Патрик Томлинсон - Children of the Divide

A bench came crashing down on one of the barriers, splintering it into a hundred white and orange plastic shards. Emboldened by the breach in the line, the mob surged forward and pressed against the defenders. The center of the line bulged and threatened to break entirely.

Benson sent.

Benson grabbed Korolev by the shoulder and opened the squad link.

Benson turned to Kexx and Sakiko. “We’re going up the center. Stay on my ass and back me up!” he shouted over the surging crowd.

The four of them joined the rest of the thin blue line separating civilization from chaos. Theresa had called in her reserves, which included many of the Mustang’s bench of players, including several brave Atlantians standing up to defend the city from their own kin. Benson finally spotted the outline of his wife, standing right in the thick of the action because of course she was. He pushed towards her position at the breech in the middle of the line.

Benson’s sentence stopped dead when Theresa turned around to look at him. Half of the clear plastic face guard attached to her helmet had cracked and fallen away. An angry purple bruise and a stream of blood dripped from her left cheekbone.

he said flatly.

he said as vengeance rose in his throat, but Theresa slapped him down.

Not settling scores. Clear?>

he said sheepishly, and advanced to fill in a gap in their coverage. Even in his fifties, Benson was not a small man. He presented a large, tempting target, especially for adolescents with a chip on their shoulders. A lot of people would like a chance to earn the title of the one who beat the Zero hero.

A fist-sized chunk of masonry came flying in at an oblique angle, but Benson got his shield up in time and it skipped harmlessly off the acrylic, leaving another new scratch to mark its course.

“Gunna have to do better than that!” Benson shouted in challenge to the mob.

It answered with a bigger rock that left a crack in his shield.

Theresa said.

Benson changed tactics. “Hey Sco’Val! Has the Bearer figured out you planted that bomb in the Temple yet?”

“You lie!” Sco’Val shouted, loud enough to be heard over the din.

“I saw how you looked at it, Sco’Val. You also knew where the drug house was. And now you’re inciting a riot along with all these kids you gave the bak’ri to. You’re under arrest as soon as I get my hands around your skinny little neck.”

“Do your worst, defiler!” Sco’Val physically shoved several hesitant rioters towards the line. They pressed in with renewed vigor, bowed the barricades inward and put the defenders behind them on their back feet.

never listen ?> Theresa demanded.

Driven by bak’ri courage, a squirrely little Atlantian managed to squirt between the legs of two of the defenders on the line, causing one of them to turn their back on the rest of the crowd to try and tackle zer. It was a rookie mistake, a reflex Benson had to train out of his linemen as they learned to trust their linebackers and secondary to pick up anyone who gets by.

The crowd sensed the break in the line and pressed, shoving the turned man to his knees while five, then ten, then twenty rioters flowed over him like hydraulic fluid spraying from a hole in a hose. Nearby constables and deputies moved to contain the spill, but that left the line thin in other places, emboldening the crowd up and down the barriers to press their newfound advantage. Rioters broke through in two more places, and suddenly Theresa’s constables were being flanked.

Benson knew a breakdown in protection when he saw one. They were being blitzed, and there just weren’t enough linemen to hold back the flood.

he said to Theresa.

Begrudgingly, Theresa agreed. She didn’t like giving ground in a fight. It ran counter to her nature. But she sent out the order to withdraw and regroup anyway, because she liked losing even less.

They retreated… tactically repositioned themselves halfway up the steps to the Museum’s main entrance. The higher ground meant the rioters had to climb up to meet them, and gave Theresa a much better field of view over the situation from which to direct her constables. Distinct advantages in a battle when your opponents didn’t possess firearms.

But as good as their position was, the mob’s advantage in sheer numbers rendered any small tactical advantage moot. Their backs were against the wall now, literally. By abandoning the avenue, they’d also allowed the riots to engulf them on three sides. The crush of Atlantian youths, chanting and hurling debris, closed in on the few dozen defenders like a rising tide. A defender went down. Linqvist, an absolute brute of a man who had played for the Mustangs as both a Zero goalie and later a football center. He’d been hit in the head, hard, but his plant data remained intact. He was conscious, but concussed, out of the fight. Kexx and Sakiko ran over to where he had slumped, dragged him up the steps to the rear by the handle on the back of his riot gear. Kexx ordered Sakiko to remain with him, then returned to zer position on the line.

Theresa barked into the com link.

Korolev said apprehensively.

As if her plea had been heard, a thundering voice from on high blanketed the plaza like a sonic boom.

“Play. Time’s. Over. Kids.”

Everyone froze in place, collectively caught with their hands in the cookie jar, afraid to turn around to face their parent’s wrath.

Benson said into the link.

Korolev shot back.

Behind their deteriorating defensive line, the double doors of the Museum’s main entrance cracked loudly, then swung inward on creaking, ominous hinges. Behind them, clad in resplendent crimson samurai armor, a black-lacquered katana scabbard tied around her waist, stood Devorah. A tiny, furious vision in red.

Everyone, from the knot of constables, to the very back row of rioters, looked up to see what the diminutive woman would do next. Once she felt she held the crowd’s attention, Devorah stepped out and strode slowly, but purposefully down the stairs, her knees creaking nearly as much as the doors she’d just exited.

“You lot want to fight? Fine, knock yourselves out,” her voice boomed. She’d tied her plant into the Museum’s outdoor speakers and cranked the dial to eleven. “Rip down lights, tear up trees. Break windows. Have fun. But this!” She lifted an arm, shaking in equal measure from fresh rage and the weight of years, and pointed back at the entrance to the Museum. “This is the history of MY people. It is the collected work of a thousand generations of MY elders. And it’s the history of YOUR people, too. We have artifacts from Atlantis in there that go back to before the Shrinking. And it’s the history of what our Trident has already built together, here and across the sea.”

Devorah pushed her way through the line of constables, down to the foot of the steps of the Museum, her true home. Incredibly, the mob moved back, hollowing out a hemisphere of space around her.

“So have your little temper-tantrum out here, but before any one of you steps a wiggly toe inside my house…” She put a hand on the katana’s leather wrapped handle, and the sound of ringing metal echoed through the scene. “…you’ll have to fight me, personally.”

Devorah held the glimmering katana high in the air in a ready position as the last amber light of the day glinted off its centuries-old polished steel. “C’mon. I’m basically mummified already. Even the weakest among you could finish me off easily. Who wants to have a go?”