Season 05 - Episode 08

‘cold her decision’

Syl is lost and dirty and cold.

Her decision to leave GovCo baffles her now. She can't believe she could have ever been so foolish, so naive. Back then she had believed nothing could be worse than her stale, corporate existence, that life outside the GovCo bubble would be exhilarating and meaningful and that joining The Resistance would be basically just be a change of job.

Of course, within a week of her slipping out in the night, abandoning the safety of her career and her home, The Church had crashed back into The Levels and the war had begun. Her former dissatisfaction with a comfortable bed, regular food and personal space now seems insane and as for freedom and meaning, so far she's found little of either.

Initially she thought she knew the areas of The Levels around her home quite well, remembered from maps and briefings, reports and studies. Once out here however, crushed in amid the relentlessly moving crowds, she has quickly lost all sense of place and direction.

She has asked around about The Resistance but either no-one knows anything about them or else they're not prepared to say. Meanwhile, the sounds of gunfire and explosions, screams and howling are continuous now and come from all sides.

The war rages all around her, erupting and receding sporadically with no predictable pattern. Far ahead and far behind, way off to the left and off to the right, on the floors above and those below. She is trapped and lost in the heart of it all.

She is buried in war.

At any moment, the awful sounds can swell and rush in close. Troops appear in an instant, rounding corners or crashing through walls, always fighting to the bloody death. The dull black terror of the EnFo's or the gleaming white horror of The Seraphim. Neither side cares about the civilians between them and so everyone is running, all the time, fleeing one battle only to stumble into another.

Each day seems the same as the last, battle after battle with no apparent failure or success. The two sides seem locked in a perfect stalemate, neither gaining nor losing the advantage so that the war appears endless.

Syl traded the last of her possessions yesterday and wonders how she will survive. Alone in the chaos with only the clothes on her back, she now fears the people around her as much as the soldiers.

Quite apart from what she will eat or drink, she worries about being attacked. She has almost nothing left to steal but there are other things they can take from her, do to her. She hurries about, shoulders hunched, going nowhere in particular but feeling safer on the move. All she sees are desolate stares, tear stained cheeks. No-one seems to see her at all.

The truly galling thing is that she has spent her entire adult life working for these very same people. She has dedicated all that she is to see them fed and clothed, housed and safe and now here they are, shunning her, threatening her.

Up ahead she sees a tight little knot of EnFo's cutting through the crowd. It's rare to see the EnFo's outside of combat so Syl watches with interest. As the group passes she notices an smaller knot of bodies amongst the black armour. A woman with two children, scurrying terrified. Syl recognises the woman, despite the dishevelled hair and fear-aged eyes.

“Gho!” she cries to her friend. “Gho! It's me!”

The group barrels past her, the nearest EnFo shoving Syl back roughly with the butt of his rifle. For a moment she and Gho lock eyes between the black helmets and Syl's heart surges with hope. Her friend is here! Her friend will save her! Save her from all of this!

Gho stares at Syl with horror and disgust but above all, a complete and total absence of recognition. Syl isn't just lost amongst these endlessly filthy, hopeless, helpless, ungrateful people, she realises, she now looks like one of them too.

Syl stops walking and shoves her way into a corner to lean and rest. Pressed against her are two older men chattering away. A word catches her ear so that she tunes into the conversation without turning her head.

“The Resistance?!” one of them scoffs. “Nah, The Church got 'em all. They're dead, 'cept the for leader, they captured him, but you what that Pho's like, he'll not last long.”

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