hardly anything to distinguish them from one another, all their colours and all their tongues seeming to blend together, the blood they spill the same crimson red, the languages they speak all seeming to become mutually intelligible but only among themselves.

It's not his place to engage in the kind of inward-looking contemplation he feels so given to, and this knowledge causes him a gnawing guilt. As if to acknowledge his guilt, Sister Simpson approaches him, privately, and says, "after what's happened, there won't be much time left for any of us to sit and think." And Valeri, he thinks to say something, anything at all, but he can manage only the tightening of his jaw and the raising of his right fist in salute, the salute he's only learned recently, the salute which should come to bound all who give it with all who receive it in a new brotherhood, derived from a new gospel, the likes of which the world has never in all its history seen, not once. At once, a ghostly apparition seems to envelope the streets in all Britain's cities and towns, like a thick fog moving in from the south and from the east. In the heat of the moment, with the winter's impending arrival signalling the last moments when all could be let to live, Valeri is among the thousands of Popular Front men positioned to strike at London, in his new uniform supplied from a storehouse nearby. It's almost his time. At a glance, he's nearly indistinguishable from all the other gunmen gathered in Birmingham, unheroic, and it's this fact that makes him the hero he's always been and that'll make him the hero he has yet to be.
III

26. Truce

Although all will remember where they were on the day when mushroom clouds rose over the of Eastern Europe, many more will remember the great tribulation that's to follow. The seven tactical nuclear weapons detonated along the front line in Poland, they're only the beginning of a new and deadlier phase in the revolution, coming at a time when already the violence had spiralled out of control. Over eighty-eight thousand people were killed, mostly combatants, but many more were afflicted with doses of radiation. No one can say when the land will be safe to inhabit again, although many guesses fill screens around the world. In the aftermath, the combatant countries agreed to an immediate armistice, even as all know the fighting will continue on some scale. Future historians will debate for some time whether the shock of a sudden nuclear attack was the real impetus behind the truce or whether it was a convenient escape hatch seized upon by the warring powers to stop fighting amongst themselves and turn their attentions inwards, on the disorder and civil strife plaguing each of them to some degree. The angel of life wants this, in the way that he does, owing his allegiance to a conspiracy of evil. But all this is lost on ordinary men like Valeri, Sister Simpson ordering him and the others into the lorries they'd recently seized from convoys of refugees, the motorway south-west out of Birmingham pointing the way through to Westminster and the heart of all Britain. "If we succeed in taking the Palace," says Sister Simpson, "then everything will change." Although Valeri doesn't understand, he nods his agreement. "I feel like my whole life has been leading up to this," says Valeri. "Mine too," says Tonya, her voice infused with a kind of determination, an edge she'd been without since losing Roger not some weeks earlier. Their bodies jostle slightly as the lorry carrying them rumbles along the motorway. "All our lives have been leading to this," says Sister Simpson, "and whatever's on the other side." Although Elijah isn't there, isn't with them in the back of that lorry, Valeri recalls the way he'd felt when their leader addressed them from the pulpit of that little church, Valeri's recollections making him feel as though Elijah is, in fact, there with them. But Valeri is only a man, and in the back of his mind thoughts continue to swirl, wondering as he does what has become of his old lover Sydney, where his friend, the former prostitute Maria has been sent, whether his old roommate Hannah is still alive. But the power of temptation offered by these thoughts seems to weaken a little with each passing day, as though the machine he's becoming, the machine he's always been is beginning to learn how to set aside these personal concerns. If this is the beginning of a new stage in his own personal growth from the ill-mannered malcontent he'd been to the hero of the revolution he's to be, then the hardship he has yet to experience will prove to be more arduous than anything he's been through until now.

For the rebel Elijah and his Popular Front, this sequence of events comes at a critical moment when his guerrillas are in need of a new opening, a new way forward. And so the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front begin preparations for a final offensive, one which should decapitate the hated Provisional Government and install in its place a new order long the fevered dream of men poor, tired, and hungry. The Popular Front's new foundational text, 'On the Way Forward For Our Revolutionary Struggle and its Components,' gives every last one of them a new constitution to rally around, even as the ideas which comprise its passages have been around for a long time. Now, with this text, the Popular Front calls for the declaration of a new People's Republic, something Elijah will do in the very near future. This is enough to make the rebel Elijah salivate, the mere thought of realizing freedom for the working men all it takes to see him through this horrendous time in the aftermath of a nuclear exchange and death on a vast scale. In the streets of London and all cities across Britain, a grim, muted certainty sets in, citizens abandoning their homes in fear of the next nuclear exchange. This presents an opportunity for both good and evil, each opportunity designed for either of them, designed not by any conscious act of men but by the flow of history towards its inexorable conclusion. The Provisional Government orders workers to remain at their jobs, even sets up Home Guard roadblocks to contain the mass exodus. Many of their troops don't obey. As for those that do, well, they're left without instructions on how to turn citizens back, events mounting, the crack of gunfire sounding out here and there as confused, afraid, poorly trained Home Guard troops open fire on crowds of refugees massed at checkpoints. When Valeri first hears this news, just after they've left Birmingham, he recalls the massacre he'd witnessed firsthand, back when the revolution consisted only of students and workers and parishioners venting their rage in the streets. It seems so quaint to Valeri, in retrospect, that the massacre of only a few dozen, maybe a hundred or so people should've provoked in him such an outrage, now, years later, so much wanton and sadistic violence having worn on him. He says to Tonya, "we'll avenge each murder a thousand times over," as they sit in the back of a lorry headed down the motorway. "And then we'll have peace," says Tonya. "I don't think so," says Valeri, reminding her that the rebel Elijah says they'll never have peace. Tonya nods. While Valeri and Tonya begin their journey home, in the Midlands the surviving two members of the old Mobius Squadron have been augmented by a dozen defectors from the Royal Air Force. The defectors brought fighter aircraft, two-seaters. Pilots Wright and Hatfield each get to fly, and each are assigned a radar operator from among the defectors to sit in the backseat. The nuclear fire and the not-truce between powers on the continent has provided them with clear skies. As Wright and Hatfield each fly their new aircraft across the British countryside, what immediately strikes Hatfield is the thick, black smoke emanating like tendrils from spots, here and there, on the ground. Suddenly, there's action. "Two o'clock," says Crawford, one of the new pilots, "high!" All pilots break formation, Wright looking up and to the right as he pulls back on the controls. He says, "everyone climb, pick a target and get above them!" Wright says, "right on your tail, captain!" It's not the Russians but some Royal Air Force fighters scrambled from an air base close to the rebel strongholds in the Midlands. As Wright closes the distance, it occurs to him the RAF unit might think they've got nuclear weapons of their own, that they're about to use them over British soil. As the range between them dials down, as they struggle to climb in the clumsy, two-seat fighter-bombers they're flying to meet the RAF's single-seat fighters, Wright gets a reading on one oncoming fighter, at almost exactly the same time the radar warning receiver in his helmet sounding off. "Captain," comes Wright's voice over the radio, "break! Break!" But Wright presses the attack home.

Now that we've come to know Elijah's past, all that's left is to explore his future, inextricably linked as it is with all our futures, and the futures of our children, and our children's children. But not yet. That time is not yet come. For now, let us embrace the totality of his person, even the parts which are not yet known to us, which can never be known to us. We are confined to looking into the past even as we look to the future, in this contradiction there lying the essence of Elijah's forbidden knowledge. In the inner environs surrounding the city of Birmingham, the skies darken from the columns of smoke rising and the fires of liberation burning anew. There's no air strike here, but there may as well have been. Still the rebel Elijah promises to his disciples the coming of a new age, at last giving them a clue as to the form his government is to take when the Popular Front should achieve its victory. But in the meanwhile, Damian continues his ascent to the annals of power, consulting not with the forces of Elijah but with his own forces, the angel of light which endows him with the power to deceive. In truth, it is a final overture between the forces of good and the forces of evil which should inevitably lead to the final downfall of this, our history's future. But elsewhere, there's action. After reconstituting with some newly-defected pilots into a single squadron, Hatfield had asked and received permission from their Popular Front attaché to keep on using the call-sign Mobius, with Hatfield's designation as Mobius One reinstated. Now, as they find themselves in a dogfight with loyalist fighters, all Hatfield can do is take any shot he gets and hope it doesn't hit one of their own. "I've got one on me!" shouts one pilot, moments before being struck by an enemy missile and blown to pieces. Another pilot shouts, "score one," as he catches one enemy fighter with a quick burst from his main guns, sending the enemy down trailing smoke. "There's too many of them," says another, "there's too—" He's cut off as first one, then a second missile strike his fighter, blowing his wings off and exploding his fuel. "Captain," comes another, this time Walter Wright, "there's too many of 'em." He pauses for a moment, then says, "we should disengage." It's something Hatfield has already considered, but rejected, knowing as he does they'll have no chance of escaping in their heavier fighters, not without help. In the seconds it takes Hatfield to make the decision, his heart thumping against his chest and his breaths coming fast and hard, he feels that familiar feeling, that shivering sensation working its way down the length of his spine. "Mobius Squadron," he says, "break off engagement and head north at high speed, Head for the terrain mask and fly as fast as you can. I'm staying put." He says to his radar operator, "keep on the rear guns," Most of Mobius Squadron obeys, but two planes—Walter Wright's one, a new pilot named Lois Taylor's the other—stay in the fight. Their respective radar operators are along for the ride. It can't end well for the pilots of Mobius Squadron. But they've got help on the way.

In this, Damian seeks a hollow accord with the powers that be, in the coming months and years the truth of his accord to become real. For now, Damian seeks to manipulate the remnants of the Provisional Governments through his ascent. To the enemies of the working man, Damian and his master Lucius are seen as peacemakers, when the working man sees them only as the liars and deceivers they've always been and will always be. For Valeri, this is his time to rise, to grow into the hero he must become. Though we all live in the same world, a world without heroes, this inescapable truth can never preclude the rising of heroes in our midst. If this seems contradictory, exclusive even, then it's only because the path we've chosen, the path we've been made to choose is a path born of contradictions, inherent contradictions, like the all-powerful creating a weight that even he can't lift, then lifting it all the same. In the sewers, no vote is held, no survey taken, nevertheless among Valeri and his brothers a consensus emerging among them. "We will attack," says Sandra Simpson, "and when we attack, this will be the decisive moment when the enemy will be destroyed." To Valeri, this might make little sense, given the enemy's overwhelming strength and their firmly entrenched positions here in London and all throughout Britain. But therein lies the genius of the rebel Elijah's designs on the immediate future. As Sandra Simpson says, "...it's precisely because we are weak that we must now attack. The enemy expects that in our moment of weakness we will avoid confrontation and will instead seek to conserve what strength we have. It's for this exact reason that we must attack with all we have. So long as we embrace this truth, we can never lose." But soon the issue which they'd tabled in the aftermath of the nuclear exchange has resurfaced, different, implicitly, the recent influence of the rebel Elijah having changed them both. "Look," says Tonya, turning to Valeri, "I don't know what would've happened if we'd stayed at Dominion Courts. But I know it doesn't matter anymore." It seems almost quaint to Valeri, the things they'd used to bicker over, in light of the threat nuclear annihilation poses to them all. "No, I think you're right," says Valeri, "we'd have only died pointlessly. Now we've got the chance to be part of something even bigger." And although Valeri doesn't understand the essence of the rebel Elijah's edicts--he can't, having yet to realize his own historical awakening, like all other working men here in Britain and around the world--still he convinces himself, honestly and earnestly, in its truth. If nothing else, he sees in the rebel Elijah's edicts a chance, his best chance at vengeance against the enemy which so cruelly took his mother and father from him in that failed uprising over fifteen years ago. The rebel Elijah has left Birmingham, following closely behind the leading elements of the Popular Front's thrust towards Westminster. As Valeri is like an avatar for the character of the working class, he's to be among the first to enter the city of Westminster itself.

Soon, it's time for them to move. But in the meanwhile, the general strike which so crippled the Provisional Government has made it difficult for anyone to press forward, the workers neither returning to work nor keeping on with their strike. In the night, the rebel Elijah takes in with the striking workers at a small city not altogether far outside the environs of Greater London. He speaks to a group who've assembled to hear him speak, already his legend having grown beyond him. "...In the future," says Elijah, "we should institute not merely a government but a way of life. In the Front, our brothers and sisters will vote for their superiors, and they for their superiors, and on until the highest levels are reached." The striking workers cheer him on, interrupting his speech to drown him out with roars of approval. But once the roars have died down to a low, throaty rumble, Elijah continues, warning them as he says, "...but our way of life will require an intermediate period, a time of great hardship, greater still than anything we've ever seen before. The whole world will conspire against our new beginning, and in the war we must wage to free the world from the evils of the wealthy man's oppression we will persist through the most arduous difficulty imaginable." At such an advanced stage in his work, the dissemination of his forbidden gospel is nearly complete, even as the rebel Elijah knows it can never be complete. In this, the difference between the rebel Elijah and his counterpart, his opposite but not his equal in Damian is made clear; where the rebel Elijah makes clear his knowledge in the noble futility of his own struggle, the anti-rebel Damian has come to a steadfast belief, an utter confidence that his ascension to the highest power in the world is assured by a twist of fate perverted and disgusting as any other. But when Damian

On board the free cruiser Borealis, a decision has been handed down that should change their course. But it's not all easy. Aboard, the mess hall fills frequently with the chatter of the men discussing the current situation, among them a few men dissenting from the group. It's screening, screaming, looking lost while steaming into the night with all the determination of a starving predator lunging after his last meal. Dmitri appears, stepping through the door to find his brothers standing at attention before he waves them down. "Don't look to me for any guarantees," he says, "because I can't guarantee your life any more than I can guarantee the coming of the rain." This is that rare moment of peace in a time of war, the crew in almost continuous action since their fateful decision to defect to the cause of the rebel Elijah and the Popular Front. "Are you afraid of the future?" asks Mason Smith, standing next to Dmitri, resting one hand on Dmitri's shoulder before giving a quick, firm squeeze. These men are brothers, bonded not by blood but by their station in life, by their mutual instinct to fight for the right to something more. "We're all united here," says one crewman, standing. "We're ready to receive our orders," says another. "We should rather die than surrender," says a third. It's a moment of solidarity, these men having overcome so much simply to be still standing together, still breathing air in and out of their lungs, still feeling hunger pangs in their stomach so intense they can hardly move. It's a rare moment, one of peace, when the deck beneath their feet only vibrates gently, for all the damage their ship has sustained still her spirit remaining resolute, stout, unconquered. In the end, the crew decide together, not by way of the committee's vote but by their overwhelming camaraderie that Crewman Emily White's proposal shouldn't even be considered, much less voted on. But all appreciate her sacrifice, along with those of many more. In the meanwhile, the general strike which so crippled the Provisional Government seems to peter out like all the rest, the rapid evacuation of Britain's cities leaving a destitute wasteland for the industrial partners to fight over like starving dogs over a last scrap of rotting, diseased meat. No more lost than won, the atmosphere is one of sadness and resignation, leaving the working man to scramble hopelessly for his own future.

After leaving the striking workers at the small city not altogether far outside the environs of Greater London, the rebel Elijah meets with another group of striking workers, these hiding in the relative safety and security offered by an old, disused meatpacking plant. "...Although our future is imminent," says Elijah, standing atop a crate in the middle of the crowd, "you have heard that it is never assured, and so it is. Although democracy of the purest kind lies in your future, in all our futures, you first must pledge your unwavering fealty to the Popular Front so that it may emerge victorious in this time. If you pledge fealty to the Popular Front now, then the Popular Front is pledged in its fealty towards you, towards all working men." The striking workers here, too, roar their approval, chanting and thrusting their clenched fists into the air. Again the rebel Elijah must pause, waiting until the cheers fade to the same low, throaty rumble, continuing to say, "...although a paradise may await us all in our futures, it may very well turn out to be that no one in this room, not even I should live to see it. I challenge you all to not only accept this tentative period when the iron fist must take the place of the ballot cast but to embrace it wholeheartedly. Even as we reach out for our objective, know that our enemies are massing for their own goal, and all among us will be required to subordinate themselves to the struggle for freedom." But even as Elijah calls on his followers so, his followers in spirit as well as in fact only embrace him. Those who are given to the struggle of the Popular Front will necessarily embrace it, just as those who are given to fighting against will necessarily turn away.

In the street just above the sewers, there's an old banner of the Worker's Party, one of the two that joined to form the Popular Front now on the cusp of seizing its own destiny. When Valeri thinks on the possible encounters they've had, all the chances they've missed having at the enemy by only the slimmest of margins, he feels not lucky to be alive, still, but reassured, close as he is to realizing the truth of the working man's struggle to be master of their own destiny. "You there," says a man, "what are you doing here?" But Valeri doesn't answer, instead snapping his head back, clutching at the rifle given to him. The mass killings, the lynchings and the reprisals have stopped, the nuclear fire on the continent having settled an uneasy, eerie calm into the streets like a thick fog. To Valeri, though, most unsettling of all is the silence, the way the silence seems to invade the streets. Although you can't see them, throngs of people flood outwards along the motorways, braving the battles that break out between the Popular Front's gunmen and the Home Guard's troops along every major route. It's something Valeri thinks on as the lost causes of the city are left to inherit the empty neighbourhoods, while they prepare for a final assault still his thoughts filling with images of his loved ones lost. Under fire, Valeri huddles in the alcove of an empty storefront, leaning out, looking, checking, shouldering his rifle, clutching its grip before squeezing the trigger. He fires rounds aimlessly, shooting at nothing in particular, the crack of gunfire deafening amid the din. But the enemy shoots back. Valeri ducks back behind cover, clutching his rifle tight against his chest, waiting for the gunfire to stop before looking out again. "Kill them all!" shouts Valeri, feeling his heart throb against his chest as every part of his body surges with adrenaline. He turns into the wind and shoots at the enemy, the two enemy troopers falling back behind cover, the raw, primal instincts seizing control of Valeri imagining the enemy dying. At his side, Tonya raises her rifle and fires one, two, three bursts, between the two of them no bullets finding the Home Guard's troopers but deafening the scene. But Valeri fights at the head of the new rebel offensive, clearing the way for Elijah to advance on Westminster. It doesn't matter to either of them that their attack, their relentless attack takes place even though they're heavily outnumbered. No, as they overcome this position, they come to embody the rebel Elijah's edicts, his wisdom finding weakness in strength and strength in weakness.

After leaving the striking workers at the second small city not altogether far outside the environs of Greater London, the rebel Elijah meets with a third group of striking workers, these occupying the innards of an old warehouse, mere hours after the Popular Front has expelled the Home Guard from the area. "...And you must use this time to organize yourselves," says Elijah, standing atop a pile of old, wooden pallets, "...in ways you have never before organized yourselves. In the very near future, it should prove critical that you form your own governance; you should not rely on anyone but yourselves. Although you pledge fealty to the cause of the Popular Front, the Popular Front derives its character from you. In forming your committees, you must realize this fundamental truth, or else all you have fought and died to gain will become lost." Still the cheers from the crowd surge to a booming roar, the whole mass of humanity seeming to give themselves over to him anew with every clenched fist he thrusts into the air to punctuate his every point. But at this moment the dark essence withholds itself, allowing the rebel Elijah a moment of peace. This is the last group of striking workers whose sermon we should see, even as the rebel Elijah should carry on spreading his forbidden gospel to the assemblies already springing up all around the country, across Europe, even on the other side of the world. As the rebel Elijah is everywhere at once, still he is here.

"But I tell you this," says Elijah, "you must never come to worship me, for I am no King. I am but a man, and history is not led by men. No, history is led by all of you, by your struggle, by your ever-ongoing fight to overcome they who would seek to deny you the freedom, the dignity, the righteousness that you deserve." And still the crowd cheers, roaring their collective approval, the whole teeming mass of them seized by a fervent passion for the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front. "And I tell you this," says Elijah, "no one, not even I, can promise you peace. As you have always been at war, so shall you always be. All that I ask is that you commit yourselves to the war wholeheartedly, knowing as you do that your commitment is to your brothers and sisters, not to those who would seek to oppress you." And still the crowd roars, its approval deafening, its enthusiasm magnifying with each pause, with every flowing note in Elijah's speech. Although already the decisive moment is had, in Birmingham with the agreement of so many dissident factions to follow the banner of Elijah and the Popular Front, still Elijah himself can only unite the peoples in furtherance of this goal. "As you pledge, know this," says Elijah, "you pledge not to serve me, nor the Popular Front, even as you willingly subordinate yourselves to its aims. No, you pledge yourselves to the example of the most pathetic and wretched among you, they who the rich man would spit on, would consign to a life of terror and poverty on the streets of the cities of yesteryear. As it is written, the first shall be last, and the last shall be first." Although Elijah's speech must end, it's as though the crowd, here, could hear him for so long as they could live. But they, truth be told, are in the minority; the great bulk of the ordinary men and women around the world are in the midst of a great deception, to be turned against Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front as the revolution here in Britain and around the world is to soon enter a new phase, bloodier and more frighteningly violent than anything we've seen. The banner behind Elijah reads, 'NO SURRENDER,' the old motto gaining new meaning as the Popular Front nears the moment of realizing its campaign victorious. But as Elijah has come to tell his followers, the realization of this campaign as victorious can only precipitate a struggle longer and more arduous than that which is nearing its end. Still, off the coast the free cruiser Borealis steams as fast as her damaged, worn-out engines will go. Shells fall in the water all around, scattered artillery fire raising columns of white mist even as the ship steams full bore into the lion's den. On the bridge, Dmitri holds firm, saying to the conn, "maintain course and speed," then turns to the gunner and says, "hold fire." At the radio operator he says, "where are those fighters?" But the operator shakes his head, reporting no friendly contacts. They'd been promised air cover by newly-defected pilots, but they're not here yet. With the cruiser's long range radar inoperative, as well as that of the frigate Nix, they can't see very far. "New aerial contacts," says the operator, "coming from the east at five thousand metres, coming in fast." "They could have nuclear weapons," says Mason, voicing everyone's fears, even Dmitri's. "Fire the last of our anti-aircraft missiles," says Dmitri, "target the bombers coming from the East." And as the crew of the free cruiser Borealis lead a formation of vessels newly pledged to the banner of Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front, all Dmitri can know is the vague intuition gnawing at the back of his mind, telling him the worst is yet to come. It's an instinct which all working men have, and which is an instinct given to them by the dark essence. As war for liberation of the impoverished and the oppressed rages, so rages the war for the spirit of those very impoverished and oppressed, the outcome inevitable but never assured.

An exchange of fire ensues, three men falling dead, their bodies soon lying crumpled on the pavement. "Forward!" shouts Valeri, turning briefly to look back. "Forward!" shouts Tonya, at his side. Most of the Home Guard troops throw down their weapons and flee, with the few left behind soon surrendering only to be conscripted at gunpoint into the Popular Front. Although Elijah is not here, now, Valeri speaks with all the passion he can summon, inspired by Elijah's example, never able to match the rebel leader's intensity but able to make good on the effort. "Do right by yourselves and choose to follow the banner of Elijah and the Popular Front," says Valeri, feeling as though he's surrendered control of his own self, asking the dark essence to speak through him. "Fight for the liberation of the oppressed and the impoverished," says Valeri, "or carry on whatever fight you wish in the next world." It's like a scene from the apocalypse; loose scraps of paper flutter in the autumn's wind across every street, while burnt-out wrecks of lorries and cars sit along the sides of the country's roads, wherever they happened to be abandoned in the confusion of war. Still there's the sound of gunfire rattling and of bombs bursting in the distance, the fires of liberation burning even through this dark, dark period, through this period darker than the darkest polar winter's night. All agree to join the Popular Front. They carry their old weapons and ammunition, marching alongside the rebel column as it makes its way towards London. Meanwhile, Elijah is hard at work. Once he's finished speaking, he settles in for the night, closer to Westminster than ever before. Although he can't yet see the Palace of Westminster, he can imagine its splendour, its majesty surrounding him as it has surrounded kings and ministers for so many years. And the thought of standing in the palace's halls, on the floors of the Houses of Commons and Lords doesn't excite but disgusts Elijah, the hated House standing, still, as a monument to so much decadence and debauchery. Although the rebel Elijah's closest disciples are asleep, still Elijah predicts his betrayal, for the first time coming to a sudden realization that in his immediate future there should lie something not altogether unlike the stories we've been telling each other for thousands of years. It's Damian, as it's always been Damian, Elijah knows, and Elijah is in a race against time to destroy the government in Westminster before Damian can return to claim it for himself.

At sea, the Borealis is in a pitched battle, this makeshift rebel fleet under attack from a mix of loyalist and Russian naval and air forces. Although a truce has been declared, sporadic fighting continues in places. A missile launches, flying off the rails and leaving a trail of white smoke as it rockets into the sky. A burst of light on the horizon signals the fight, somewhere, beginning anew, a bomber crashing into the sea and taking the men aboard with it. On the bridge of the Borealis, the radar operator says, "it's a hit!" Still Dmitri looks into the pages of memory for a view to the future, recalling the last time he saw his now-dead wife and child, the last time he heard the sounds of their voices. But it's a fraud. "Enemy bombers changing course!" shouts the operator. "New bearing?" asks Dmitri. "Coming right for us," says the operator. And Dmitri looks out to sea, his ship at the head of the formation, many of the vessels in their ad hoc fleet unarmed, many others without armaments to engage their attackers. "New contacts!" says the operator. "Identify!" says Dmitri. "Friendly," says the operator, "fighters coming from the coast. They identify themselves as rebels!" The operator flips a switch, and the bridge speakers crackle to life. "...We have killed our base commander and seized control," comes the voice of one of the fighter pilots, "we will attack the enemy aircraft." And so it is, with the friendly fighters shooting down the bombers, losing a few of their own but downing many more enemies. But the fighter pilots warn not all among what used to be His Majesty's Royal Air Force are in with the rebels; already the lines are being drawn for the war still to come. For Dmitri, the knowledge his wife and child will be waiting for them in the next world is some small assurance. As their fleet moves down the coast it's an assurance enough to compel him forward, not only to avenge their deaths but to avert the deaths of the wives and children of men a million times over, across England and around the world. But then, new orders come through: the Borealis is to head up the Thames, right through to the city of Westminster itself, without the company of the other ships in this little navy. But as Dmitri learns of the reason for this order, of the rebel Elijah's intentions for him and his crew, he begins to feel the warmth of a new confidence spreading in him, soon the moment of their victory to be at hand.

It almost recalls the time he'd spent at the union hall in that anonymous little city in England's north, debating passionately with the union's grizzled veterans and novice youths. In the streets, Valeri and the others draw nearer into the city of Westminster, precisely following the plan laid out for them by Elijah. "Don't stop until you've killed them all!" shouts Valeri, urging his fellow gunmen on as he fires at the Home Guard troopers, on sensing a pause in the enemy's fire an inspiration seizing him to rush forward. He leaps over the car they're hiding behind, one of them raising his gun only for Valeri to knock him down with one swing from the butt of his rifle, then pounces on the other. Valeri struggles with the trooper, both of them clutching at Valeri's rifle, Valeri losing his grip for a moment, only a moment, receiving a blow to his jaw, toppling over. There's the sound of gunfire cracking, and for a moment the basic, primal part of Valeri thinks he's been shot. But it isn't so. Tonya's shot the trooper dead. She offers a hand, Valeri taking it, she pulling him back to his feet. The two rebels, united since their time as ordinary people who'd seized their homes, share a grip firm in its certainty, even as death surrounds them. "You keep moving," says Tonya, "I'll keep shooting." The true meaning of her words is well-understood to Valeri. "And never look back," says Valeri. "Except to remember the dead," says Tonya. "To venerate them and to learn from them," says Valeri. "Agreed," says Tonya. This exchange is had not in one place, but over a period of days, as they fight their way back towards London their exchange taking place in the little moments between bursts of gunfire, between the shaking of the ground from the explosions all around. But while Valeri and Tonya fight in the Popular Front's advance, there're others who work to prepare for his arrival, whether they realize it or not. In Watford, on the outskirts of Greater London, a young man named George Saunders works on a factory's floor, his factory assembling radios for use in army vehicles. It's completely improbably that this factory should remain open and operational despite the breakdown of the Provisional Government's authority and the chaos that's ensued, but still George works at his station, fastening radio sets together. Near the end of his shift, today, the lights seem to flicker, then shut off for a few moments, the weaker emergency lights then switching on. The workers all stop working, with George pausing for a moment before making his way through the factory's darkened interior to the nearest exit. Soon, the workers are all outside, mustering at one end of the parking lot, the managers eyeing each of them suspiciously, a few armed guards carrying weapons conspicuously. The power's been switching off and on for the last several months, sometimes going off for days at a time. As they wait in the unseasonable cold, George asks another worker, "how long until the rebels get here?" The other worker says, "could be any day now." Still a third worker says, "we could all be dead at any moment." And this, this last point resonates with something in George's heart, the man drawing on a reserve of courage to step out of line. He walks away from the muster station. The guards and the managers shout at him, but he can't hear them for the thumping of his heart against his chest.

As Valeri has come to realize the true nature of all that he has done, his sin comes not to revolt him but to inspire him, as we are all marked as sinners his fight coming to be against they who would condemn him. In this, we see the true character of the Popular Front and its struggle; where the wealthy men and their apparatchiks in government seek to punish men like Valeri for their sin, the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front seek to absolve them, not to deny the existence of their sin but to purge them of it. As Valeri, Tonya, and the others under Sister Simpson's leadership put this latest battle behind them, they know the redemption that awaits them all is as near as the next battle, the next leap towards London and the heart of darkness they're soon to take. Over time, a pattern emerges. The winds strengthen, then weaken, slurring their words, seeming to be everywhere at once even as they're nowhere at all. In the months since the old United Kingdom was overthrown, the Provisional Government has become hated by all; it was never not hated. And now we must grapple with the dishevelled masses, the fracturing tensions within the fabric of their being, a hundred different factions having seemingly emerged over the course of the campaign waged by the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front. Although our war has already come to have the character of something beyond simple revolt, now it must completely degenerate into a deeply confusing and chaotic civil war. In the aftermath of their latest engagement, the men among Valeri's unit put down for the night, closer to their objective than ever. All the troops they've impressed into their service at gunpoint are among them, freely, seeming to have taken to their new allegiance with an enthusiasm unexpected but not unwelcome. "You seem a changed woman," says Valeri, speaking with Tonya as they eat. Meanwhile, in Croydon, south of London, a young woman named Constance Bowen keeps on working in the printing factory where she's been working for months. She and the others have been printing propaganda material for the Provisional Government and the war effort, with a several-months backlog left to print. The bosses order them to keep on working, even though the books and papers they're printing have nowhere left to be sent. But when the power fails, here as it's failing in cities and towns across Britain, Constance and the others walk away from their machines, heading for the exits, only to find the exits sealed. A panic begins to spread. The workers murmur in the dark. They can't know it, but management has had the exits sealed to prevent workers from abandoning their work as part of a general strike. At the line, Constance looks out a window, through the bars on the outside and into the grey sky. She says, "they're keeping us in here like rats," speaking with a small group of others. "Rats aren't forced to work," says another. Constance nods. After they hear the sound of boots thumping across the floor, Constance and the others come up with a plan. As the guards shoot into the air above them, Constance and the others use their tools to smash the windows and push the bars off their fastenings, escaping into the city, fleeing gunfire all the way across the street.

But Valeri, Tonya, and the others under Sister Simpson don't eat for free. Their food has been appropriated from a local storehouse, consisting of old tins of meat and beans. The managers of the storehouse had been among those hoarding food, keeping their stock even as it'd begun to go rotten and while people were dying from starvation in the streets. "I am changed," says Tonya, "we're all changed, aren't we?" Valeri stops, thinking for only a moment, then chooses not to answer the question, rhetorical as it might be. Even in the relative calm of the autumn's night they can still hear the bursting of bombs and the rattling of gunfire in the distance, as they've drawn closer and closer to London these sounds seeming to grow louder and more frequent with each passing night. In truth, London is the scene of great anarchy, since the expulsion of the people from the liberated zones at the end of the urban uprising all order having given way. Except for the Provisional Government ensconced in the City of Westminster, no one can know who controls a vast bulk of the area. It's not yet time. Although Elijah can sense the dark essence flowing through his body, pulsating through his veins with every beat of his heart, it's not enough for him simply to sense it. Elijah's moved in closer to the city of Westminster, but still he counts his home among the most wretched and pathetic of the working men, here in Britain and around the world. Elijah will never forget where he came from. He can never forget, incapable as he is of losing sight of his true nature. It's a confusing, disjointed mess, and as Elijah receives the dark essence anew each and every day, he can only guide his disciples through this prior time. Forever he shall embrace the most wretched and pathetic among the working men of the world, even they who have been so eviscerated and emasculated by the evils of unemployment; yet, Elijah still seeks his own atonement for having doubted his path, for having been given to the insecurity and weakness of faith, if only for the briefest of moments, if only for that fraction of a second between one era and the next. As for Valeri, he feels the pain from his wounds easing with each passing day. Although he hasn't seen Elijah since leaving Birmingham and beginning the quest to Westminster, it seems as though the rebel leader is with him everywhere he goes. Still in that early, tentative, in-between time, when Valeri's loyalty to the Popular Front has yet to be truly tested, all that he needs is that memory to keep him going. As they put down for the night, again, Valeri consciously works to recall his meeting Elijah in that old church, as he visualizes the rebel leader at the pulpit his pain seeming to fade, again, only a little, just enough to be felt. Acutely, he's relieved, in spirit if not in the flesh. Tonya's asleep. It's almost time.

As the summer has given way to fall, in the south of England the rains have pattered a steady, constant beat. Winter threatens, but has yet to set itself on the country. In the streets, craters left by bombs bursting fill with murky, brackish rainwater. You'd have to go many years back to find a time when there wasn't the bursting of bombs and the rattling of gunfire in the streets, to a time when the wealthy man saw no serious challenge to his rule. But even then there was resistance aplenty. In the city of Swindon, an older man named Vincent Shelton lives and works away from the Popular Front's advance, but in the thick of the disorder gripping all Britain. Vincent works at a car manufacturing plant, the plant previously assembling civilian cars but now having been long retooled to produce lorries for the army. Today, as the rebels advance on London, Vincent and the others here at the Swindon plant keep on working, the lights here flickering but never going dark. Vincent's heard of the lynchings, of the wealthy men dragged into the streets, but he's also heard of the pogrom against Jews in one part of the country. As he works, fastening panels to the sides of the lorries' frames, he thinks whether they'll ever see the violence spread to Swindon, as he's been thinking for many months. After he finishes fastening the last panel for the day onto a lorry's frame, he makes for the exits, with the other workers heading for home after a tenth straight twelve hour day. But just as he reaches the door, he feels the tell-tale vibrations of the screen in his back pocket. It's a message from his wife. He hurries home. "Who are these people?" he asks his wife, the question rhetorical. "It's not the rebels," says his wife, "they're not in this area." These are men belonging to a local militia, and their leader has announced their authority over the area, superseding the hapless Provisional Government. All over England, this same scene plays out, in cities and towns outside the Popular Front's control a miscellaneous assortment of officials and paramilitary leaders, the latter including deserted Home Guard troops, asserting their own control, in the span of a few weeks the whole country seeming to secede from daily life.

The country's so far removed from the angst and the despair of unemployment and poverty which'd so governed the lives of working men only some years earlier, so far removed still from the age before that failed uprising that claimed Valeri's mother and father, from that age when it seemed the wealthy man's greed would never be challenged, his authority never subverted. Yet, there's a strange and effusive energy flowing through the streets of Britain's cities and towns, as though the shops and the factory floors are still abuzz with activity, the working man forever committed to the noble pursuit of his work in the weeks that've passed since Elijah's advance towards Westminster began. But that's a fraud, too, the seemingly irreconcilable need to relieve poverty and to embrace the hardship of struggle coming together in the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front. And so Elijah declares to his disciples, saying, "but our revolution does not, must not recognize any powers in the world, for all powers that exist derive their authority from the oppression of the meek and the impoverishment of the earnest. As we must deliver all the oppressed and impoverished peoples of the world from the evil which has ruled over them for so long, we must brook no interference, no compromise." As the rebel Elijah speaks, he says, "for in the war between good and evil, any concession, any compromise with evil is a fraud." Despite his relentless advance, the rebel Elijah conceals from even his closest disciples an illness that has begun ravaging his body, an illness which should, in time, defy the efforts of all Britain's doctors and scientists who would seek to treat him.

After his mother and father were killed in that failed uprising fifteen years before this one, Valeri was only an adolescent, still unable and unwilling to confront the harsh truths imposed on him by circumstance. As a youth, he'd wandered from job to job, working as a night watchman, as a clerk at shops large and small, even as a salesman who never sold very much. In the night, one night, it seems to him that this future could've only been meant for him, even as he realizes the truth, that the winding, roundabout path that's brought him here was a set of circumstances hardly unique. Although Valeri and Tonya have reconciled their differences, it seems to him, on this night, that she's grown distant again, not retreating into a depressive stupor but seeking to be alone again, at least until the next battle they must fight together. It's not yet time for her to meet her destiny, even as Valeri fully believes he's met his own. Across the country, in the city of Darlington a young woman named Christine Sinclair works off and on at a plant fashioning machine tools for factories in nearby Middlesbrough. She works just often enough to keep her family, herself and her two young daughters alive on a near-starvation diet. Life's always been hard for women like Christine, before the war started chronic unemployment leaving many families hopelessly poor and prone to domestic violence. Christine herself had fled the father of her daughters not long before the war had started, taking her daughters, never hearing from the man again. Today, one day, as she finishes a shift at the plant, she doesn't know when her next shift will be, and she thinks how she's going to feed her daughters in the meanwhile. She walks home, on her way seeing an army lorry in the street. She doesn't think much of it, as lorries have become a common sight even in the smaller cities like this one. But after making it home, she sees on her screen Home Guard troops flanking the Borough Executive, an older man who declares the Provisional Government defunct in his city. He then pledges the city to follow the banner of the royalists. "What does this mean, mum?" asks one of Christine's young daughters. "I don't know," says Christine. Before the day's out, the new authority will begin sending the Home Guard out to round up troublemakers, Christine hiding her children in the basement as she faces down the troops who come to her door.

It's always been time. The rebel Elijah directs his disciples in the Popular Front to attack across the country, seeming to gamble the last of his strength on a renewed offensive. In the wake of the nuclear barrage and the resulting truce between countries, a listless and confused atmosphere has set in across Britain, Europe, even all the world pausing to consider the full implications of what's happened on the continent. Although Valeri has not yet met the rebel Elijah, it seems as though they've been in league since even before Valeri was born. For how the steel was tempered has been a long and complicated process, winding its way through the pages of all our histories for so long as there's been history to be written. When Valeri's mother and father took up with the millions of workers in the uprising fifteen years before this one began, they knew only vaguely of the rebel Elijah's forbidden gospel. They'd heard of the simmering unrest in the post-industrial wastelands of Northern England, and they'd heard of a mysterious figure who'd amassed a small cadre of followers, but beyond that they knew nothing. Still they'd joined in the uprising, needing only that flimsy of pretenses to cast their lot with the rebels, even though the rebels were at that time only a bunch of malcontents throwing stones and hurling their voices at an impossible, unassailable strength. In the aftermath, Valeri was an angry, angry man, without passion but with an excess of rage. And as he was so young, he was at that age when passion and rage seem hardly distinguishable. If not for his old mentor, Mark Murray, he might've been killed in this time, not by the bullet of an enemy, but in some act of petty criminality, in crossing the street for a crumb of bread. It's not to be this way much longer. The weakness of the revolution, in its depleted forces and its weak armaments, it's come to earn the support of the working class, a vast and spiritual strength emerging from its weakness. The Provisional Government, merely the final manifestation in a long line of repressive and exploitative regimes, is corrupt, its innards rotten like decaying flesh, in its overwhelming numerical strength this corruption emerging into weakness.

Soon, dawn has come. Belatedly, the King and most of the Royal Family flees. Finally realizing there's no hope left for the old regime, they look abroad, heading for Liverpool where one of the few still-loyal ships in the Navy will take them aboard and transport them to safe haven in Canada. They won't make it far; their folly in waiting until now to flee lies in their arrogance, their presumption that the old way of things must persist through hell and high water, that their bloodline which has survived wars through the centuries must necessarily survive this war too. As unthinkable as it might be, they can never accept that their time is come to an end. The King has expended his considerable political capital in trying to engineer a return to glory for a way of life long dead. Now, he must face his own personal reckoning, the death of a symbol to be symbolic in its own right.

27. Diapason

Outside London, far outside the city's expansive environs the countryside is already on the edge of hell. Bombs burst at random, most of the time killing no one, occasionally killing ordinary citizens, even more occasionally killing men at arms. But the burgeoning revolution is here, too, among the rebel Elijah's troops a young once-private in the old British Army named Craig Thompson sleeps in ditches during the day and slogs through the mud at night, clutching his rifle all the while. The artillery regiment he once served in has fallen apart, its artillery pieces abandoned in place long ago during some hectic retreat. Most of the old men he'd served with are dead or missing, some of the missing having taken up with other units defected to the banner of Elijah and the Popular Front. Most of Thompson's family are dead or have fled their homes for the countryside, thinking it safe from the threat of nuclear fire, only to find a deeper hell in the relentless violence gripping rural areas. But Thompson doesn't worry for them, knowing as he does there'd be nothing he could do for them anyways. Instead, he fights relentlessly, marching wherever he's ordered by the Popular Front, having learned like so many other working class men to be like a machine, each smooth, rhythmic contraction of his muscles advancing his brothers in the Popular Front closer to victory. Since defecting all those months ago, they've lost more than half their number, all to enemy fire or accidents, none to defections. Despite the hardship, Thompson's proud of the latter fact. But replenishing the ranks of Thompson's regiment is a motley assortment of men, some troopers still in their uniforms when they turn up, others in civilian clothes, ragged shirts, threadbare jeans, some shoes without socks, others socks without shoes. Still the attack is on, the events of the past several months all having been leading to this point. Though Thompson may recall his time as a young private in the old British Army, there's little of his life remaining, his family all dead or lost in the chaos of war. In just months, he's become like an old man to the teenagers and the students and the young, formerly unemployed layabouts, the sons of daughters having cast themselves into the future's mould. But as Thompson looks through his binoculars at the Home Guard base down the hill, he knows the changed man he's become is up to the task.

In the period before the nuclear exchange, they'd heard of some of the riots that'd emerged from the general strike, and in turn of the pogrom against Jews that'd emerged from the riots in part of Greater London. The rumours they'd heard were distressing, but they couldn't confirm them, the only real evidence the scenes broadcast on the screens of a synagogue burning and people fleeing in the streets. But they know it's true. They know because the dark essence has chosen to inform them, among others, by creating in the backs of their minds the intuition that it must be true. Although well outside London, they're moving closer. Before they enter London and put a stop to the pogrom, it'll have escalated, the sectarians and the gangs having taken advantage of the nuclear fire's shocking the Provisional Government into inaction. "Is it as Elijah foretold?" asks his fellow guerrilla, a young Jewish man named Jonah Cohen, alongside him peering through the distance. "It is," says Thompson, "we've caught them by complete surprise." Cohen is one of the Jews in the Popular Front, its ranks swelled by the recent pogrom against them, Cohen formerly in the British Army but now defected to the cause of the rebel Elijah. This is all part of the rebel Elijah's grand plan, with each attack calculated to induce harm. But this is different. Edging down the hill towards the base, they know the rebel's time of victory is at hand. But it's not to be. Theirs is only one of many attacks to be carried out on this night, a new offensive planned by the rebel Elijah and his closest disciples in the Popular Front. It's a few days, a week or two at most from the downfall of the hated Provisional Government, and in the time the Provisional Government has left still the one known as Damian sees himself as having much work left to be done.

Although we haven't yet learned much about Damian, it's clear his ends are working behind the scenes, in league with a vast conspiracy of people, millions around the world pledging fealty to the cause of Lucius and his underling in Damian. If Damian is building alliances here in Britain with an eye towards undermining the Provisional Government from within, then there must be another, far away, marshalling the forces of the world against the nascent worker's state which must shortly come to be when the rebel Elijah makes his entry into London. It's not yet time for the final element in this nefarious conspiracy to make itself known; while Damian meets with agents of the Provisional Government, among them Colonel Douglas Schlager and Executive Nathan Williams, half a world away there works a power which Damian is in league with and loyal to. In time, we'll all come to see their fraud for what it is. As Thompson and Cohen prepare their attack, in cities across Britain the deafening silence continues to settle. In Nottingham, the scene of much fighting, a man named Abraham Schneider remains with the striking workers, fighting a pitched battle with some Home Guard troops. But these troops have abandoned their unit and taken in with one of the sectarian militia running amok through contested parts of the country. Abraham mans a barricade across the middle of a street in one of the working class districts, he and the other residents having turned their blocks into a fortress, inspired by the example of men like Valeri so many months ago. On the line when a new attack comes, Abraham narrowly avoids a gunshot, the first bullet whizzing by his ear. Two of his neighbours aren't so lucky, both felled by the hail of gunfire. But Abraham and the others don't give in, what few firearms they have soon passed to the area of their barricades under attack, Abraham receiving a pistol, shooting wildly down the way. "I didn't last this long to be done in by some gangs," he says, speaking with a young woman at his side. "I didn't either," says the woman. They've both got family in the blocks behind them. They've both heard of the pogroms against Jews, and the reprisals against striking workers. After fending off these attackers, Abraham and the others know they've bought their loved ones some time, any time at all, Abraham hopes enough time to see them all through this new and chaotic phase of the burgeoning revolution.

But the Provisional Government must act out its charade, even as all can now see it for what it has always been. As Colonel Douglas Schlager looks over the end of the beginning, he considers his regime a shambles, a pale imitation of what he thought it could've been. At an Army base outside Bristol, he enters the enemy coordinates into a computer, which then plots out the current situation. Almost all England is coloured red. Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland are coloured tan. Pockets of England are coloured green, representing areas, mostly confined to the urban cores, under the Provisional Government's control. "But we don't have the means to transport our own troops back home," says Schlager, "they're stuck in Poland." Colonel Brown says, "there's no Polish government anymore either. And the Germans and French can't guarantee our troops safe passage through their territory, as they've got rebels of their own to sort out." It seems an insurmountable problem, one which should consume these men, among others, in the coming years, even as they poke and prod at markers on the map the table, the ground beneath their feet quivering slightly in perfect time with the crashing of mortar rounds and the bursting of bombs outside. Even to men like Schlager and Brown these noises and these sensations have become like the tumbling of the ocean lazily against the rocky shores. All pain, all pain is one, in a gentle slope down the street, muddy tracks filling over with water, only occasionally freezing through the winter months before thawing weeks later. It's now early October, with the summer's heat lingering, but the prospect of another brutally cold winter threatening. Suddenly, a burst of gunfire, this much closer, too close. Schlager and Brown both rush outside, pistols in hand, and find themselves pinned up against a rebel attack, scattering men and blood. It's a confused moment, one which can only mean death is at hand. Men fall to the ground, clutching wounds. Some die before they hit the dirt. Before he can gather himself, Colonel Schlager looks to the newly emerging apparatus, newly emerging to him but having been in place, in one form or another, for some time.

But while the Provisional Government in Westminster lurches towards its inevitable end, half a world away at the headquarters of the so-called United Nations in New York a mysterious figure by the name of Lucius skilfully manipulating the remnants of the world's leaders into following his leadership. In league with the anti-rebel Damian, this Lucius is but a dishevelled and pathetic creature, hideous and deformed, with his face covered in sores and coloured an inhuman grey. Still he seems to have an almost hypnotic power on the diplomats and leaders of men with whom he meets, the dignitaries and the businessmen of the world seeing him as handsome and strong. It's a sign of our times that so ruthless a man could be seen, honestly and truly, as charitable. "I promise you strength and peace and security," says Lucius, "and in return all I ask is your obedience and your faith in me." As we've seen, as this Lucius character's receipt of rapturous applause at the so-called United Nations proves, this is only the beginning, with all that's happened until now merely the prelude to a larger struggle, to be fought on a truly global scale. Far from the United Nations assembling in New York, there's a city in the north of England called Carlisle, just south of the border with Scotland. In Carlisle, a young man named Cameron Connor still serves in the old Labour Brigades, the Brigades in this part of the country having been taken over by the local authority after it'd broken from the hated Provisional Government. Cameron works at a plant producing biscuits and other foodstuffs, working the same twelve hour shifts he's been working for months, receiving a slave's wages, much of what's been earmarked for production here being instead diverted to fill the coffers of some local businessmen. Just ten miles away sits the border with Scotland, on the other side Scottish nationalists having taken their own stand. He works, today, his stomach empty, his every muscle tired and sore. His family, all scattered across much of England, haven't seen him in years, his mother and father gone, his only sister in Southampton working at the docks. After his shift, he walks home alongside a young woman, she having started working at the plant only recently. They get to talking. "I don't have anywhere else to go," says Cameron, speaking with another worker, a young woman. "Me neither," says the young woman, "so maybe we should stick together." They leave for the apartments commandeered as housing for the Labour Brigades, and they find a room in a flat for them both. Most of the people living in these apartments have just taken in without asking permission, the local authority letting it be. Tonight, Cameron and his young companion hear the people on the other side of the wall banging about, fighting, breaking glass. "I never got used to it," says the young woman. "Me neither," says Cameron. But they pass the night, falling in love as quickly as they'd met, as quickly as young people in revolutionary Britain have long ago learned to.

And outside London, County Surrey burns. A young woman named Emilia Clarkson has joined with a group of irregulars massing in preparation for an attack. Their target is the old manor used by members of the hated Provisional Government as a field headquarters, the very manor where Nathan Williams had schemed to direct the Provisional Government against the burgeoning revolution. Clarkson peers through her own set of binoculars at the estate, only to pass the binoculars to her fellow irregular, a man named Nicholas Barnhardt, who looks at the manor for only a moment. Both Clarkson and Barnhardt have their own personal reasons for having taken in with the rebels, Clarkson starving for too long, Barnhardt beaten and robbed one too many times. Even after all the bloodshed they've seen, after all the blood they've shed, still they hunger for more. "Is it as Elijah foretold?" asks Clarkson, her question rhetorical, her voice infused with a wry enthusiasm that's been years in the making. "It is," says Barnhardt, "we've caught them by complete surprise." This is all part of the rebel Elijah's plan, with each attack calculated to induce harm. But this is different. Edging down the road towards the manor, they know the rebel's time of victory is at hand. But it's not to be. "Keep killing them," says Schlager, "I don't care how you do it. I don't even particularly care who you kill. Go out there and kill anyone you find. Kill as many people as you can, don't stop for any reason." Although Schlager doesn't mean to extend these orders to the pogrom against Jews that's already taken place, nationalist elements in areas outside the Popular Front's control soon commandeer the orders for their own nefarious purposes. Before the day is out, there'll be many more deaths, in the eerie aftermath of the nuclear exchange a new evil making good on its opportunity. Soon, Schlager's family is killed, seized upon by the rebel unit which Barnhardt and Clarkson serve in, the fortified facility where they were kept having been left open by deserting Home Guard troops. It matters little whether they were deliberately executed after capture or killed in a firefight by the few troops who hadn't deserted. All that matters is that they're dead, as so many others, the latest in a string of atrocities which will soon culminate in something far worse.

Although this moment may be chilling as we now look back on it with the full benefit of the knowledge of where it should lead, at the time it was an unknown occurrence, a random half-conversation had behind closed doors, one which should set into motion a new sequence of events that, we'll see, were going on for so long as there's been history to experience. Soon, it begins. In New York, the character we know as Lucius continues his speech to the so-called United Nations. Lucius has been working for some time to win the loyalties of the leaders of men, and this speech to the United Nations represents his achievement of something entirely unlike the peace and prosperity he offers the learned and wealthy men of the world. Where the rebel Elijah earns the loyalty of the most pathetic and wretched among us, this Lucius craves the fealty of the wealthiest and best-educated, they who would seek to exploit and to enslave. It's a conspiracy of forces, an alignment of profoundly unlikely circumstances, and it's been lingering in the background all along, even as the struggles of ordinary men for justice has laid bare the ground for an impossible evil to rise. The rebel Elijah has taken to denouncing the pogroms against Jews, instructing his followers to accelerate their offensive towards Westminster, hoping to hasten the end of the killings by removing the Provisional Government which has allowed them, whether by explicit order or quiet acquiescence. But with so much of the country outside the control of the Popular Front, there's little the rebels can do to stop the immediate escalation of the killings, which begin in earnest across Britain. In Norwich, an older man named Brian Ferguson works at a processing plant, told has he is by management they're processing various meats for transport to the army fighting on the continent. Despite the chronic food shortages and the deaths by starvation they've produced, the plant has kept on processing meat, kept on shipping out the processed meat. Today, one day, Brian sees off a shipment to a series of unknown warehouses, as they've been shipping to such warehouses for many months. Although Brian doesn't know for sure their shipments aren't going to the war on the continent, he's got his suspicions. The workers have been trading rumours for many months. With the area firmly under control of the local militia, Brian and the others have little choice but to keep on working, to keep on processing and packaging food to be sent for hoarding in private warehouses. "After the war's over," says one of his co-workers, the two on their way back to their flats after the shift, "d'you think they'll let us keep our jobs?" The plant's only been in operation since the war started, and drew its workers from the unemployed in the area, paying them slave wages. "They'll keep us as long as they need us," says Brian, "and not a day longer." Each of the workers has families to feed. None are in a position to refuse the work. But when they see a new flag flying from city hall, Brian recognizes it as an old royalist flag, even after the royal family has fled still some are compelled by tradition to seek a new order in the old.

As Nathan Williams looks over the end of the beginning, he considers his vast holdings all but lost to the raging war. But still he holds much sway, in a patchwork of territory clustered around cities throughout Britain, plus the vast wealth he's spirited away to the relative safety and security of Canada and the United States. If he could escape, now, he could still rally considerable power against the Popular Front. He's still eager to throw himself at the feet of they who would advance the cause of evil, who would fight against the nascent revolution in England. But it's not to be. "Everything is lost," says Williams, "and where can we find a new way forward, now after all that's happened?" In the confusion and in the uncertainty that governs this period, all of Williams vast and complicated holdings are shattered, his warehouses and his ports either looted and then abandoned or commandeered by one of the many factions rising from the chaos of the war at home. "But you still have a last chance," says his subordinate, a trusted assistant named Catherine Day. "Oh?" asks Williams, in his downcast and dispirited mood given to an unusually open display of fatalistic pessimism. "Yes," says Catherine, standing a couple of metres away, looking over his shoulder as he gazes out the window at the street below. Catherine says, "don't think of the last chance you could have. Offer to the government ministers—" But it's no use. Nathan Williams is a businessman, the holder of so many properties whether real or imagined. In the Provisional Government he saw his last chance to retain his power and influence, in the aftermath of the overthrow of the old United Kingdom forces rising even he could've never understood. But this attack is carried out by a new character in our revolutionary struggle, a middle-aged man named Jeff Martin. He stands next to the howitzer they'd stolen from an army base, calling down fire on the enemy through the spotters he's got in the distance. It's hardly an organized attack, but a far cry from the ragged and haggard lashing out which the rebel's guerrillas had once so specialized in. But while Williams and his subordinates try to salvage what they can for their Provisional Government, the countryside has largely overcome the shock of the nuclear exchange on the continent. The lootings and the violence has spiralled out of control in the areas out of control of the Popular Front, with fighting in those areas confined to exchanges of gunfire between rebel men and those few Home Guard troops who haven't deserted or fled.

The ground thuds and shudders beneath their feet as the old artillery piece crashes off round after round on the enemy positions. But still the dark essence is there, as the dark essence is everywhere all at once, infusing itself into the barrel of the guerrillas' guns, into every round fired off, into the gritted teeth and the chapped lips of every man. Almost ready, almost ready, the dark essence reaches through the distance and enlivens the attack commanded by Martin, surging an energy through the bodies of the rebel's guerrillas like a raw electricity through a cable. It's not enough, it's never enough, it could never be enough, but when Martin walks through the remains of the seized position he feels that very same sensation running the length of his spine which the rebel Elijah feels whenever calling on the dark essence. These attacks on Home Guard bases are part of this current offensive, since dubbed the Battle for London. Although this decisive offensive to decapitate the hated Provisional Government is underway, its success isn't to become known as a new revolution but the culmination of the revolutionary struggle that began even before the failed uprising that killed Valeri's mother and father among so many others. And the rebel Elijah wouldn't have it any other way, still recalling as he does the early days of the Provisional Government when he was offered a seat in its cabinet and the joining of his forces with the Home Guard. In the city of Cambridge, a young man named Herbert Patrick witnesses the executions of a few dozen innocents, ordered as he is by the local Home Guard detachment to drive one of the lorries that delivers the innocents to their deaths. He believes he has no choice but to obey, and so he does. When he arrives as the open field just outside Cambridge where he's to deliver his human cargo, the Home Guard troops he sees have discarded their old uniforms, wearing instead a new insignia on their shoulders, an insignia Herbert can't quite recognize at first. But when one trooper comes around to the side of his lorry, stepping up to his driver's side window, Herbert gets a look close enough to make out an insignia vaguely resembling a black fist, the patch on the man's shoulder looking crude and hastily made. The trooper doesn't seem particularly concerned if the people delivered are the ones who were sought, giving only a cursory glance at the list Herbert's escorts had provided. As Herbert drives away, ordered to a local motor pool, he hears the sharp crack of gunshots, and he imagines the sound of bodies falling limp to the ground. Later in the night, he sits with his wife at their flat, eating their meagre rations. He says to her, "we've got no choice but to go along with them." She says to him, "what happens when you're not the one driving the lorry anymore?" Herbert has no answer, except to silently pray that day never comes.

Soon Schlager strikes out, fleeing the relative safety of the base for another. After this battle is through, Thompson and Cohen preside over a handful of corpses and a smattering of prisoners taken when they seize the base, most of the rest of the Home Guard troops having thrown down their weapons and fled into the night. Among the prisoners is Colonel Douglas Schlager, who stayed even when most of his conscripts ran. But this act of bravery earns the Colonel no respect among the rebels, under orders as they are not to interrogate any officers they might capture but simply to kill them immediately. In fact, there's murder and mayhem in the streets. Although most of the Home Guard's troops refuse orders to go on a rampage and murder innocents, enough obey to sow chaos and wanton murder. By the time this episode passes, there will be so many bodies scattered in the streets of Britain's cities it'll seem an impossible task to clear them all. But while these attacks play themselves out, forces are at work, the rebel Elijah making good on this time of intense confusion and disarray. With the Provisional Government destroyed in all but name, Elijah knows the moment is at hand to emerge into the annals of power with his forbidden gospel and make good on centuries of promises made to the working man. It seems as though the decisive battle must be continuously delayed, the dark essence demanding sacrifice from all. After this battle is through, there will be more, just as this current wave of attacks marks not the end of one era but the beginning of the next. As for the pilots of the newly-formed Mobius Squadron, their last engagement had ended with Pilot Walter Wright having sacrificed himself so that Hatfield could escape a swarm of loyalist fighters. After Hatfield had ordered the rest of his new squadron to turn back, two pilots refused to obey, Hatfield's old friend Walter Wright shooting down two loyalist fighters before being shot down himself. (The other pilot stayed in the fight long enough to cover Hatfield's escape; their radar operators in their backseats were saved as well). Now, only some weeks later, Hatfield's again in the air, leading a squadron of younger, less experienced pilots in pre-emptively striking loyalist positions in the path of the Popular Front's advance on London, rebel forces having commandeered enough armaments and fuel to keep their squadron in the air. Bolstered by yet more defections, there're more pilots and planes than ever for the Popular Front's fledgling air force. Heading back from another strike on loyalist positions, Hatfield recalls that fateful engagement when Wright had sacrificed himself so that Hatfield could live. "I'm on 'em," Wright had said excitedly over the radio, prompting Hatfield to look up and around, searching for his friend, his radar operator manning the rear guns, Hatfield throwing the stick to port and starboard, frantically manoeuvring. "Where are you?" asked Hatfield. "I see him," said Hatfield's radar operator, "five o'clock, high!" By the time Hatfield's got his bearings it's too late, Wright's plane trailing smoke all the way to the ground. There was no parachute.

Still the most important assault of all is yet to be carried out, all the rebel's struggle leading up to his seizure of that most hallowed ground. In life, there's nothing but death, and in death there's only the promise of life made anew. It's as if the two have blurred to become a seamless continuum, leaving nothing outside. As Valeri, Tonya, and the others under Sister Simpson's leadership attack an enemy position, they encounter fierce resistance. Several of their own fall, shot to pieces before the position is taken. The Home Guard troops fight to the death. Despite their advance towards London, the resistance doesn't relent, each successive Home Guard position proving more difficult to seize. But there's no time to bury the dead, Sister Simpson ordering them to police the bodies for anything of value, some guns and ammunition, but more importantly clothes to replace the threads they've got left. When Valeri and Tonya first hear of the pogroms against Jews in areas outside the Popular Front's control, they both react with revulsion, committing themselves anew to the march on Westminster. Valeri says, "we'll bring these murderers to justice. Tonya says, "and save the lives of as many Jews as possible." Sister Simpson says, "and we'll prevent the gangs and militias from committing genocide." She pauses, looking over the faces of Valeri, Tonya, and the others assembled around her, then goes on to say, "Elijah has taught us that it's incumbent upon us to serve the most pathetic and wretched among us, and that we must take the least among us and elevate them to the position of the most. The racism of the old regime is now manifesting itself in these acts of violence against our Jewish brothers and sisters, and it's incumbent upon us to protect their lives with ours. The Jews of this country are our brothers and sisters, indistinguishable from ourselves." But men like Herbert Patrick are something of an oddity, in the confusion following the nuclear exchange on the continent others following a different path. In the city of Exeter, still under control of Provisional Government loyalists, a young woman named Kara Quinn works at an industrial estate east of the city centre. By day she works to make asphalt and cement for use in construction. By night she tends to the needs of her children, with her husband in the army on the continent the task of caring and providing for their children falling to her alone. When she first hears of the pogroms in parts of the country, she, like many others, assumes it to be simply a part of the ongoing violence, the reprisals and the lynchings that'd seized British cities and towns. The days immediately following the nuclear exchange on the continent, to Kara they seem so distant, as though those days are now a thousand years in the past. When she hears again of the pogroms, then again, then again, then sees them on her screen at night, she realizes the new horror unfolding. After hearing of the pogrom again, one night, she sees her children to bed, telling them, "at least you'll have some peace when you grow up." She pauses to kiss either of them on the cheek, then says, "we'll live through this, I promise." But this is one promise she won't be able to keep.

Then the bodies of both friend and foe are thrown aside, the rebel Elijah's demand for relentless advance compelling them forward. Later, between battles, they talk. "We all have something to fight for," says Valeri. "I certainly do," says Tonya. Although they've become more than friends, even still Valeri thinks of Tonya as the friend he'd always had, seeking as he does to comfort her in her grieving for Roger's death. The younger Michael seems to grow with each passing day, not in stature but in spirit, as he approaches them and says, "I'm always afraid of dying, but I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees." The younger Michael has been talking, lately, about his family, describing his mother as having been killed by an infectious disease many years ago, describing his father as being absent from his life altogether. Each of them finds a certain comfort in sharing their struggles. But nothing can compare to the comfort offered in their fight for a new tomorrow. As Valeri listens, Sandra Simpson orders the men forward. This is nothing like the struggle Valeri had envisioned for himself when he first shot at the troops coming to evict him and his neighbours from their old apartment block all those months ago. In truth, he envisioned nothing at all back when he'd taken up with Tonya, Roger, and the others, acutely aware as he is of his having been ready to die. The old Dominion Courts was like any other working class block in the slums around Britain, forever under the threat of the bulldozer, with no regard given for the ordinary workers who'd lived inside those decrepit walls. Ahead of the rebel advance into the heart of London, the pilots of Mobius Squadron strike Home Guard positions, clearing some of the last obstacles to the Popular Front's planned storming of Westminster Palace. They haven't got much fuel back at their forward base, a small airport with runways just long enough for their bulky, two-seat fighters to take off and land. If they don't find more fuel, if the rebel forces don't capture new stockpiles, this'll be the last time Hatfield and the others can take to the skies for the foreseeable future. Still, as he takes a low pass over some Home Guard troops, Hatfield can't help but think of that last time he'd flown out with Wright. After Hatfield had landed at the nearest airfield, only recently captured by Popular Front troops, he immediately left his plane on the tarmac and went to right to the base commander. "Get a rescue copter out there right now," he'd said to the commander. Hatfield hadn't seen a chute, but wasn't willing to rule out the possibility, knowing as he did that in the frantic action of battle a successful ejection could be missed. But the base commander, a middle-aged woman with faded blue eyes had said, "it's no use," then raised a screen and showed it to Hatfield. She'd said, "we've got a new mission." And so it was that Hatfield had received his new squadron of recently-defected pilots, assigned as they were to supporting the advance on London. Now, in the air again, Hatfield takes to a strafing run on a Home Guard fortification, firing unguided rockets, squeezing the trigger to add cannon fire, exploding a lorry. But when the order comes in to return to base, Hatfield hardly wants to give in.

It's a shame, an inhumanity for all this to have risen only from the craving of men to be treated as men rather than objects, tools to be manipulated according to the whims of their masters. As Valeri listens, it occurs to him that revolution can only occur when men demand to be treated as men, to be granted the humanity which their masters have so long kept from them back by fraud. Following the rebel Elijah's teachings has made Valeri into a man entirely unlike the man he was when his parents were murdered more than fifteen years ago. Deep inside London, though, there's much action, a young woman named Carol Rosenstein's among those caught in the ongoing pogrom against Jews. After being chased by gangs of youths and deserted Home Guard soldiers, Carol and her family have taken refuge in a synagogue. A hundred or so others have already taken refuge in this synagogue, only to find themselves surrounded by hostile forces, laid siege by sectarians brandishing rifles. Although Carol is young, she's not the youngest member of her family, her siblings still children. The chants of the sectarians outside seem to grow louder and more menacing, until Carol can't stop herself from quivering all over in fear, death seeming all around them. As tears stream down her cheeks, she tends to her younger siblings, holding her youngest sister close. There's the unmistakable crack of gunfire, and the shouting of masculine voices. It's the Popular Front. They've arrived to rescue the Jews from imminent death. Carol Rosenstein and her family live. But not every gathering of Jews across Britain are so lucky. Those in territory controlled by the Popular Front are safe, but throughout the country's many war zones many are killed. "Thank you for saving us," says Carol, a little while later, speaking as she is to the lead rebel. "Never thank us," says the lead rebel, "for you are as our brothers and sisters. The rebel Elijah orders us to protect all our brothers and sisters as though their lives are ours."

As Valeri, Tonya, and the others under Sister Simpson's leadership seize still another enemy position, they lose so many more of their own, each step towards Westminster costing them dearly but compelling them forward all the same. Across the road there's a machine gun, troops firing in their direction from behind abandoned vehicles. But it's not in them to quit. After overcoming this position, they count the dead, pausing for an hour while more gunmen are sent from behind. "What are they defending?" asks Valeri, as they pick through the remains of this position, finding less than they'd found before. "These men are fighting harder than ever," says Tonya. After all that's happened, it seems as though nothing could ever come between brothers, as Valeri and Tonya have come to think of themselves, their petty arguments and differences of opinion melting away as their common struggle reaches its inevitable climax. "They may not know what they fight for," says Sister Simpson, "only that they fight for something." It's these words that linger in Valeri's mind over the days that come, providing him an impetus as he searches for a meaning, any meaning at all to make sense of the senseless slaughter, here and on the continent. But in the air, Mobius Squadron's attack is called off, with Hatfield reluctantly turning back to base. With Popular Front forces seizing London, tightening the noose around the hated Provisional Government in its lair at Westminster, the risk of collateral damage is too great for Mobius Squadron to keep on attacking ground targets. It's all Hatfield can do, thinking of his family, to keep himself contained on the flight back to base. He thinks of the family he'd given up, his wife and children, when he'd defected with the others, then of the family he'd had afterwards, his squadron, his squadron. It occurs to him that he's lost everything in joining the revolution, in committing himself irrevocably to the cause of the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front. Still, as he steers his aircraft out across the countryside, he listens to his radar operator describe the enemy fighters bearing down on them. It's not known to Mobius Squadron whether these fighters remain loyal to the Provisional Government. In fact, they're loyal to the loose coalition of sectarians, traditionalists, and fundamentalists who're fighting the Popular Front across the country. But even if Hatfield could know such a thing, it'd make no difference to him, as he opens the throttle and speeds towards friendly cover this fight seeming like all the others. "Fire the rear guns," says Hatfield, "you keep shooting, I'll get us home." And so Hatfield and the other pilots in Mobius Squadron fight off an attack, exactly as it'd been when he was commander of a Royal Air Force squadron, his life on the line. "Evasive action," says his radar operator, "I need a clean shot!" Still, Hatfield knows this fight is different from the last. This fight, he knows, is to liberate, not to oppress. That distinction engenders in his heart a surging passion, win or lose, live or die.

And then there's the nationalists, in Cardiff and Edinburgh seizing power amid the vacuum left by the destruction of the old British regime, a complex web of agreements and treaties between parties collapsing in the span of several months. The nationalists proclaim the old assemblies dissolved and establish their own, to mixed reception among the Meanwhile, in the old Irish province of Ulster, the sectarian tensions are seizing the streets of cities and towns in ways unlike ever before. The Republicans are gleeful to see the old British regime and its replacement in the Provisional Government destroyed, but won't embrace the embryonic revolution, suspicious as they are of any government seated on the River Thames. Unionists are fearful of severance from the historic old regime, but nor can they bring themselves to reach out for something new. It reveals, in truth, just how fragile the old Britain was, centuries of tradition and nostalgia burned to the ground by little more than a ragged, haggard mob of ordinary people. It's not quite that simple, but for now we'll have to settle for that as an explanation. We'll hear from them all again, more often than we'd like, before all this is settled, before the working man's nascent revolution is given rise to the next stage of our historical development; but think not of what lies in the past. Instead, dwell on the future, hidden as it is behind the columns of smoke rising and the fires of liberation burning here in Britain. In Europe, where the beginning of our current stage of historical development was born, it's fitting that here there should be the place where the next seizes the moment, capitalizing on the inflamed passions of millions of dejected workers. It's an impossible dream, with events here, there, everywhere to take a dramatic new turn with every new day. Even as the rebels strike anew here, there, everywhere, the whole country is plunged into a new round of chaos. After Valeri and the others have fought their way into Greater London, they put down for the night. Valeri volunteers to be among the first sentries, keeping watch while the others sleep. Although Valeri is aware violence could erupt in the streets outside, that they could come under attack at any moment whether from Home Guard troops, sectarian gangs, or looters thinking there's anything of value left to look, Valeri is about to retreat into memories when interrupted by an unexpected olive branch. As Valeri, Tonya, and the others take still another enemy position, they take it without much of a fight. They're closer to Westminster than ever; this advance puts them not far from the ruins of the old Wembley Park. (The Provisional Government had tried to use the stadium itself for rallies, until a rebel attack on one such rally compelled them to quietly put it out of use, just after the urban uprising Valeri had taken part in had been crushed). The urban environment is eerily quiet, with nightfall having settled the violence.

For Valeri, this is the time for natural introspection, in it seeming a link to the past and a way through to the future. He eats food donated to them by locals, those few left who inhabit the rubble left over from so many bombs bursting in these very streets. It's not right, it's not altogether unexpected, but still it's strange the way they've fought so quickly through to the urban centre of Britain, leaving in their wake so many lifeless bodies. For Valeri, this time comes in the form of a sweet, a sickly sweet smell, coming from nowhere but seeming to emanate all around him, all at once. In this moment, he listens to the sounds of the city burning, fires left unfought owing to the evacuation following the nuclear exchange on the continent. There's the sound of light footsteps, but Valeri doesn't react sensing anyone approaching from behind must be friendly. In all the months since they've been fighting, side by side, Valeri has come to know Tonya by the exactness in the way she measures her paces so precisely when she seeks conciliation. "Valeri," says Tonya, "are you ready to die tomorrow?" She's approached him from behind, and she sits next to him on the sill. "I'm ready to die today," he says. It wasn't all that long ago, in the grand scheme of things, when Valeri was consumed in the struggle for such simple things as a better wage and a safer shop. Now he is a soldier, not merely in the intrinsic way all men are soldiers deploying the might of their labour in service of a cause; no, now Valeri is an actual soldier in the burgeoning civil war. It's been such a strange, roundabout journey to come to this point, one which defies all attempts at categorization even as it lays itself out plainly for all the world to see. It's been several months since the old United Kingdom was overthrown and the hated Provisional Government came to power, and in those months Valeri has lost his home, his friends, his job, only to emerge a new man, stronger than ever. These months of living not on the streets but in the shadows, fearing constant attack by the Home Guard's troops have worn on them both, from Valeri's point of view these months having been made by his memory playing tricks on him to stretch out over many, many years. "I didn't ask you about today," says Tonya, "I asked you about tomorrow." As Valeri thinks on how to respond, the night emerges from within its shroud of darkness, at the last moment this critical juncture presenting itself as a last chance at rapprochement. "Every day that's passed since we took a stand has been a chance," says Valeri. "A chance?" asks Tonya. "A chance," says Valeri, "at redemption. All my life I've been chasing something. Each time we've gone up against the enemy has been a chance to make something of myself." Tonya pauses, seeming to consider her thoughts before speaking. "I don't know what's going to come," she says, "not any more than you do. But if I die, if you die, at least we'll die fighting, right?"

It's in this half-moment before any of us have had the chance to truly live, to realize our full potential unrestrained by the bonds of poverty, we see in Valeri and even in Tonya the power of their shared past, of all our shared pasts to restrain them even now. It's harder than it might seem for any of us to truly change the world; but it's precisely because it's so hard that it's inevitable to win. But as Valeri has been told, as he's heard so many times in his almost-thirty years of life, even though our history is inevitable it is never assured. It must be won. As Valeri, Tonya, and the others set down for the night, they set down in the old Paddington Station, still closer than ever to Westminster. All throughout Britain, rebel forces stage assaults on government buildings, seeking to seize and hold them and to capture as many officials as possible. It's now late-October, with the summer's heat and humidity hanging stubbornly in the air, Valeri's shirt sticking to his chest, his hair a matted mess. As he washes the muck and grime from his body in a pool of water left from a ruptured main, beneath the caked on mud and a mixture of fresh and stale blood he becomes vaguely aware that there's a human face attached to the front of his head. But when Tonya asks, "are you ready for tomorrow?" And Valeri can only say, "as ready as I'm going to be." It's not like Valeri to have these kinds of sudden doubts in himself, they both know. A gunshot cracks, then another, then another, like thunder in the night. The bodies of the former royal family fall to the ground, lifeless, to be tossed into a ditch and left to rot. It's an ignominious end to centuries of rule, the last vestige of the old order wiped away in the time it takes a few bullets to penetrate the backs of a few heads. But it's perfect, an exact emblem of all that's been done, all that's been put into this current war, spiralling out of control as it is, defying all attempts at reining it in, even as the last defenders of the old order work feverishly to prevent the onset of the new. In the aftermath of the failed nuclear bombing, failed as it has to arrest the downfall of the old order as was the true intent for it by its progenitors, a new wave of violence has erupted on the streets of cities here in Britain and all around Europe. At the docks in Liverpool, in the churches and in the synagogues, even at the old Edmund University now long shut down, the bells ring, and the guns crack, every parcel of land in Britain besotted with blood. As violent as the war at home was before now, it's become even more violent still, people dying for no reason, the nuclear firestorm on the continent having unleashed here at home a maelstrom of wanton death and sadistic pain. Even when the bases desert, men like Thompson and Cohen resemble more a haggard, ragged group of misfits than professional soldiers, and it's precisely this resemblance that makes them fit to be a part of the new way of things.

But these attacks aren't meant to seize and hold territory, the rebel's campaign having not yet taken on the character of such an ordinary military conflict. Instead, this is the purge of the countryside around London of the last vestiges of the Provisional Government, the narrowing of the Government's even nominal authority to a steadily shrinking pocket centred on the city of Westminster. The nuclear fire which killed so many on the continent has given the rebel Elijah exactly what he needs, what he's always needed to achieve the next step in overthrowing the Provisional Government and its legacy as the culmination of so many years of oppression and impoverishment. Still, as Elijah steels himself against the magnitude of the coming events, he can't help but feel that slightest twinge in his body, a silent and subtle but altogether real reminder to him on the truth of his own character and his own moral fibre. Elijah briefly entertains the notion of calling on the Provisional Government in its moment of weakness, recalling as he does their offer to his Popular Front to join in their coalition of interests back when the Provisional Government was only days old. In the night, in the darkness of the darkest of nights, it strikes him as a supremely devious and clever thing, to bring the hated Provisional Government to its knees and then bend it to his will. But while the rebel Elijah consults silently with the dark essence that guides him through every step of his revolutionary quest, Valeri and Tonya keep watch over each other, over themselves as much as the empty and dark street outside. They're to remain here overnight, then assault Westminster Palace in the morning. Many of the bridges across the Thames have been destroyed. They're so close it seems to Valeri as though he can reach out and grasp it. The area is largely deserted of Home Guard troops, and the enemy's strength around Westminster is unknown but presumed by the rebels to be weak. There's the sporadic rattling of gunfire as Home Guard troops, Popular Front men, and bands of various fighters trade volleys. "But what's going on up there?" asks Valeri. "In the sky?" asks Tonya, before saying, "the bombers will come back soon—" "No, I mean further than that," says Valeri, "if we ever get to the stars, do you think we'll find someone out there? And if they'll welcome us to the stars, or if they'll just keep on fighting us?" Tonya pauses. It's a rare moment of tranquility, one which allows Valeri's thoughts to wander in ways they never have, and may never again. "If the revolution is won," Valeri says, continuing to let his thoughts wander, guided by the dark essence which has chosen this moment to impress itself upon him, "if the revolution is won, here and everywhere else, then the human race could accomplish so much. We'll have travel to the planets, and then to the stars. What'll we find out there?" Still Tonya says nothing. But Valeri, Valeri suddenly realizes himself. He becomes almost embarrassed for himself, for allowing his thoughts to get away from him. It's been nearly a year since the Provisional Government was formed, more than three years since Valeri began his ascent from the ill-mannered malcontent he'd been to the disciplined soldier of the revolution he's still yet to be. As he checks his rifle, then checks it again, he continues his conversation with Tonya, saying to her, "we should sleep soon." But inwardly he chides himself, as if anyone could sleep on the night before such a momentous occasion.

"Even if we die tomorrow the war will go on," Tonya says. "So if we die then we've got to make sure it's for a good cause," says Valeri. It's cold out, too cold, even as the season's rains have let up for a short time the steady winds still set a chilling disposition onto the exposed face of the building, in the darkness of the night a series of bright, multi-coloured lights streaking overhead, seeming to surely bring the fires of death visiting on them all. All Valeri's life has led up to this point, or so he believes with all the passion and intensity of a zealot not only prepared but eagerly awaiting surely impending death in the name of his God. It's hard to recall the exact moment in which Valeri became this way; it wasn't when they manned the barricades and stared down the Home Guard's troopers back at Dominion Courts. In the hall of the mountain king where the dark essence once resided so sequestered from the working man and his struggle, now the essence should seek to make good on its triumphant arrival, lingering in the open like a tapestry hung for all to see. Now, now we see the futility of the wealthy man's campaign. Now, now we look on him for the pathetic and decrepit thing he is. But still there're those who persist in their delusion, even as their delusion is brought down all around them, even as the workers whose wages they'd withheld are in open revolt, even as the country burns from stem to stern. And as the rebel Elijah briefly entertains the notion of rapprochement with the hated Provisional Government, the dark essence visits upon him with the lightest of touches, sending an electric sensation running the length of his spine, standing every strand of hair on his body on end. It's the very same sensation which Valeri can feel, from time to time, and which every righteous man can feel whenever visited upon the dark essence, only sharper and more intense. It's a temptation, the notion of rapprochement, a last temptation before the decisive blow is struck. The rebel Elijah knows better than this. He turns away from his own thoughts, still considering the full implications of his earlier, momentary lapse in faith, when one of Elijah's closest disciples comes with news. After so many months of relentless warfare in the streets, the man known as Nathan Williams has sent a message offering a truce, but worded in such a way as to leave open the possibility of surrender. Although we reveal this now, in truth, this is but an echo of the Provisional Government's old offer to incorporate the Popular Front into its own machinations, this offer feeble all the same. It comes, to be clear, only after Elijah has already been visited upon by this recent temptation. It's a strange realization, but occurs suddenly, without warning, yet in such a way that makes it abundantly clear this realization was there all along. The dark essence chose to visit this temptation upon the rebel Elijah at exactly the right moment, knowing full well he would possess the strength to resist it. But this is not to be the last temptation visited upon the rebel Elijah, nor his disciples in the Popular Front. In time, it should prove to be a seminal moment in the journey of the rebel Elijah from ill-mannered malcontent to revolutionary figure and on to the statesman he never wanted to be. Still, he finds the strength to resist this final, this third of three temptations, and in so resisting he earns his way back into the good graces of the dark essence, his doubt forgotten.

In the city of Westminster, historic heart of the British Empire, the dark essence has designs on the coming days. Somewhere in London a man named Alexander Dane still takes to the screens, wearing the finest suit he can find still in his wardrobe, and he dares to spread his lies anew. Still he persists in declaring the way of things to be strong, fundamentally sound he might put it, even as the broadcast centre in which he stands is about to be surrounded by rebel gunmen, rebels owing their allegiance not to the Popular Front but to someone else altogether. Even the enemies of the Front have turned on the Provisional Government, on the last vestiges of the old order, the rattling of gunfire and the bursting of bombs in the streets seeming to confirm the exact spots where history has disposed of them. The course of the war on the continent matters little to Alexander, as he has no family, no dear friends in the army, with only the threat of nuclear annihilation to serve as any concrete motivation for his actions. But still Alexander Dane steadfastly clings to the notion of his own wealth, in his brightly-lit studio and with his crew pointing their cameras at him still the power of delusion strong. When the power cuts out and his broadcast abruptly terminates, for a moment, only a moment Alexander pauses to catch his breath before carrying on like nothing has happened. It's quite the sight, that such a well-heeled man should be brought down to the level of the most pathetic and wretched among us, his wealth and his good name meaningless once the old order has so firmly and resoundingly abandoned him, leaving him to his fate. Still he clings to the fantasy in delusion, in the darkness of the late-fall's night imagining himself in the full glory of a bright summer's day. As the war on the continent continues, the truce between parties holding but so many minor conflicts continuing in the Slavic states, the Aegean, even the uprisings across Western Europe, men like Alexander Dane have only fantasy to sustain them. But Damian, the ascendant leader of the anti-revolutionary coalition, still has use for men like Alexander Dane, something which'll earn the old order at least one last hurrah.

For Private Craig Thompson, formerly of the British Army and now pledged to the Popular Front, this moment is come. Even as the rebel Elijah prepares his triumphant entry into London, there's much work to be done among his disciples before the end can be brought within sight. With the rebels in the Popular Front now seizing territory and drawing closer into the city of London with every attack, it seems civil war is in the offing. The Home Guard is no more, its troops fracturing into a dozen different groups, in the night before the Popular Front's decisive assault on Westminster one army becoming many. "Finally," says Cohen, "we can begin." They'd heard, not all that long ago, the rumours of a pogrom against Jews, only to come across hard evidence themselves. It's been a few days since they'd found an old synagogue burned to the ground, with the smell of singed flesh filling the air. It may have been an isolated incident, but it only takes a few isolated incidents, strung together, to make a pogrom. Already they've heard the calls from the Popular Front's apparatchiks for the perpetrators of these heinous crimes to be brought to justice, but both Cohen and Thompson understand it'll be a long time before the last of the murderers are made to pay for their crimes.

And Thompson nods, then says, "it's all about to begin." But even as Thompson takes his rifle in hand, in the back of his mind his thoughts linger lovingly on the wife and daughter he'd never had, his lover killed not in the war but in an industrial accident only a short time ago. This, he pledges silently, this is their revenge at hand. If his life should be taken from him pre-emptively, then so shall the lives of those who'd taken from him be taken in turn. "I have not come to bring peace," the rebel Elijah had always said, "but war. I promise you deliverance from oppression, which can only come through suffering. Know that the blame for our suffering lies in the hands of those who oppress, not in those who would dare to resist the instruments of their oppression. It is their blood that should paint the way to the future." This is what Thompson, formerly known Private Craig Thompson in the old British Army but now known only as Thompson in among the rebels, reminds himself as he steels himself against the task at hand. On this day, it's cold outside, unseasonably cold, with the threat of a hard rain lingering over their heads like the guillotine about to fall. Every man shivers slightly in his boots. Every stomach growls in intense agony. Every man's body is covered in cuts and wounds, with only a few patched up. And yet, what a time it is to be alive. Thompson is part of an historical moment unlike any other, when the working men of the world should endeavour to summon their strength as one and bring it all to bear on those who would seek to oppress them. It's not for the faint of heart. Now, after having stopped the convoy of lorries the King and his family had commandeered in their futile attempt to flee, Thompson and Cohen, along with the rest of the rebel fighters here steel themselves against the task ahead of them. Their orders are clear. Both Thompson and Cohen comply.

As the gunmen line the King and his family along the side of the road, there's little consideration given to formalities; those'll come later. The King asks for permission from the rebels to exchange some few last words with his wife and children, but Thompson denies them this. Still the King tries, turning and managing a few words before Thompson cracks the back of the King's head with the butt of his rifle, then putting a bullet in the head of each of them. The bodies are thrown into the ditch behind, but left openly to rot in the filthy, muddy water. This is how the last chapter in the story of the old regime's history is written, not with pomp and circumstance, marked not by a lavish celebration nor by the singing of songs and the sounding of trumpets. No, this exact moment is wrought with terror and fraught with peril. Is this some atrocity? Perhaps. An act of cold blooded murder? Perhaps. Against the totality of the mass atrocities perpetrated by the forces opposed to justice, here in revolutionary Britain and throughout the vastness of human history, this is but a grain of sand tumbling in an ocean of misery. The old order has lived for so long by the sword, and now it must die by the sword. No one among the rebels should sadden for the deaths of the King and his family, not even for the deaths of his children and his grandchildren. This is what history looks like, history in the making, history already made. This is not our history's future, but our future's history, if only we'd have had the foresight to see through the darkness and on into the light. But alas, we're not there yet. We may never make it there. In the time it takes the troops under Thompson's command to toss those few lifeless bodies into the ditch, all might yet come to pass. Meanwhile, not altogether far away the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front prepare for a final assault on the Palace of Westminster, among them now Valeri Kovalenko, who senses that his own personal moment of vengeance is at hand.

28. In the Valley of Kings

On the river Thames, the crew of the free cruiser Borealis wait. After having sustained so much battle damage without a major refit or overhaul since the war began, since even before the toppling of the old United Kingdom and its replacement with the hated Provisional Government, the Borealis is little more than a keel and a mast. Fitting, Dmitri thinks, that she and her crew should be chosen by the rebel Elijah for this special mission, after having been made into something other than what they are. Rather than ponder on the momentous, historical event about to transpire, one which should smash itself so violently into our history as to leave only a smouldering wreckage, let's look into the moment and see it for what it truly is. Men like Dmitri, they've lost nearly everything they had to lose, his family killed, his standing in the old regime gone, even many of his brothers on board the Borealis dead, their bodies unceremoniously thrown overboard. There's the pogroms against Jews and others, the lynchings, and the attacks on innocents throughout the country to distract them, but men like Dmitri and his brother and lead hand Mason are committed through the struggle to see their fight through. They've been fighting all their lives, whether against an impersonal apparatus that should seek to profit from their deaths or against a very personal enemy staring them down from a few hundred metres away in the middle of a temporary truce. This, this is the moment Dmitri, Mason, and the others have been seeking. As Dmitri looks out over the River Thames, his thoughts take to the memory of Crewman Emily White, her proposal, what might've come of it if it'd been voted on, if it'd been adopted.

Still his stomach growls, his back throbs with pain, and his eyes ache only so long as he keeps them open, as keeping them open he must twenty hours a day. But this, this is his calling, this is his pride, the taking of everything he had never tempting him to give up the fight but only pushing him to fight harder and stronger than ever before. And his shipmates, they who've duly elected him their captain, they all harbour the same feelings deep within their hearts. As the free cruiser Borealis churns ahead, pushing slowly up the River Thames, Dmitri steels himself against the power of the moment, looking forward to the next step, to the next breath, to each and every beat of his heart as though it could be his last. The rebel Elijah personally gave them their orders, over the radio even his voice sounding authoritative and sublime to Dmitri. Now, they wait. It's almost time. "Don't you worry too much about me," was the last thing Dmitri's wife had ever said to him, "you just make sure your daughter will always have a father." It's a sad irony, perverse, even absurd that she, they should perish while he should be faced with the burden of continued life. "Brother Malinin," says Mason from across the bridge, "it's time." At this time, it seems an impossible array of consequences have befallen our heroes, the rebel Elijah remains committed to rising the next order, still the anti-rebel Damian works, the latter having escaped the city of Westminster at exactly the right moment to plot his next moves. Even after the nuclear bombings on the front had forced a ceasefire, fighting continues, here and there Russian and Western forces engaging in skirmishes, always the threat of full-scale war threatening. The Provisional Government can't recall the British Army, consumed as the country is in violence, but nor can they order the Army to attack. Until the situation on the continent can be resolved, by the Provisional Government or its successors, the Army must remain in Poland, cut off from the burgeoning revolution which is about to seize power. Meanwhile, similar assaults take place across the country, the rebels in the Popular Front succeeding in seizing much of the country, but leaving much in the hands of its various enemies. As Dmitri and the others aboard wait for the order, it seems as though the battle lines have been drawn, and all that's left for them to do is make the leap from one part of their revolutionary struggle to the next.

As the rebel Elijah works, so does the anti-rebel Damian, the latter not here in Westminster but somewhere in the English countryside. It's a curious, odd sort of tension, the rebel Elijah necessarily provoking the rise of the anti-rebel Damian, in their historic struggle there lying a certain truth. Although Elijah grows sicker with each passing day, still he hides his illness from his disciples in the Popular Front. He knows they'll find out at some point, but for now he wants their attention focused on the task before them. But this marks a strong contrast from the old way. Before the failed rising which took Valeri's mother and father along with the mothers and fathers of many more, there stood a hall not altogether far from here. Unlike the union hall of old, this hall was a place where men like Valeri's old boss Noel Kennedy used to gather on nights that called for it. In this, we see the opposite of the way things are headed, the way things used to be. And Valeri's old mentor, the man who'd stepped in and cared for him after his mother and father perished all those years ago, Valeri can hardly stomach the memories, recalling them as he does in the back of his mind, memories of looking to Mark Murray for guidance. It matters little to Valeri where Murray is now, whether he's dead or alive. It matters even less to him what Murray's motivations might've been for betraying them in so visceral and public a manner.

Valeri's so vastly different from the young man he was when he'd worked so many different jobs. He was, then, a young man in search of an identity, given to favouring the common struggle but not yet ascendant to its ultimate form. "I never thought we'd be back," says Valeri, thinking aloud. In the back of his mind, he's half-contemplating heading to that working class district where once he and his neighbours had turned their blocks into urban fortifications. "Neither did I," says Tonya, in the middle of the night having risen to quietly consult the dark essence. "It's only been six months since we left London," says Tonya, looking over at him, "but it seems like it's been much longer." Valeri says, "it's much different this time." And this is something both can agree on. Even as the rebel's imminent assault on Westminster Palace has brought us all to the edge of tomorrow, we must still look back on the way of things, the way things were, the crass and empty materialism which brought us all to our knees. In the hall where the wealthy men would gather, they'd forget themselves, they'd forget they were at the mercy of forces greater than themselves. It's a very dangerous thing, when men come to believe they're masters of their own destiny. When the wealthy men of old would immerse themselves in pomp and pageantry, they'd be served their food and drink by only the choicest of pretty young women from the poorest of homes, the women wearing the finest of silk and cotton which the women had to surrender part of their cheques each month to pay for. "Be honest," says Valeri, before asking, "did you ever think we'd live this long when we joined the uprising back in that apartment building?" A moment of silence has settled, and Valeri uses the moment as best he can. "No," says Tonya. She takes a drink of water from her little bottle, seeming to wince slightly at the taste. "But you're not surprised, are you?" asks Valeri. "Not even a little bit," says Tonya, "but that's what you'd have expected, right?" And Valeri only shakes his head slightly. Still they have hours left until the assault on Westminster. Still they have much left to discuss. Still there's little time left for discussion, this critical early period having culminated in events left to transpire, with only the small time left between now and then to make Valeri and Tonya each feel a mounting anticipation, unlike any either has ever known.

But just up the Thames, aboard the cruiser Borealis there's a lingering sense of anticipation, the men aboard fully aware of the momentous occasion bearing down on them. As the first naval vessel to defect to the cause of the Popular Front, the Borealis is the flagship in spirit of the fleet now at the Popular Front's disposal, motley and in various states of disrepair though the ships of this fleet may be. Aboard, Dmitri Malinin and his number two Mason Smith look out through broken windows across the city, marvelling at how much it's changed in so short a time. "Is it exactly as Elijah foretold?" asks Dmitri. "It is," says Mason. Dmitri looks away from the windows, turning to face Mason, and says, "it couldn't be anything else." At these events where men like Valeri's old boss gathered, they'd wear suits that cost more than the annual wages paid to their servants who'd serve them drinks. In this, the self-indulgent and opulent riches the old men would subsist on, there lay the true seeds of rebellion, back when such a thing seemed possible. The chandeliers were crystal. There was a band somewhere in the room, a string quartet and a piano next to them, playing music hundreds of years old but which no one in the hall listened to anyways. These were men steeped in tradition and power, in opulence and indulgence, never having worked a day of honest labour in their lives but still honestly and earnestly convinced of themselves as having earned everything that surrounded them. It's precisely in this arrogance that their downfall lay, that the path through to the rebel's rising was laid. Like a blind man wandering through a brightly-lit desert, nothing that's happening right now could ever be traced back to those early years, when even the rebel Elijah had yet to be. Sometimes, nearly all the time we overlook the ebb and flow of the course of war and believe ourselves masters of our own destinies, and this was the folly of men like Valeri's old boss. Although Valeri will never again meet his old boss, the mere fact should occur to him that his old boss could never be saved by wealth hoarded nor by indulgences taken, each burned into the flesh of they who would seek to take for themselves what they deny to us all. "This can't be the end," says Valeri, "not after all that we've been through." This causes Tonya to pause, and for a moment Valeri thinks he might've finally left her speechless. But then she says, "it's not the end," herself pausing to look at the sky, an unusually clear night having bared the stars. She says, "it's only the beginning, I think." This is something they've both been taught, in their discussions, their study sessions under Sister Simpson, in turn handed down from the once-forbidden gospel of the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front.

Nearer than ever, Valeri, Tonya, and the others under Sister Simpson's authority wait with a mounting anticipation for what must come. "Do you wish Roger could've been here to see this?" asks Valeri, clutching his rifle. "No," says Tonya, "I wish he could've been here to take part in it." She's also clutching her rifle, but with a looser grip. "Do you think he's watching us now?" asks Valeri, his mind open to higher possibilities than ever. "I want to," says Tonya, "but it doesn't matter." She's not as far along on her path as Valeri is on his, and it's this fact that'll determine who should live and who should die in the fight to come. They have nothing left to say to each other, even as so much has been left unsaid. At those events where men like Valeri's old boss gathered, the serving of drinks and food would be made to take place right alongside the poverty men and women would find themselves in. But the peak of their arrogance lay not in their indulgence but in their belief, their steadfast belief in the permanence of their own power. At those events, men like Valeri's old boss would look to a stage, against which the sight of so many blinding white lights a lone figure would appear, there to congratulate the wealthy men in the crowd on another successful year of hoarding. These men, they would've delighted at the starvation of so many millions, would've delighted at casting so many out of work, and it was always this weakness that was to be their end. A round of applause would break out, each of the wealthy men fat and bald, each man's jowls jiggling and each man's fleshy hands quivering with every clap. Even the thought of such a scene is enough to inspire revulsion in the minds of men like Valeri, from there rage, even as he's tired, hungry, and sore all over still the desire to avenge so many injustices giving him strength. And it's in this frame of mind that Valeri finds himself ready, steeled against the power of the moment neither historical nor temporary, a moment he can't fully appreciate even after all he's been through. He may one day come to appreciate the full significance of what's happening here, but for now he must entrust his understanding to Elijah and those among the highest disciples in the Popular Front. Their names, their names are written into the pages of history, their reputations having been won through acts of bravery, valour, and steadfast honour.

As each of them stand on the brink, all of them look to these men, and others like them, the most pathetic and wretched among their ranks to lead the way through to the future. From the ordinary they have risen to become extraordinary. From the weak, they have become strong. From the streets they have risen to stand on the cusp of a new way of life, where the corrupt and the deceitful will have no place, where the honest and true will be rewarded. But this is only the beginning. As it is written, the first shall be last and the last shall be first. Valeri has come to know this, just as he's come to believe it, his understanding of the rebel Elijah's forbidden gospel having matured in the way that it has, even as his understand has still much maturation left to undergo. This forbidden gospel, originally it entailed a unilateral disengagement, a depriving of the old regime of the political legitimacy it needed to survive. Now, with the dawning of a new regime on the horizon, it entails the encompassing of the entire working class movement within the Popular Front which Elijah and his disciples lead, which Valeri is now a part of. Ashore, Valeri, Tonya, and O'Connor wait with the others for the signal, clutching their rifles. From within a little pocket of territory deep inside London they'll mount their attack, striking at the very heart of the enemy, not only the hated Provisional Government but all that's kept them enslaved to the old way of life, but the old way of life itself. "Brother Kovalenko," says Sister Simpson from across the hall, "it's time." Valeri nods, turning to face the street with all the others. Elijah isn't with them, but he's close by. No one knows exactly where he is, but they all know he's near, even his enemies sensing his presence. But this means he's everywhere, all at once. This is the essence of his struggle, of the Popular Front which he leads, his ability to be everywhere, his presence marked by the feeling that rises in the chests of every right-thinking man. Having fought their way into the city of Westminster, now they must wait for the signal from the cruiser Borealis. None of them know what can happen in the meanwhile; none can know whether the battle for the very seat of power will be a pitched battle that should cost them so many dead.

Aboard the Borealis, Dmitri stands by. Finally, the order comes from none other than Elijah himself. The communication is relayed by the radio operator, who uses only one word to convey the message: "go." And Dmitri looks over at Mason, nodding. "Main gun," says Mason, his voice full of a grim determination, "one round only. Fire when ready." All men aboard are aware of the momentous occasion they face, and all men aboard are determined to face it down, no matter the limitations imposed on them by their crippled state. Even in this decisive moment, memories of the failed rising more than fifteen years ago linger in the morning's mist. All those who gave their lives in that spontaneous rising are here, now, as are all those who've given their lives in the many years since, watching as the fires of liberation smouldered with rage, beneath the thin veneer of order a great disorder having taken hold. As they steel themselves against the impending desecration of one of the old Britain's most holiest of sites, each of them recalls the last words the rebel Elijah had spoken to them before this momentous occasion had begun. Standing before the lot of them, the rebel Elijah had said, "as you have heard many times throughout your lives, the inevitability of history should turn in our favour. But I tell you this: history's favour turns to us only because we are fit to win it. Although you all are hopelessly outmatched by the forces brought to bear against you even before you were born, it's precisely because you are hopelessly outmatched that you should become victorious in your struggle. Do not fear weakness, but embrace it. Do not avoid the unknown, but step forward into it, willingly, enthusiastically, genuinely. It's only by turning our backs on a lifetime of prejudice and punishment that we can realize our destiny." And these words were remembered, in the last lesson Valeri and the others had under Sister Simpson's tutelage, a lesson they should all soon learn to take to heart. After Sister Simpson had taken them through so many battles, through so much death and destruction, they had all come to see her as something more than just a mentor, even as she'd never been anything but that. "You're not ready for what must come," she'd said, "and neither am I, nor is our leader Elijah. But our enemies aren't ready either. No one can be ready for the future that awaits us. If anyone were ready, then it wouldn't be the future we look forward to, but the past, and history doesn't reward those who look to the past for the way to the future."

Although Valeri didn't understand what she'd meant, then, he'd become open, in some small way, to the truth behind her words. It's nothing he could ever articulate; it's a vague, intuitive sensation, as if there's some part of him that embraces this way of thinking, in the small fraction of a second when he became open to possibilities he'd never before considered the better part of him became more than merely some malcontent, now a soldier of the future. On land, all hear the crack of the cruiser's cannon, but only Valeri, Tonya, and the others among the rebel's guerrillas understand its meaning. Without saying a word to one another, they stand, marching into the street, assaulting the Palace of Westminster, overpowering the small guard left to defend the premises. It's over quickly. Valeri survives unharmed, but a shot to the chest mortally wounds Tonya. She lies dying, gasping for breath, drowning as her lungs fill with blood. Although this is how she wanted to die, it's not the dead who are charged with shaping the legacy of their sacrifice but the living. As Valeri clutches her, he feels the full weight of the moment come down on his shoulders. But still gunfire chatters here and there, Valeri setting Tonya down on the floor before he shoulders his rifle and shoots down the hall. "They're running," says Tonya, gasping for breath at Valeri's feet, "don't let them run." Valeri steadies his stance, dropping to one knee, and squeezes the trigger, his rifle spitting fire down the hall. A few Home Guard troops have taken a stand in the commons lobby, with Valeri and a few others in the central hall, just down the main commons corridor. "Hold here," says Sister Simpson, standing behind Valeri, "we've got more men on the way to flank them. We've got to take them here." Soon, the enemy men run out of ammunition, and Valeri's among the rebels who take the, prisoner. After, they secure the House of Commons itself, with other bands of rebel fighters securing the rest of Parliament. Valeri helps Tonya into the Commons, where he lays her down on one of the benches, telling her to apply pressure to her wound, only to realize she doesn't have the strength. She's dying. A little while later, perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes, the rebel Elijah appears, flanked by some of his closest disciples, here to take part in an historic event. But to Valeri, to Valeri, this moment is fraught with tension between their imminent victory and his own imminent loss. In the storming of the Westminster Palace, Michael's been shot dead, unlike Tonya the younger man dead before he'd hit the ground. Valeri saddens inwardly at the death of his comrade, but keeps a stiff upper lip as he witnesses history in the making.

The rebel leader looks on him with pride, looking to Tonya as a heroine of the working man's budding revolution. She doesn't find the will to live, but rather, the dark essence empowers her to live for a little while longer. Although their time studying under the steady hand of Sister Simpson is over, still Valeri has much to learn, that vague, intuitive sensation only pointing out to him the path which he must walk. There were moments of study that Valeri should remember for so long as he lives. "...in life we are all given only a short time to make good on the promise of our lives," said Simpson, when the group had settled for the night in a burnt-out church. There was little left of the main worship hall, and they'd taken to sitting among the rubble and ashes of the old way of life. "We are all called on by our conscience to do the right thing," Simpson had said, "and we choose to do the right thing not because it should enrich each of us as individuals nor because we believe any of us should live to see the future we seek to build." Of course Valeri is given to seeing Sister Simpson differently, in her age still willing to sacrifice herself for the future. "It's not the current generation we fight for," she'd said, more than once, "it's the future. I would hope not for your children, as it's too late for them, but for your children's children." Still Valeri thinks on the fate of his mother and father, where they might be, looking on him, what they might be thinking, feeling. After he'd seen them buried all those years ago, he was but a confused malcontent, an adolescent who rebelled against any injustice whether subtle or gross. But now he's something more. As he holds onto Tonya, every breath could be her last, and she lives long enough to see Elijah one last time. Inside, they find few members of the Provisional Government's highest council, most of the rest having scattered across the country and a few even having sought refuge abroad. But that's not important now. The rebel Elijah has come to occupy the annals of power, and now after having so come to occupy them he sees fit to burn them to the ground. Standing in the middle of the old House of Commons, he addresses his followers, Valeri among them. "This Palace is a relic of its vessel," says Elijah, "and now that it is ours, we cannot allow it to stand in remembrance of a regime corrupt and a time past. For the future belongs to the most wretched and pathetic among us, so, too, must we look not to the halls of power but to the halls of misery and suffering for our guidance. As it is written, the first shall be last, and the last shall be first." In the meanwhile, O'Connor dies of his wounds, bleeding out on the floor, taking his last breath only as the rebel Elijah speaks, as though there was some part of the younger rebel that willed him to cling to life just long enough to bear witness to this moment of victory. But it's not the final victory. As difficult and bloody as their victory has been, securing victory will require difficulty and bloodshed the likes of which none of them have ever seen.

All assembled know this, and not only because they have been told to know this by Elijah himself. "I offer you not peace, but war," Elijah has said many times, most recently when addressing his disciples in one of their encampments outside London. And after having already seen so much bloodshed, after having shed so much blood, Elijah's disciples whether close or distant are immersed in a sea of violence and death. Looking ahead, we realize this is the critical moment in our path through to the future, the moment in which the old way was disposed of and the new way ushered in, and we realize this even as there remains much to be done in securing the new way forward. But it's not the final moments under Sister Simpson's stewardship that should resonate in Valeri's mind through the rest of his life, whether a day or a half-century. "Your study is not complete," Simpson had said, in that last lesson before they'd gone to Birmingham to meet their destiny, "and if you are made to assume a place in the coming dawn, then you will know nothing but pain and sadness. You must not go." Sister Simpson had paused for a moment, a moment only long enough to be filled with the distant rattling of gunfire once more. She continued, saying, "and it is precisely because you can do nothing but go that you are reaching out for your own destiny. You've heard many times from many people that destiny may be inevitable, but it must still be won. The pain and sadness you will endure, you must endure is only the result of your own misgivings. And for this you should always and forever be grateful." Although this was not the last Valeri and Tonya would have of each other's company, it took on a meaning that's gotten lost in the grand scheme of things, as the legend of men like Valeri is to grow over time the little nuances that made up their lives receding into the background. Lost to the pages of time, to the vast and impersonal confluence of forces that should come to seize us, we make good on the memory of those we've left behind.

In the end, it matters little what's said between parties, the rebel Elijah personally leading the elite men of the hated Provisional Government into the Old Palace Yard. They're permitted no last words, no final extension of dignity, instead simply lined up, blindfolded, and then read out a brief summation. "...And you are hereby found guilty of crimes against the people and sentenced to death. Your sentence will now be carried out." Then there's that familiar crack of gunfire followed by the falling of bodies limp and lifeless to the pavement. It matters little that many members of the hated Provisional Government are absent, having fled Westminster since the fraudulent election provoked only further rage from the working man and intensified the Popular Front's war against it. That's not the point. The halls of power have now come to be inhabited by the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front, and it's a time in which the rebel Elijah should seize his destiny, in the act taking ordinary men like Valeri and elevating them to the level of the extraordinary. But challenges await Valeri and the revolution he serves that'll demand from him sacrifices even he may not be able to make.

29. The Beginning of the End

After all that's happened, it may seem anticlimactic for the rebel Elijah's proclamation to come so soon, with so little of the country under the Popular Front's control and so many factions vying for power. A few days later, after the grounds of the Palace of Westminster have been secured, the rebel Elijah takes to the Old Palace Yard in the shadow of Victoria Tower. Already Valeri's grasp on the future has loosened, given as he now is to letting the plays of history act themselves out in a grand fashion, with himself, his person only a vessel through which our shared history could grant itself expression. But it's not enough. It's never enough. As a light rain patters against the pavement, the night begins to encroach on the sky, the thick, grey clouds darkening only a slight shade in the time it takes a thousand years to pass through the narrow space separating one moment from the next. Already Valeri's come to terms with the impending death of his friend and neighbour Tonya, with whom he'd taken the trip from ordinary worker to ordinary soldier. He'd carried her gently out into the street so she might live to see Elijah's speech establishing what she'd fought for, what she's about to die for. As she lies dying in his arms, there's a moment where the two can only see through the narrow space between them, and they become as one. But even as the rebel Elijah prepares to address the world on the steps of what'd been the Palace of Westminster, so does the evil character Lucius prepare to address the world at the old United Nations general assembly in New York. It's a curious, roundabout sort of evil, the way the forces opposed to the rebel Elijah and his disciples in the Popular Front should coalesce only after they've achieved power. And then there's the war still consuming the world writ large. Sporadic fighting on the front lines in Eastern Europe defies the ceasefire. The Americans and their Chinese adversaries keep on shooting, in Korea, the Philippines, and Indochina their regional allies fighting alongside them. And in the Middle East and throughout Africa rising powers and failed states alike use the chance to try at settling old scores. Half the world's consumed in a great war. A dizzying array of interests have laid claim to some small part of our all history's futures, so many decades of global misery meted out by the wealthy having led inexorably and inevitably to this, a Third World War. Although we focus, for now, on the revolution here in Britain, the lives of working men like Valeri are in play around the world, a larger drama unfolding every minute of every day. "I'm starting to see the bigger picture," Valeri says, in the aftermath of their taking of the old Palace of Westminster. He stands out front, with the others, a few days after the seizure of Westminster, after they've secured the area and ferretted out the last remaining enemy troops. "I know that you are," says Sister Simpson, standing alongside him, "and I'm glad at least one of us is." They stand not among the crowd assembled in the street but flanking Elijah himself, as he stands atop an old bus and prepares to address the crowd. Even though London has been largely abandoned in the wake of the nuclear exchange on the continent, still there're enough people around to fill the square, mostly the homeless who've taken to inhabiting abandoned buildings and some workers formerly of the Provisional Government's Labour Brigades kept around at gunpoint until freed by the Popular Front's attack.

But wherever Elijah should go, he'll find allies, sympathizers among the many who've been made to endure the hopeless despair of poverty, unemployment, the indignities meted out upon them and their children and their children's children. Don't think, don't stop thinking, but always think about all the things we've left behind. It's not so simple a thing to let go of the past and embrace the future, but it's something we all have to do, no matter the cost. Men like Valeri, they're exactly the sort of men who would lead the way through to the future. It's not the people most rewarded by the past, but the people to be rewarded by a future they'll give their blood, their honour, even their lives to establish in our present. "It's now time," says Sister Simpson, turning to face Valeri. "But the worst is yet to come," says Valeri. Sister Simpson nods. Much has happened. In the weeks after the nuclear exchange on the continent, the truce which existed on the continent between East and West has been violated numerous times, yet neither side has taken to declaring the ceasefire void. Each government needs the peace to be kept so as to take measures against falling to the very same revolutionary character that's claimed Britain for itself. Still this Lucius character continues his speech half a world away, saying, "...and I hereby declare that the United Nations should become no more, in its place a new community of nations rising against the rebel threat. And this new community should be called the Global Dominion, committed to unity in the face of the rebel threat." And as this Lucius character basks in the applause of all the dignitaries assembled in New York, we know the tragedy of his work, doomed as he is to act out his own defeat even as he exalts himself among the rulers of men. But still he continues his speech, saying, "...all that I ask of you is your unwavering loyalty, your commitment to follow me as I lead you in this campaign to cleanse all your nations of the enemies who seek to kill us all." And even as Lucius declares to the world his thirst for power, for many decades lurking beneath the surface but now brought into the light, still the working men of Britain, Europe, all the world turn towards Elijah, a new way of life rising out of the ashes of the old. Lucius receives the favour and obedience of the highest and most exalted, while Elijah earns the respect and admiration of the most pathetic and wretched of all. As Lucius addresses the former in New York, Elijah addresses the latter here in London. Fighting continues on the continent, nationalist elements turning the Balkans into a confusing array of wars, in the East civil wars raging across Ukraine, while half of Western Europe is in the grips of a revolutionary fervour, with the Popular Front here in Britain the first to wrest power from government. Soon, a great international alliance of workers will form, centred on the People's Republic founded by Elijah and his disciples in London on this day. Much is to happen after this alliance forms. For now, though, the world watches the small gathering of people outside the Palace of Westminster, the crowd having braved the unseasonable cold so they might be present for an historic moment.

As has become his custom, Elijah takes to addressing his followers directly, a crowd of refugees having been assembled the day before, among the refugees only the most pathetic and wretched from the old way of life. If not for the threat of nuclear annihilation, all London would be filled with his supporters. But then again, if not for the threat of nuclear annihilation, the enemy might've been able to withstand the offensive which has carried Elijah and the Popular Front to the cusp of victory, now and always. But all this talk of rebels and anti-rebels, of forces dark and light, it must always be grounded in the lives, the day to day struggles of the ordinary workers, those who have always been burdened by the need simply to survive. Still the sound of sporadic gunfire rattles off into the day. The cruiser Borealis has docked not far from here, too badly damaged to be of much use as a warship any longer. But then our war was never like those that've come before it, made not of lines on the map or tallies of the dead and dying. "Don't you wish this was all over?" asks Cohen. "No," says Dmitri, replying truthfully, "they killed my wife and daughters. And they killed many you cared about as well. For this I hope the war is never over." Cohen nods, an acute sense of purpose having infused itself into their bodies, into the air they breathe and the deck rocking gently beneath their feet. It seems little is left of the ship which once flew the banner of the old Royal Navy, with so many holes in her deck and hull, with so many scorch and burn marks dotted across her decks, with nearly every window blown in or out. Still, the Borealis will see action again, even after the crews of other vessels pledge themselves to follow the banner of Elijah and the Popular Front. It's not so simple a thing to destroy a ship and expect she'll remain destroyed for long. In truth, a ship is neither her hull nor her superstructure, but something else entirely, something far more profound, the men who live and breathe duty, honour, loyalty to a calling higher than any flag could ever fly. But even the individual men who, together, make up the crew of vessels like the free cruiser Borealis are not the ship they man, nor is the ship they man them. It's a curious thing, to be so made up in the manner of another, even as death could visit upon each of them at any moment still Dmitri and Mason along with all the others aboard committed to the struggle in ways they'd never thought possible, in ways they'd never before seen. In this moment of self-actualization, when free men stand freely for the cause of freedom, none can know the future which lies in wait. Although this is not where Elijah had envisioned the path would take them, nevertheless he is here, with all who would seek to stand in his way, in our way mustering their strength, gathering their forces anew. It's not the first time, nor should it be the last that the working men of Britain, Europe, even the world might have their spirits raised and their voices heard, even as Valeri listens to Elijah's speech. We've been here before, not at this exact spot but somewhere else in Britain, with the rebel Elijah proclaiming not only the existence of the People's Republic but also the heralding of a new moral compass, a spiritual centre in which the dark essence guiding the working man's revolution should be able to grant itself permanence.

The ground quivers slightly an random intervals, and the rattling of intermittent gunfire can be heard even into the day. Although we haven't yet met any of the gunmen who have taken to tormenting the revolution, they're out there, the great bulk of them still to coalesce around a movement centuries in the making. It's time, but it's not yet time. This is the dawn of a new era, the moment which should be recognized now and always as the exact point in which the tides of history turned inexorably and inevitably against us, the moment when neither heaven nor earth could save us from our own selves. Although Valeri is become one of the rebel Elijah's most fervent disciples in the years since the revolution began, he is only one man among many. And now, after Elijah has given the order, some rebel gunmen set the Palace of Westminster on fire, soon a towering inferno consuming the entire premises. This is the perfect backdrop for his address to all Britain, Europe, and the world. In the distance, the columns of smoke still rise from the fires of liberation still burning across the city. The rebel Elijah's triumphant arrival in London has relieved the working men of their occupation, the former liberated zones having extended themselves to encompass all the city. Although Valeri has taken up arms only recently, in truth he's always been a soldier, as all of us have always been soldiers, as with all who have come before us and all who have yet to be. All of us have been fighting something all our lives. Now is not the time, though, to look back, only forward. If Valeri should close his eyes and look into the distance he could see his mother and father, their legacy fulfilled in him by virtue of his standing before the halls of power. But Valeri can't close his eyes. The sight of the rebel Elijah standing amid a crowd of ordinary workers where once there might've The rebel Elijah has said to them that the old Palace of Westminster ought not to be simply inhabited by the new regime, rather destroyed, set alight and then left to burn until reduced to ash.

As Elijah knows and as Valeri is coming to know, it's time to embrace the horror. It's time to let go of the past and turn to the future with every ounce of strength we have. Though it's only early-November, already winter has set in, an unusually early cold snap plunging temperatures below freezing and falling the first snow across the south of England and much of Western Europe. And along the streets in front of the Palace, a bitterly cold wind courses, raising goosebumps on every patch of Valeri's exposed skin. But it's time for him to embrace the cold, the frigid sensation enveloping him, causing him to stand taller and prouder as he listens to the rebel Elijah declare the dawning of a new age. All signs of the old way of life have disappeared. But we must never forget that it is not some long-simmering grudge which gave birth to the war we now fight. As the way of things in Britain, across Europe, even around the world had been lurching towards the logical culmination of hundreds of years in oppression and exploitation, this moment is the first true step forward, the first true landmark in the struggle for liberation by the hopelessly poor and the miserably lonely. Tonight, there are few watching their screens to see the rebel Elijah make his proclamation from the street outside Westminster Palace, the threat of nuclear fire keeping most away. But Elijah's proclamation, recorded and distributed on networks across the world, will be seen by all. Still lying, dying in Valeri's arms, Tonya lives only because the dark essence has seen fit to grant her that purpose in witnessing the rebel Elijah's proclamation. And once her witnessing is complete, the dark essence should let her die in peace, having fulfilled this purpose. It matters little that she'll never see the coming period when last the rebel Elijah should see the working man's final victory over the evil confronting him. No, she must live through this moment, some force unknown to her keeping her alive so that she may bear witness before fading into the dark. See this not as a definitive record of what's happened but as an attempt to fashion a narrative which could capture the true character of the course of events. It's impossible for any of us to imagine how she could've felt, how any of the dead might've felt in their last moments.

But as Valeri listens to the rebel Elijah speaking to the crowd, he feels in his heart a mounting anticipation for what's to come; he's sustained injuries in the assault on Westminster, for now only a stiffness in his neck and a dull pain in his shoulder to portend his difficulties still to come. But this time, Valeri isn't consigned to watch on a screen hundreds of kilometres distant. No, this time he's among the crowd standing all around Elijah, his proximity to their leader making the experience seem, to him, all the more real. And Valeri can tell that Tonya, close to death as she may be, feels the same way. "...But I tell you this," Elijah says, "our history is not led by men, as it never has been and never will be. Look not to me nor to any of my disciples as our future's vanguard, but to the most pathetic and wretched among our ranks, drawn as we are from them, drawn as they are from us. Already, the forces massed against us are formidable, the obstacles in our path, insurmountable. The tide of an unwinnable war has turned against us. But I tell you this: we shall win through, no matter the cost. We shall cross ground impassable. We shall summit peaks insurmountable. We shall endure the darkest of nights. This, then, is our challenge. The paradise which has fallen is now revealed to all as the fraud it had always been. and now we must face an even greater challenge, one which should threaten to consume us all. The paradise which is fallen was never our paradise but the paradise of they who would consume our bodies, they who would our very blood and sweat into their own personal enrichment. But I tell you this: their paradise falling does not, cannot, will not mean our paradise rising, not yet. We have much work to be done, much sacrifice to be given before our paradise can rise. Surely I will not live to see it, and neither will you. Our children, perhaps, their children, perhaps. But our future, to whichever generation it belongs, will be our liberation." Elijah holds in his hand a copy of the text, 'On the Way Forward For Our Revolutionary Struggle and Its Components,' fresh off the presses, and he holds it as if to accentuate every breath with its symbolism as founding the new People's Republic. Already, dissemination has begun, as the essays and chapters which make up the text have been widely read for many, many years.

As Valeri listens, he keeps his grip on Tonya's hands tight, as if to make his strength hers, even as his strength fades slowly owing to the pain in his shoulder and the stiffness in his neck. "...You have seen the rising of an evil in the world. You have seen it all your lives. Even now, there are enemies massing against our new beginning, enemies who would offer you the false promise of freedom from struggle. Where he promises you life, I promise you death. Where he promises you comfort, I promise you struggle. Where he promises you peace, I promise you war. Know the promises of the false prophet of our times, the great deceiver who would have you pledge fealty to him in exchange for all these things he promises you." Elijah pauses. The small crowd assembled roars their approval. Valeri only watches and listens, holding Tonya in his lap, cradling her gently. It's an entirely fraternal embrace, as they'd come to be such good friends over the past few months. Her memory will live on, even though she's left no family. Valeri will make sure of it. The rebel Elijah's speech continues. "The Provisional Government is no more," says Elijah, "and whatever semblance of unity and protection it offered is now abandoned. But the Provisional Government was meant to offer you neither unity nor protection, as it was never more than a conspiracy by the men of the old way of life to destroy our rising, to pre-emptively avert the establish of our new way of life. We oppose the war in Europe, as we oppose the enslavement and murder of working men for the profit of their wealthy masters. But in this opposition we necessarily seek to bring about an end to these phenomena, which can only be done by our combined struggle. This, we commit ourselves to wholeheartedly, without hesitation or doubt."

Tonya lives, but for only a few moments longer, while Valeri must live through the horrors to come. But while Valeri lives, he imagines this as the moment his mother and father fought and died for all those years ago, and he imagines they might be looking down on him right now, that they might be among the crowd in some esoteric way to witness this momentous occasion. "With the power vested in me by the Popular Front and its councils and allied worker's committees across Britain, I hereby declare the founding of a new People's Republic, its dominion extending to all the lands of the old United Kingdom, its loyalties pledged only to the ideal of the great international solidarity. But I tell you this: our war can never be won. In this, I call on all the working men of the world to put aside their petty differences, imposed upon them, and unite against their common enemy. In so uniting, we shall form from the many an indivisible whole. In this, you have my promise. In this, you have my blood and my body to be made whole with yours. In this, you shall soon know freedom from tyranny, oppression, and persecution. Know that Westminster is not our prize, nor is Moscow. No, we shall not rest until every last man, woman, and child in the world is free. But our work must be complete here in Britain, first, just as the work of our brothers and sisters in arms around the world must be complete, too. We found not a new government but a new way of life, from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. And although our People's Republic at its founding extends its dominion only over the lands of the old United Kingdom, know that in truth our country has no borders, extending as our territory does to any place where there are working men who seek to be masters of their own destinies. We recognize no foreign power, for all powers are foreign except the power imbued to the character of the working man in carrying out his work. In this we see all other powers as inherently corrupt and illegitimate, and accordingly we seek only their downfall. We brook no interference by these powers in our lives. And we will win through their power, no matter the cost. To those who would commit an unspeakable horror, the callous murder of our own brothers and sisters, you are condemned by your own hand. In reaching out to you "

"We have seen the horrific nuclear fire on the continent claim the lives of tens of thousands of our soldiers, in an instant. The tide of an unwinnable war has turned against us. But this is only a small sample of what's to come. From the desolate battlefields of Eastern Europe to the scorching heat of the Sahara desert, from the bloodied waters of the West Pacific to the dust bowls of the American Midwest, from even the camps in Africa to the prisons of the Australian outback, all shall know the liberation we seek to bring. We are weak, and our enemies are strong. But in our weakness, there is strength. And in their strength, there is weakness."

"This is the story of our time. This is the challenge we face. And this is the call which we must heed. Workers of all countries: rise!"
A Note From the Author

'Paradise Falling' is the second in a series of novels. Part I is available at many retailers. Part III is expected to be released over the course of the next eighteen months.

You can follow J.T. on Twitter, where his handle is @jtmarshauthor for the latest news.

You can also visit his personal website at http://jtmarshauthor.com/

