London, United Kingdom
February 1. 3:14 p.m. GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)
Trafalgar Square. The crowd was massive. And squeezed. Fortified rows of riot police wielding batons, tucked behind long plastic shields, surrounded angry, squashed civilians, heaving and rolling and shouting.
"We want work! We want work!" they chanted, some shoving fists into the air, others waving banners emblazoned with pound signs crossed with skulls.
The crowd was everywhere. Swathes of angry, shouting demonstrators were hemmed in all over central London and the City. Regents Park. South Kensington. Hyde Park. Westminster, outside the Houses of Parliament. Canary Wharf. Kings Cross. London was overcome by the biggest mass protest in the UK, ever.
What had begun as a series of disparate demonstrations inspired by the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon―supposedly defeated decades ago―had spontaneously snowballed from a single occupation of Parliament Square into an unprecedented, city-wide mass rally.
Then riot police were in amongst the writhing crowd, shoving with shields and lashing out with batons. People ran and screamed, some drenched in blood, others throwing bottles and cans at the officers. Cars were aflame, shop windows cracked.
London was ablaze.
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Zero Point
Science FictionNear future Great Britain is on the brink of collapse. Mass riots. Economic meltdown. Blackouts. And a new oil war in Iraq to keep the world economy afloat. Iraq War veteran and war crimes whistleblower David Ariel is sick of violence, and trying to...
