Guardsmen hustled the recruits into the base. With every step the entourage grew, jostling and grunting in military jargon. Kasia clung to Zenia’s arm, holding the assignment package like a pillow.

  They were bloodied, exhausted, and too overwhelmed to understand their surroundings.

  The base's foyer heaved with armed soldiers. Their Sergeant Major stood amongst them, bellowing into the madness, his voice striking them like cannon fire.

  Pierce’s eyes landed on Kasia. He yanked the package from her hands and clicked his fingers in her face.

  “Did you test it!?”

  “I… what?”

  “The package! Did you test the contents of the package!”

  “No! We weren’t told to-”

  “Where is Corporal Rossi!?”

  “At hospital?”

  “Did they take him hospital!? You sound unsure!”

  Kasia stuttered. Zenia stepped in.

  “Our drivers had orders to take him to A&E, Sarnt!”

  “Their orders were to come back here, instead we find you two insignificant couriers, standing exposed, carrying hard drugs as your squad vanishes! Where is your corporal!?”

  “Sergeant Major!” a voice from above. Heads turned to the upper mezzanine and the room snapped to attention. Pierce clicked his boots together.

  “Sir!”

  “I need to hear this one myself,” Captain Varma came into view, clad in silver and red, weapons bristling from his waist, “recruits, up here with me, now.”

  Kasia’s chest burned. She’d barely escaped the people she most wanted to avoid. Now, at the worst possible time, she found the person she most wanted to impress.

  Varma sat the recruits in a conference room and made them repeat the events, guiding their frazzled memories from their descent down the Jubilee tunnels, to Opus Veda’s attack. Satisfied, he leant towards Kasia. Her chest rose.

  “Few people alive can say they fought back against Opus Veda. For the third time you’ve proven yourself under duress Katarzyna.”

  “Thank you Sir…”

  “You had sight of the terrorists, did either of them look like this?” he held a phone up. On it was a falconine mask, agile and razored, gothic and brooding.

  The mask behind the recent killings - London’s Mayor, then the Goldsmiths. Two utterly different groups, united only by Opus Veda’s contempt for them. Seeing it in clear definition chilled Kasia.

  But it wasn’t the one she saw today. She shook her head.

  “They had… their masks were just like… the normal ones. The ones who stand behind that guy in the videos. One had a bigger eye. I’m sorry sir I don’t-”

  He swiped the photos over. Now there was a mask twisted with scorn, its left eye bruised, it’s right stretched open.

  It took Kasia back to the tunnels. She could barely look at it. Varma nodded and swiped the photo away.

  “Their choice of face is a rare clue, pointing to their expertise. These are insurgents - fighters like us. The one you saw will be trained to hunt from a distance, or to watch. Their visors can find every profile uploaded since the dawn of the internet,” Varma scoffed, impressed with his enemies craft, “every single one of us...”

  Zenia gripped the table, making it creak, “you mean they might have us down Sir?”

  “They had Corporal Rossi down and failed to kill him. Either they missed, or they have other designs.”

  “We were told they wouldn’t go for people like us!” Zenia shook with anger, “we haven’t been trained to handle them!”

  “No one is trained to handle them, recruit. That is not a thing you simply learn,” Varma clenched his jaw, smouldering at his underling's challenge. He sighed and searched behind her for old memories.

  “My first operational tour was Iran. I was young and cocky, highly trained, and begging for glory. I stumbled through two battles and got shot in the third; a casualty within a month, a burden to my side... My mates died, one at a time; my best friend…

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  People like you died, and men like the Sergeant Major made it through. He was not trained,” Varma stopped, turning away in a moment of bitterness, before returning to the room.

  “You will both go home now and do nothing connected to us unless you receive contact. Understand you may never receive contact again. If this is farewell, remember: your final actions for Revolution Britannia were respected by your peers.”

  He pulled himself up and stood at ease, staring in a way implying dismissal. Zenia headed for the door with an unconfident salute.

  Kasia breathed in, fighting through anxiety. She needed to ask a question. Some new horror was rising within her, one stoked by online conspiracies of terrorists and hospitals.

  “Sir. You said their masks tell us what they are. Those bird ones. What are they?”

  Doubt came over Varma’s face; a desire to spare a recruit from what had probably already happened.

  He chose truth instead.

  “They are doctors, Katarzyna.”

  * * *

  Sermon checked the waiting room clock again. The mechanical clunk it made - pointlessly archaic - was driving him mad. It even told the wrong time, yet he couldn’t stop checking it.

  But there was nothing else to do, and without a phone to play with his patience was being tortured.

  His eyes wandered around. Madame receptionist, who had scolded him for questioning her while she was busy, now swivelled on a chair behind the counter, twiddling her hair and lost in social media.

  Everything was boring. A few patients sat quietly with their devices, making Sermon feel embarrassed for standing out; an empty-handed idiot. Curtis had to stay behind - his clothes were now on Luca - leaving Sermon alone, deeper within the maze of a hospital than he’d ever been.

  The receptionist tittered at something on her phone. It was too much. Sermon marched up to her and knocked on the screen dividing them.

  “Girl.”

  She looked up and blinked, “nothing will have changed since you last asked.”

  “I wanna go in and see him-”

  “I told you you can’t.”

  “Well what’s happenin’!? What’s his situation?”

  “He’s stabilised. You might as well go home,” she spun to face him, “again: if you’d just let us know your details, we could keep you updated-”

  “I’m sure his workplace or somethin’ will be in touch, you’ll get your insurance money from somewhere don’t you worry,” Sermon made a petulant face of fake sympathy, “all I saw is some vagrants jumpin’ him and takin’ his shit.”

  “I understand you said that, and if so, there is nothing more you can do here.”

  “Why can’t I see him?”

  She smiled in a way Sermon found inappropriate, “if you’ve never met him before, I’m not sure why it matters?”

  Defeated by his own defence. Sermon searched for a way around it.

  “Let’s say I did know him yea, would it make any difference?”

  The receptionist cocked her head.

  “I’m going to assume you do know him, and you’re worried about whatever happened getting you in trouble,” she lifted the desk phone, “bear with me.”

  She leant into the handset. Sermon heard the unfamiliar yet nostalgic sound of a ringing tone.

  “Hello doctor? I have a man in the waiting area, about the mugging victim. He is now saying he might know the patient...” she eyed Sermon again, telling him off with her glare, “and if so, can he get visitor rights. Do you have room for him right now?”

  Seconds passed. Sermon rested his fingers on the counter and drummed them. A red dot caught his view from his side vision - a CCTV camera he hadn’t noticed before.

  The receptionist put the phone down and smiled.

  “I’m sorry, the doctor says having you there wouldn’t help anyone right now, but you can always-”

  “No I’m not leavin’ my details!” Sermon thumped the counter, “I’ll come back another time. Fucks sake…”

  He stomped off, charging through empty corridors he was sure were made to confuse. He was desperate to speak to Luca, desperate to find some way to him.

  Everything was quiet. Too much time passed without seeing another person. As each black corner closed in, as each echo drew closer, Sermon's desperation to get out grew stronger.

  * * *

  Andrez clicked the phone into its receiver and watched Sermon Mkenda get away. He sympathised with the younger man - sincere, surrounded by failure and indifference, raised to know that, whatever he tried, the world would get a little bit worse each year. Empty revolutionary promises were made to steal men like Sermon Mkenda. Perhaps one day he would see their underside, and choose a better path.

  Were the promises of Opus Veda better? Would they make the world a better place to live in? Andrez scoffed with mirth. For all the differences between him and Sermon Mkenda, they were both committing the same mistake; both pouring water over ashes. The damage was already done.

  He returned to the operating theatre. His team had taken the straps off Luca Rossi’s limbs. The patient was too weak to resist now anyway. All he had left to give was his life.

  Luca saw the masked doctor return and groaned. He had already revealed everything he knew - the size of the base, the numbers of soldiers and arms within. The doctor seemed more interested in the other two buildings. Luca had been told too little about them to be of use.

  He steeled himself, repeating that whatever was about to happen, would be over soon. With the last of his strength he pushed himself up to meet his interrogator. The doctor stopped him with a gentle hand and pivoted the mattress up instead. Both men sat at eye level.

  The doctor recognised his patient’s look. The final defiance of those fighting with conviction. A pity for such talent to be led astray, but Luca Rossi had allowed it to happen.

  Andrez removed his hood, exposing the grotesque avian skull that was his second face; the face Rajesh had died under, in whose eyes vagrants had burned. With the same care he had given to Luca’s wounds, he detached the mask and laid it on a surgical tray.

  His true visage was revealed. His fingers came to rest on Luca’s wet forehead.

  Luca watched the doctor's face, not knowing if what he saw was hatred or remorse. Not knowing that, behind that face, hatred and remorse was all Andrez felt.

  The terrorists came back, a cabal of robed killers with a message to create. Luca groaned again, and with no strength left, began shuddering.

  They pinned his arms against the beds rails. He sobbed and struggled, useless against their grip, shaking his head in denial. One last plea to deny the end.

  Opus Veda began their work.