PART 18 : AD 2073
In town.
Surreal!
Julia Bersel jumped out of the bus.
“Run! Run!”, Julia and tens of others were hurried through a labyrinth of tunnels by soldiers, fully dressed and armed for combat.
There had been troubles again the previous months. Terrorist attacks. Neither the cause nor the identity of the terrorists had been very clear. The Governments warned the people against attempts to sabotage the referendum on the new religion and to destabilize society in general. Extra security measures were declared.
The new religion had met with more opposition than The Governments had expected. The prospect of a final abolishing of rights and freedoms, which had already been suspended for long, met with a lot of opposition. The critical voices against the project were heard. People were not so eager to let themselves restricted by a religious cover up of a totalitarian state. With the referendum approaching, it looked like it would be tie. The once expected two-third majority was far away. Some powerful people got nervous.
The evening before, for the first time in many years, Julia had heard a terrifying sound : the sound of explosions, the sound of rifle and machinegun salvos, the sound of low flying jet aircraft.
The radio announced a state of emergency and a curfew. Overnight, it was announced that a coup d’état was going on against the institutions of The Governments. People were instructed to stay home. Around noon the next day, news was broadcasted that the coup was over, and the lockdown was lifted, but not the state of emergency or the curfew.
In the afternoon, Julia went to work, but the University was closed by the authorities. She kept dwelling around a while, with others, waiting for an explanation. After a while, police arrived. They ordered them to disperse, since they were violating the ban on gathering, imposed by the state of emergency. As they left the campus, everybody’s identity was registered.
In the evening, a speech by Antonio del Nero, Chairman general of The Governments was broadcasted. Accusations about the responsibility for the coup were vague (actually as vague as the claims of the terrorist attacks from the previous months). But a swift and strong purge of ‘enemies of peace, stability and prosperity’ was announced. The referendum, on the other hand, would go on as scheduled, but state of emergency was prolonged, at least until the day of the referendum, in order to keep peace and serenity during the campaign.
Afterwards, Julia phoned to Martha, her lawyer, to ask if there would be consequences for herself. Martha could not answer the question yet, but warned Julia to be careful. Particularly because from what she had heard, she had heard some people suspected The Governments to have staged the coup ‘against themselves’, in order to gain a pretext for a purge and to set fear, in the hope to win the referendum. Del Nero now could stand up as the savior of stability, and campaign for a yes at the referendum, for the sake of that stability.
Early in the morning, Julia woke up from a violent noise in her apartment. The door of her sleeping room was pushed open, and men in anthracite jump suits, wearing a police belt and a gas mask, and armed with a submachine gun, stormed inside. Julia was rudely dragged out of her bed and she had to face the wall, while her apartment was searched – actually ‘made over’.
Julia got quickly dressed, cuffed and hurriedly drawn out of her apartment block. She was driven to an assembly point nearby, where a large police bus wind blinded windows stood ready. Some thirty people were inside already. Shortly thereafter, the bus drove away. The bus drive ended into a building. One by one, the prisoners had to step out. Their cuffs were released, and then they had to run the gauntlet between soldiers with batons, driving them deeper into the building. The men had to go right, the women left. It was hectic. Soldiers yelled loudly, people cried, screamed. Those who did not advance enough or protested or showed signs of disobedience, were beaten with the batons.
Julia had to run into a long corridor. She tried to avoid to come too close to the soldiers, and to show that she would obey. Suddenly, she heard a machine gun salve from behind. There were cries of pain and terror howling through the corridor. Anxiously, she looked back.
“Run! Filthy terrorist!” a soldier her right arm with his baton. “There is nothing to look at!”
At the end of the corridor stood a queue. Julia joined it. Orders were given to the women further in the row. Along the row stood officers, men and women, in the same uniform as those who had arrested her. They were armed with an electroshock gun. The row advanced.
“Take off your shoes!” Julia was ordered.
Julia obeyed. She lifted her legs one by one and took of her shoes.
“Into the box!” She threw them into a box already full of women’s shoes, along the wall of the corridor.
In the meantime she had already noticed the purpose of the row.
“Strip! Everything!”
The women in front of her were undressing without saying a word.
“Clothes into the box! You won’t need them no more!”
Slowly moving forward with the row, Julia took off her jacket, then her blouse and her skirt and threw them into the box.
“Everything!”
“All right All..”
“Silence!”
The women in front of her had already completely undressed. Julia took off her bra and her panties and disposed them too. Shivering from embarrassment, and from the cold, she followed the shuffling rows of bare naked flesh, closing in to seek protection and a little bodily warmth from each other.
In groups of twenty, they were briefly given a cold shower. After they had dried they were given a T-shirt and a short. Finally, they were held in one of the rooms deep inside the labyrinth. They were not locked up, but they had to sit down against the wall and were not allowed to move. Sleeping bags were distributed.
“Where are we?” one of the captive women whispered.
Julia already had an idea. The showers were next to a changing room. The shirts and the shorts…
“I think we are in a football stadium!”
(to be continued)
Ratcheting up the drama... spellbinding story!
orridge, cold weak coffee, half warm soup. Despite the regular arrival of new prisoners, little news was obtained from the outside. Talking was strictly prohibited. Those who did and were caught, were harshly beaten up, usually together with one or two innocent bystanders. Another sanction was, that the prisoners were tied with their wrists to an overhanging water pipe, having to stand for hours, naked, often on their toe tips. It was very effective for discipline, and for containing the spreading of news and rumours. From the scarce news that entered, Julia concluded than Antonio del Nero had strongly reinforced his personal power after the coup. He became more and more radical, promising to ‘exterminate’ all subversive elements in society, that he wanted to get rid of the false fetishes of liberty, which had brought humanity only harm, and that he became more and more inclined to a religious agenda.
Lox calling!
Is there a signpost? Maybe she's on a desert island after that shipwreck.