The Prometheus Effect (9 page)

A small sign designated the location Joshua desired and he quickly got out of the car, not even bothering to lock it up or check the door was firmly shut. Peering inside the reception, he could see movement from within and he clattered the door and pressed the intercom impatiently. A moment passed where Joshua stood restlessly on the spot moving his weight from one foot to the other, flicking his tongue around his teeth as he realised that he had not brushed that morning.

“
Can I help?” The door was opened ajar but no further and a small feminine voice emanated from within.

“
Yes, Hi! I work for The Messenger on Fleet Street, is there someone I can speak to there?”

The timid personality behind the door seemed hesitant.

“
I'm not writing a story, just trying to work out what's going on. There's going to be anarchy on the streets at this rate. We need to get some collective information flowing, people are scared.”

The door opened a little further.

“
There's not a lot to tell. We have been broadcasting but our signals not going out. If I was you, I’d go home and wait for the TV to say something.”

The diminutive figure could now be seen as an oriental girl in her twenties, smartly dressed and quite clearly distressed.

“
But they aren't saying anything are they? What do your technical guys say?”

The door was rudely shut as Joshua's question was abruptly cut short. The reporter spun around and exhaled in annoyance. He reached into his pocket for his mobile instinctively only to recall that it was useless at this time. Getting back into the car, a new Ford hatchback, he set off back to Fleet Street with his limited intelligence gathered. At least he had discovered that the radio stations were not dormant and they were at least attempting to broadcast. This seemed to suggest that the airwaves were either being jammed or interfered with somehow. He wondered if any of his colleagues had gotten anywhere near a government spokesman yet. He imagined that Whitehall and surrounding areas would be inundated with nervous and inquisitive media.

Joshua drove on a few blocks and began to see sight that he feared the most, he guessed that it was inevitable but it did not make it any more palatable. Groups of hooded youths began to emerge from seemingly every alleyway and crevice in the concrete jungle that was the nation's capital. Joshua laughed to himself, it amused him that normally, most of these feral cretins could barely get out of bed before noon but today they had risen in their droves to make the most of the populations plight. These types of people drove Joshua mad and he had little time for their sorts. As he approached a small posse of young men with intent etched into their faces, he even slowed and wound down his window.

“
Where are you going?” He hollered, feeling protected in the hard shell of his vehicle.

“
Shopping!” Replied one of the gang followed by laughter from the others.

“
Go home. What's makes you special? Haven’t you seen the warning?” Joshua yelled revealing a compassionate exterior despite his inwardly cynical posture.

“
Fuck yourself.” Came the somewhat expected reply. It preceded one of the gang moving towards the stationary car and kicking the door panel violently. Joshua reeled at the disgraceful attack but thought better than to challenge them any further. After all, it was a job car which took the sting out of it somewhat.

Joshua moved on realising that the number of people on the streets seemed to have grown in the time he had been protesting. As he neared the office which he was glad was in a particularly lightly populated area of London, the pedestrians thinned out a little but it was clear that there was going to be imminent trouble as another army vehicle passed him at speed.

Suddenly, from in his rear view mirror, a flash of movement gave the journalist only the briefest of warnings that an impact was imminent. A jarring thud hurled Joshua's car across the pavement and into the fascia of a grey, 1960's style office block. The shock of this surprise assault was great and the reporter arched his spine in pain as he gained his bearings. The steering wheel had buckled under the weight of his torso and it was clear that he was lucky to still be aware enough to extricate him from the crumpled car and crawl out to the pavement where the remains of his headlights greeted his hands with their sharp and spiteful form.

It was clear as he rose to his feet, that another car had smashed forcefully into his right rear and spun him round off the road. This other vehicle now lay in the centre of the road. Its occupant had left the car...through the windscreen. A dark and crumpled body adorned the roadside a number of metres from the vehicle, it was clear that the driver was either unconscious or dead.

Joshua limped over to the forlorn figure. A young dark skinned male stared vacantly into the sky, the top of his head in tatters. There was a darkened trail of macabre bone fragments and other soft tissues that led from beneath his body off in the direction of the steaming Nissan saloon car which could not have rightly been the property of the deceased. He was simply too young and too inappropriately attired to be the owner.

Joshua sighed deeply and shook his head at the sight of another young life wasted in ignorance. It was not the first time the journalist had seen a dead body, but it was the first time he had had a hand in someone’s death. It felt awful despite the clear fact that he could not have done anything to prevent it.

Joshua looked around for some kind of aid. He could not ring the police to assess the situation nor did he feel right just leaving the scene. This was somebody's son. It did not matter that he might be a hoodlum or petty thief, he deserved some kind of ordered memorial. Something however, told Joshua that it was senseless to sit and wait for some kind of assistance. He could hear wailing sirens in the distance and a wisp of black smoke on the horizon unnerved him. He did not want to be on the street alone and unprotected. He was a intelligent man, he knew that things would only get worse from here on in.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Joshua hobbled with best haste the rest of the way back to Fleet Street. Clutching his ribs, he snorted a small run of blood which dribbled down to his top lip. Several police cars tore past him on the way but all were moving with too much speed in order to flag down. He felt terribly guilty about leaving the crash scene and the youth on the roadside. He had written a short note and attached it to the windscreen of his car with his contact details. He did not expect to get a call any time soon. It was becoming clear that the authorities had far more pressing matters to attend to.

The only people who now walked the streets were those seemingly with the intent to line their pockets or profit from the lawless nature of the day. Joshua saw gangs of both men and women armed with primitive weapons pushing shopping trolleys loaded with looted goods. At times, the pained reporter slipped down an alleyway with the intention of staying out of view. He was suited, injured and an easy target for those who wanted the contents of his wallet or his mobile phone.

It seemed that these anarchists did not only want to fight the authorities but also themselves. Turning a corner, Joshua stood and stared in disbelief as he witnessed a pitch battle between at least twenty or so people who were hurling objects at each other or beating each other with their precious clubbing weapons. The melee was only stopped when a crackle of a gunshot tore through the air and a limp body fell to the asphalt. The crowd suddenly dispersed in all directions and Joshua ducked back around the corner as a young teenage girl ran right past him. Her face was pale and shocked although a bizarre excitement was etched upon her features, almost a smile even.

Joshua wondered if he was ever going to make it back to the office at this rate. He had never seen anything like it. It was almost as if these people had suddenly been given licence to act out their most base desires and the prospect of the consequences of their actions was utterly ignored. The one thing that was clear was that the police force were in no way prepared for such a large scale event. Their resources spread so thinly across the capital that the looters did not fear arrest. It was only when Joshua encountered another melee further up the road that he realised that the control of the population had now been handed over to the military.

An armoured car was parked in the centre of the street, surrounded by a throng of excitable anarchists who cajoled and harried the soldiers. It was a tense standoff, even from a distance, Joshua could see that the crowd were pushing the soldiers, testing them. One of the vehicles began to rock back and forth as the crowd pushed and pulled the heavy car, a single soldier visible from a turret waving his arms furiously.

Joshua crept further along the road, he was conscious that there were more and more people around him but he was not overly familiar with the London thoroughfares. He knew that both his hotel and his office were in the direction past the belligerent mob. A crackle of gunfire stopped Joshua in his tracks. The soldier had hoisted his assault rifle into the air and let off a volley of shots. The crowd all ducked down low as one giant quaking mass but then rose defiantly bringing the soldier to aim his weapon lower. The show of force had not had the desired effect of dispersal, instead it appeared to enrage the crowd who flailed their limbs around in protest. Joshua wondered how many of the people were just members of the public who were scared and needed some kind of reassurance, their number seemed to be growing by the second.

Bravely, Joshua moved closer, attracted by the prospect of information, he joined the periphery of the crowd. He could see that despite a contingent of low life scum, there were women and children in the throng, people who were well dressed, uniformed, suited. He could hear a number of voices louder than the others, the vociferous ones who would not be denied the knowledge they sought. Joshua could not get a grasp of what the lone soldier was yelling, he looked just as petrified as the rest of them.

The more aggressive contingent once again began to rock the armoured car. Joshua could see the soldier press the headset to his ear as if he was begging for aid from his peers. The driver in the cab was forced to press his hot hand against the glass of the side window in order to steady himself. He too looked young, terrified and out of his depth. The turret soldier once again brandished his weapon with intent but the threat had long since diminished. The mob knew that if he was going to shoot he would have already done it long ago.

Joshua gasped as he suddenly noticed bodies climbing up onto the car behind the soldier. The crowd bellowed as a hooded man grasped the young warrior from behind and another stripped him of his weapon. A rain of punches and kicks fell upon the youthful soldier until he fell helplessly from the vehicle and into the hands of the baying mob. The ingrate now clutching the high powered assault rifle proceeded to spend the magazine into the air with glee and Joshua clambered to move back and out of the crowd. Another series of shots rang out, and looking back, Joshua saw the hoodlum with the gun fall from the roof of the car. The driver emerged from the turret, his face white as a sheet, his fresh faced features gaunt. The crowd fell over themselves to scurry away as the vengeful soldier aimed his smoking weapon at the crowd and opened fire indiscriminately. Joshua heard the snap of bullets fly closely past his head and he was soon sprawled upon the ground being crushed by the fleeing people. The firing stopped and then a second later there was another burst as one of the mob had retrieved the other soldiers gun and began to return fire.

Screams of desperation and pain were heard as the swathe of panic proliferated amongst the gatherers. Joshua could barely inhale a breath as he crawled over others who had fallen to escape the horrific scene. He finally managed to get to his feet using other helpless bodies as a crutch and sprinted despite his ills, away and around the corner where he fell to the floor in a ragged heap gasping for oxygen.

Joshua did not linger long, a few deep inhalations were enough to give him the power to once again move and flee. Barely stopping to look back, he ensured there was a good hundred metres between him and the scene before he allowed himself the comfort of a brief respite. Hands on knees, his throat was raw as he spat out blood upon the ground and looked upon the other survivors as they jogged past him. It reminded him of the infamous scene from the Vietnam war which had been so courageously reported by his predecessors. The fleeing people then had survived a savage napalm attack. The look of shock and disbelief on these people's faces was much the same now as they stumbled down the road having just witnessed the closest thing to hell on Earth.

Joshua continued to move. He had no wish to get caught up in any more incidents like this one. Lost and pained, the adrenaline kept him mobile. Despite passing numerous bystanders who appeared to have benign intentions, no one spoke. It was almost as if everyone had lost their tongues and had become as hopelessly lost as Joshua. Maybe it was the sheer shock of the events of the day, maybe it was just caution. No one dared to invite trouble.