The fire was gone. They’d been here for months, camping in the park of Acuto’s corporate campus, a permanent colony of idealistic barnacles. No more camera crews, no more chants, no more rallying, just faded signs propped on the barriers. Even the damn company had taken pity and started feeding them, providing blankets and tents. He never took them, it was clearly PR bullshit.
That was how he felt yesterday.
Through the night the fires had rekindled. He woke early to chants and screaming, and the metal barriers falling. Tablets were being passed around, someone had set up a projector on a building with three news feeds. It was day one all over. The bloody sins of the corporation were fresh and the people howled for justice.
A wall of corporate meat shields materialized in front of the building, all kitted up in their formal tacwear. The camp was all but gone, the rules of engagement with it. Angry hands whipped tent poles and boards with nails and pieces of the barriers back and forth overhead. Leftover coats from winter and messenger bags were now body armor. He tied one of his dirty tees tied around his face. He knew it wouldn’t work, but it bolstered his bravery against the coming gas.
“You know they only have non-lethals,” said the lady in black with bright glowing eyes. She grabbed his shoulder and slipped a pistol into his hand.
She moved through the crowd like the shadow of a great shark. He was a step ahead, a pilot fish. Their school grew as they weaved through the throng, eventually causing a tidal bulge in the line. More and more weapons passed out of her hands. She was huge, and her armor pulsed, pushing at its seams, almost glowing through the cracks. She was a goddess, this was a sign. It was the only way he could explain what he was seeing, what he was feeling. The mass of flesh churned around them. It felt as though he was physically pushing the entire horde with each step.
She was gone. His skin tightened in a wave of electric adrenaline. It was time to fight, it was time to make the world better. Things would change after this, the world would notice, the world would get the message. They would make sure it never had to happen again.
He was at the front, they pushed against the security officers’ shields. His pistol snaked through, found a crack in the wall. The pigs screamed. He felt the trigger pull. He felt the recoil. He felt the powder of the officer’s shotgun burn his face. He felt the blood of the woman behind him hit the back of his head.
He saw a lady.
All in black armor.
With bright glowing eyes.
Her hand flattened against the front of the tower. The panes flaked and splintered. She tore away the glass like a sheet. The frothing tide surged past the guards and flooded the building.
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