The Dying Fall
Chapter 26: Riot
Song for this chapter:
Chapter 26: Riot
The hours to dawn crawled by uninterrupted, except for a single occasion when the blue and red lights of a Patrol vehicle flashed momentarily on the alley walls as it passed along the street. Eventually, despite the cold and her attempts to remain alert, Carrie drifted into a brief, shallow doze. When she awoke, the grey tones of the morning twilight revealed the details of the doorway she was sitting in and the alleyway just outside. The snow and cutting breeze had ceased and a few sounds of early activity reached her ears: the unlocking of a gate, the swish of a bus and the clatter of bins.
Stiffly uncurling herself from her corner and using the wall as a support to get to her feet, Carrie checked her watch and saw it was nearly half past seven. Trying to rub some warmth back into her limbs, she edged down the alley, ruefully noting the Dextinction symbol on the wall further along from her doorway. At the end of the alley she paused for a moment to glance up and down the street. In theory, there should now be nothing stopping her from heading home along the main streets. The area seemed quiet and still, as it should this early on a Saturday morning. She could see lights on in some of the windows of the houses along the road, and, a little way up, a woman came out of her front door and knocked at her neighbour’s. After taking a moment to judge the direction the square lay in, Carrie cautiously stepped out onto the snow-iced pavement and began to walk briskly up the road, impatient to get home.
But as she drew closer to the centre of town, Carrie began to pick out unexpected sounds in the near distance. The closer she got, the more distinct the sounds became until she could distinguish shouts, clanging and what might have been drumming, punctuated occasionally by a horn blast. This wasn’t the same panicked tumult of the raid, but something much more unified and purposeful. She wasn’t the only one who noticed the growing cacophony: upstairs windows were opening on the road she was traversing and people were leaning out on their sills to listen. Carrie slowed her pace as she got to the end of the road and a group of five young men and women ran across it in front of her, heading towards the centre of town.
Was this the rally? Had it been moved forward a day? If it was the rally, something must have gone wrong—this clearly wasn’t the peaceful event that had been planned.
It was easy to guess that the commotion would be focused in the square, which meant Carrie would have to take a slightly longer route home to avoid it. She still had to get a little closer to the central district first, so she kept a wary eye out for Patrol vehicles as she continued on her way.
A short while later, Carrie saw a Patrol van parked up on the road ahead of her and swiftly took a detour down the side of a restaurant, through to the neighbouring street. Almost immediately, as she emerged onto the pavement, Carrie saw a Patrol officer striding up the road just a few yards away. The officer was breathing heavily, pink in her cheeks, and marching with one hand resting on her holstered baton. She saw Carrie the same moment Carrie saw her. Carrie felt confident she could outrun the officer if necessary, but there was no point in drawing suspicion on herself if this was just going to be a simple stop and search.
“Halt, please!” the officer commanded, when she was just a few feet away.
Carrie stopped and the officer eyed her up and down with nervy scepticism.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“From where?”
“My boyfriend’s.”
The officer gestured impatiently. “Come on then—arms up!”
Carrie raised her hands in the air as the officer stepped behind her and gave her a quick pat-down.
“Where’s your I.D.?”
“At home.”
The officer huffed as she faced Carrie again and indicated she could lower her arms. “Where’s home?” she asked, as she tapped her wrist pad.
It was a routine question that Carrie was reluctant to answer.
“Just a few streets away,” she said casually.
The officer didn’t reply for a moment as she scrolled through the data on her wrist pad. She paused for a few seconds, looked at Carrie, looked back at the pad and then back up at Carrie again.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
This time, Carrie knew the officer wasn’t asking because she needed to know the answer; she was asking to see if Carrie would lie to her. Carrie had no choice but to give an honest answer.
“Carrie Rye.”
“Face the wall, please,” the officer said, placing one hand back on her baton.
“Ma’am?” Carrie asked, her brain racing to understand the implications of this command.
Shit. What was on that wrist pad screen?
“Face the wall!” the officer repeated, punching each word from her lips. As if to demonstrate she wouldn’t be asking again, she drew her baton from its holster and grabbed Carrie by the elbow to twist her around
Bile rose up Carrie’s throat as she turned to face the wall, still trying to figure out what was happening and why. She could only guess her name was on some sort of watch list, and she could only think it had got there because someone had given it to the Patrol. Perhaps someone she knew had been caught in the raid on the undersound. She’d seen people she knew at the undersounds before: people from her school days, friends of friends, even ex-colleagues.
The officer pushed Carrie against the wall and grabbed her left wrist to pull it behind her back. Carrie heard the jingle of cuffs as the officer fished them from her belt, and then she heard the sound of running feet along the street, getting louder, followed by the tinkling of breaking glass. The officer swore under her breath and Carrie could feel her hands trembling as she tried to fix the cuff. Carrie half-twisted to look behind her as there came the sound of more glass breaking, much closer this time. Someone made a savage whooping noise and there were shouts along the street.
“Face the wall!” the officer snarled, finally clipping the cuff to Carrie’s wrist.
They both flinched as there came a third smash! and glass sprayed the pavement just a few feet from them.
“Death to the ‘trols!” a voice yelled as a Patrol car siren wailed nearby.
The officer spun around, her radio crackling frantically, one hand still holding the loose end of the cuff as she fumbled to holster her baton and grab her gun instead. Carrie glanced over her shoulder and saw a group of about eight men and women running up the street, tossing glass bottles, whilst they laughed and swore gleefully. One man carried a broken placard and another a broom handle, which he was brandishing in a circular movement above his head. A Patrol car screeched into the road behind the rabble, siren blaring, lights flashing and Tannoy barking unheeded warnings. The background commotion from the direction of the square seemed to grow louder and more chant-like.
Carrie had only a split second to absorb this unfolding chaos before she was suddenly in the midst of it. Without really thinking about the consequences, she jerked her left hand from her back and shoved her right shoulder into the officer as she spun around from the wall. The officer stumbled back, her fingers slipping from the cuff, and her gun clattering to the floor as another bottle smashed a few inches from her.
“Don’t move!” the officer shouted, trying to retrieve her weapon. “I’ll shoot!”
But Carrie ignored her, and, whilst the officer scrambled for her gun and the rabble bore down on them, she ran. She had few options about her escape route: even as she neared the end of the street, a Patrol van pulled across it and the doors opened to unload a small team of officers in riot gear. Carrie swerved into the nearest adjoining road, trying to work out how she could get home without running into the main conflict. But every turn she took, she was diverted by flashing lights, or scuffles between civilians and the Patrol. A couple of times the crack-crack of a firearm rang out and it began to dawn on Carrie that she was already caught in the middle of a full-scale riot. Rather than skirting around the centre of town, she was being forced towards it.
She stopped running when she reached an alley that connected directly to the square. A hooded figure nearly knocked her over as they thundered out of it in the opposite direction. Carrie steadied herself with one hand on the wall of a hairdresser’s and noticed the cuff still dangling from her left wrist. A sudden, stark clarity hit her and she stared down the alleyway where the sound of chanting floated through the gloom towards her.
Where was she going? She couldn’t go home. The Patrol were probably there already, tearing through the house from top to bottom. And she certainly couldn’t go to Meg’s. She had no idea where Nano was and there was no way she could make it to his place now—assuming his identity and address hadn’t also been compromised. She had no money, no one she could contact, and nowhere to go. There were only two possible conclusions to this situation and she’d finally come to the moment where, just like Savannah, she’d have to make her choice. Carrie knew she should feel panic or desperation, but instead she just felt numb. Mechanically, she began walking through the alley, feeling disconnected from the sounds that echoed past her and the slow but steady movements of her own body.
Emerging from the gloom. Carrie found the square in the midst of a battle for order. A solid chant filled the air as Patrol officers tried to push back the crowd that swelled at the far end of the cobbled arena. A few people lined the pavements on the edges of the square, but they were mostly silent witnesses to the skirmish. As Carrie drifted around the edge of the scene, she heard tramping boots behind her and glanced around in a daze to see a squad of riot officers pouring from the direction of the market. The bystanders around the edge of the square began to move away from the black tide and Carrie stumbled with the crowd as it was pushed towards the sea of protestors.
A Patrol officer who was taking instructions on his radio as he tried to manage the crowd of protesters, caught Carrie’s eye and then the cuff dangling from her wrist. Carrie automatically stepped back off the pavement as the officer moved in her direction. He reached for his gun, but Carrie kept backing towards the centre of the square until her brain finally made the decision to turn, as if to make a final run for it.
“Stop!” the officer yelled.
Carrie hesitated and for a second her gaze scanned the jostling crowd in front of her as it pushed back at the line of Patrol officers. There was no way out and nowhere to go.
“On your knees and put your hands on your head!”
Without any further hesitation, Carrie complied, raising her hands to the back of her head and getting to her knees on the cobbles, not six feet from where Savannah had made a different choice.
She heard the officer’s boots approaching behind her, and then her attention was drawn to a figure bursting through the Patrol line and sprinting across the square towards her.
“Carrie!”
Ignoring the officer’s demand that he stop, Nano dropped to his knees in front of Carrie and pulled her into a desperate embrace. Her heart suddenly pounding in her chest, and her body shaking, Carrie wrapped her arms around him and held on tight.
“Nano!” she exclaimed in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
Nano’s arms tightened around her. “Where else would I be?” he said, as if her question was utter nonsense.
“This is it,” Carrie said after a few seconds’ pause. “There’s no going back now.”
The cocky smile was evident in Nano’s voice as he replied, earnestly: “Who wants to go back?”
Next weekend: Chapter 27—If Music Be Life, Give Me Excess Of It
The Dying Fall: Index
Welcome to the index page of The Dying Fall. Please scroll down to find links to each published chapter. If you need any help, let me know via the message button at the bottom of the page.
Author’s Notes:
As Carrie said: This is it. No going back now.
Two more chapters to go.
Chapter 27: If Music Be Life, Give Me Excess Of It , coming next weekend.
PJ