Патрик Томлинсон: Children of the Divide

“When you’re older,” Benson said, then braced his good hand against the top, now bottom, of the canopy and hit the release on his crash web. The anchors of the five-point harness came loose with a metallic click and sent Benson falling towards the roof, floor. He tried to open the starboard side door, but it wouldn’t give, not even with a shoulder check of encouragement. The portside door was more accommodating.

“I’m never flying again,” Benson said.

Theresa’s voice burst through his plant link without a connection request.

<10-4.> Benson stuck his head back inside the downed quadrotor’s cabin. “C’mon kids, time to get out of bed. Mommy’s pissed.”

Bumped and bruised, but none the worse for wear, they recovered what little equipment they’d brought along from the quad’s storage compartment and pushed hard for the station house where Benson and Korolev could get into the rest of their riot gear. There might even be spares lying around for Sakiko. Kexx, well, ze was already pretty damned hard to kill. Ze’d manage.

The normally bustling street that divided the Glades from the Museum District was bare, and eerily silent. The sounds of chanted slogans, crackling of fires, and smashing of windows filtered through the alleys from several blocks away. Remote enough not to present an immediate threat, but ominous all the same. Benson led his mismatched little quartet down the center of the avenue. They were exposed, walking in plain sight, but the wide lanes gave them plenty of visibility and time to respond to any surprises that might pop out from around a corner.

Assuming the rioters hadn’t gotten their hands on any rifles.

Benson crossed mental fingers and pressed on. Fortunately, they arrived at the doors of the station house without any amateur snipers throwing potshots downrange at them. The equipment lockers inside had been thoroughly picked through, but Korolev’s personal gear was still there, and he managed to scrounge up some older, mismatched pieces for Benson and Sakiko.

They emerged a handful of minutes later donning well-worn and somewhat ill-fitting helmets, chest protectors, shoulder pads, forearm guards, groin and thigh coverings, knee pads, and shin guards. It wasn’t ballistic rated, but it would do the job against blunt objects like clubs, thrown rocks, and most edged weapons. There were gaps in the armor all over the place, especially the joints, but it would have to do.

Benson had grabbed a hard plastic tonfa, as well as a clear acrylic shield that already carried the scratches of several past engagements. Sakiko still wanted a rifle, but Korolev put the kibosh on that idea real quick. And since he was the only one with the access codes to the weapons locker, it was his call.

“It’s itchy,” Sakiko complained as they marched towards the Museum.

“Yeah, well we usually wear shirts and pants under the armor, kiddo,” Benson said. “It’s going to be ugly when we get there. Stay close to Kexx and me.” Benson expected a fight, or a biting retort, but the gravity of the situation had apparently worked its way into even the teenager’s brain. She’d been somewhat more somber since they’d discovered Foreman Lind’s body. Sometimes growing up took years. Sometimes, it happened in an afternoon.

Benson linked up with his wife’s plant.

Benson started to jog despite the extra weight of the gear. He’d never given into the temptation to let his workout routine slide, even as the battle grew increasingly difficult as the years piled on. Now, he was really glad he’d been so hard on himself. The rest of the quartet followed suit. The sounds of unrest grew in intensity as the Museum itself came into sight until they drowned out all other noise.

“They’re really worked up,” Korolev said. “I can barely hear myself think!”

“Lucky you don’t do much of it, then,” Benson shouted back. “Switch to the squad link. Kexx, Sakiko, just stay close and keep an eye out for hand signals. You might not be able to hear anything over this racket. And stay sharp. Theresa says half these kids are high as kites.”

“Lovely,” Kexx said.

The Museum campus sat at the very end of the long central avenue that bisected the district. Theresa’s forces had set up a perimeter spanning from one side of the avenue to the other with a string of safety barriers and constables wearing the same sort of riot gear Benson and Korolev were wearing, plastic shields, and a variety of less-than-lethal weapons ranging from batons, to tonfas, to stun sticks. A couple of the constables even held the shock shields they used in the jail for extracting noncompliant inmates from their cells. Benson spotted a dozen PDW rifles identical to the one Korolev carried, but they were shoulder slung and being kept out of the confrontation. For now.

But the safety barriers were flimsy affairs, meant more as visual warnings around construction sites than proper barricades. The line of constables worked to hold their ground, but a constant barrage of rocks and debris rained down on them, thrown from deeper in the crowd with the unnerving accuracy Atlantians possessed. The defenders had to split their attention between incoming missiles overhead, and the pulsing mass of bodies on just the other side of their inadequate blockade.

In the crowd’s wake, desolation ruled. Every window and door along the boulevard was smashed or splintered. Awnings had been ripped off their frames. Recycling cans were either tipped over with their contents strewn about the street, thrown through storefront windows, or set ablaze. Benches were torn free of their foundations, and several of them had been passed overhead to the very front of the crowd where they were being used as makeshift shields, battering rams, or counter barriers. Street lamps had been pulled down or had their LED bulbs smashed. All of the bushes, trees, and landscaping had been uprooted, slashed, and torn up by thousands of grasping toes. It would take months to repair the damage, and set their manufacturing queue back just as long.

The throngs of rioters flowed and convulsed like a violent sea. Most of them had taken off their shirts and let their skinglow run wild with waves of harsh patterns and light. But these Atlantians had mostly grown up in Shambhala. They lacked the fine control over their skin of their kin across the ocean. Whereas a large gathering of warriors, or a village assembled in ritual prayer looked like a single, coherent, interconnected organism. But this mob, they looked like static loudly blaring from a broken video display.

But as they approached the line, the rioters’ chants became clear enough. The translation matrix in his plant lagged trying to sort out the different voices from the din, but Benson didn’t need it. “Defilers of Varr,” they shouted, over and over, as if in a trance. The rhythm of it all was almost… hypnotic.

Benson found the hedonistic crowd’s newfound piety more than a little convenient, but then riots were seldom about their cause célèbre, not really. It was a spark, an ignition source for a preexisting, highly-combustible mix of social grievances, economic stagnation, and emotional despair. Couple those fuel sources with thousands of listless, frustrated, drugged-up youths, and you had the perfect fire triangle of social upheaval.

The ingredients had been present for years, but the humans of Shambhala had let them fester in the dark, so obsessed they were with keeping their eyes fixed on a brighter future they refused to look down and see the suffering around them. Now, they were paying the price for that neglectful hubris. All Benson and his allies could do was work to contain the damage.