Year Zero - Prologue

Local Network World: 0008

Dates: 15/08/2013

The Siege of Edenglassie

The crowd surged against the hastily erected barricades with a panicked roar. Security forces stared them down - statue-like and ready - separated by nothing more than electrified chain-link fencing and demountable anti-vehicle emplacements. Behind them clustered armoured trucks mounted with water cannons and disorganised, huddled groups of police officers. Their perimeter was thin, stretching all the way around the city centre. The frantic desperation of the people trapped within was evident in their lack of organisation: if they had rushed a single point they likely would have broken through. But instead - like a shoal of fish ensnared in a net - the collective mass heaved to-and-fro around the margins, straining but never tearing the thin barrier. The ‘Siege of Edenglassie City’ continued to hold, deep into the third consecutive day.

“Return to your residences!” The words blared frantically - repeatedly - from the various loudspeakers spaced out around the perimeter. The slight delay between speakers created an eerie, distant echo: “Remain calm and return to your residences or shelter in place!”

Thunder rumbled ominously from above. Errant drops of rain began to fall. A murky, pearlescent glow emanated from somewhere deep within the city behind the mob. Aurora-esque wisps of white light swam from the centre-point, whipping lazily outward.

“The fuck is that?” Damien muttered to himself, scribbling shorthand notes in his tattered notepad. The glow was visible from his vantage point at the far side of the Unity Bridge, as close as security forces would allow onlookers to get. It was faint, but still bright enough to backlight the conflict to the point that it appeared, from a distance, as little more than a writhing tableau of vague silhouettes. “Hmm,” he scratched distractedly at his chin. Damien pocketed his notebook and reached for his phone, opening the camera app and pinching out to zoom in as close as he could. The image became grainier and started shaking in frame. He started recording, bracing his hand on the top of the open drivers’ side door of his car to steady it. He crouched a little, leaning over like he was preparing to take a shot in a game of pool, steadying his wrists with care.

Damien couldn’t tell if he was imagining it at first, but the glow seemed to be getting brighter; the wisps of light arcing and whipping out frenetically, now.

“Return to your res - “ With an electrical moan the speakers fell silent mid-sentence. Lights in the buildings throughout the city flickered into darkness. For a moment…silence. Just the brightening of the glow. As the blast came, pushing silently from the centre out, Damien didn’t have time to react. Glass shattering and cars flipping; bodies flying through the air and skidding along asphalt. The bridge shook, the ground beneath his feet shook, and Damien looked around frantically. In front of him, debris hurtled backwards through the air. As a sharp piece of unrecognisably twisted metal impacted with his shoulder, tearing through ligament and sinew, he dropped his phone and fell to his knees with a muted cry. It was as if all sound was subsumed by the pulsing outward spread of the light. He cradled his arm as the chaos continued, vaguely aware of the people around him: running and tripping and falling to the ground.

He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to