Flat webbed fabric caught against the soft skin under Kal's chin as she fastened her helmet tight. This wasn't what she had in mind. She was not a soldier. Her commanding officer knocked the padding over her shoulder as he shuffled by, "You ready?” his question more rhetorical than directed at any specific person crammed in the tactical wagon.
Her vision blurred by a spiderwebbed crack across her visor, Kal struggled to see the team lead. It was hard to pay attention. Difficult to push away curious, corrosive thoughts of what caused the marks in the protective plastic. What horrors had the visor witnessed? Intel relayed, and orders barked, they were as impossible to comprehend as it is to hold the wind. The speeding van shuddered as it hit a pothole outside. She couldn't hear a word over her thoughts. She was hot, was it hot? Everyone else seemed comfortable. Everyone else seemed fine. Perspiration bubbled across her forehead. She was boiling, suffocating in the van, the helmet's strap felt like it was strangling her.
With a sickening lurch the vehicle stopped, sending Kal and her comrades into a confused tangled mess. The back door cranked open and her commanding officer began yelling, waving them onwards. Kal scrambled to her feet and stepped into blinding sunlight. A dull, pulsating roar was coming from somewhere, the sound familiar, though she couldn't place it. The air felt cool, and good on her skin. Someone shoved her body armour again. In a slow daze, Kal turned to find a face protected by a translucent shield, howling for her to join the group.
Each footstep forward felt like another step into a deep sea of dissociation. Kal was on autopilot. From behind the black vans she finally saw them. The hordes. Filling every inch of street in front of her, with towering flags, banners, and signs. Thundering with every ounce they could muster.
In front of them a fragile, yet formidable line of her peers, in menacing black, held fast like a gate. Screeching megaphones screamed from both sides. Pointed fingers directed her to the front, a heavy plastic shield shoved to her hand, a wooden baton to the other. What was she expected to do with these?
With each stride the voices got louder. It was puzzling for Kal. The reason why she went to the academy was exactly this, to give the people in her community a voice. A voice against any injustices they may face. And to be properly trained to aid them as much as she could. But today, when their voices were deafening, she was sent to silence them?
It felt wrong.
In the few months since her graduation Kal had patrolled a handful of events with large crowds, parades, concerts, small community gatherings, to provide a presence of safety. She was used to being a simple guardian, a direct, helpful voice in an instant to any in need. This was different. The smell of fear was pungent in their cologne of anger.
The group of officers she arrived with shouldn't be here, they were too new, too green. Things had already gotten well out of hand this morning, Kal and the batch of recent graduates were being sent in as a last resort. A relief for other riot teams. As she got closer and could begin to make out the screaming faces her anxiety spiked. She wasn't afraid of injury, though she should have been. She was afraid of what she might be called to do. Petrified of inflicting violence on those who only wanted their hurt heard. Only wanting their struggles acknowledged and solutions found. Solutions that would realistically benefit everyone.
The sound of shattering glass raised tensions, and as impossible as it seemed, the yelling grew again, rising to deafening heights. Intimidating figures on top of black stallions trotted in circles behind her, twirling their weapons in anticipation. Kal knew without the front, without control, mob mentality could boil to madness, even turn on itself. People could get hurt, and the destruction of property would only serve to cost everyone more. In tax, in shame, in ground. Not to mention the innocents left to clean the mess, caught in the crossfire.
It was hard to rectify as she looked at faces behind the lock armed, uniformed barricade. They were so familiar to her own, of her friends and family. Some hopeless, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problems they were marching against. Some hopeful, encouraged by the wisp of change in the air. Some twisted, lost already to the fury of the mob. They surged and she held support on the lower back of an officer in front of her holding the line. Her eyes sped across the crowd, what should she do? The cops covered in black riot gear, the boundary between order and chaos was clear, but what separated right from wrong was blurry. In her frantic search for guidance, the line within her remained invisible.
She knew that given all that had happened, if she wasn't on duty, she would have been out there with them, on the other side of all the protests this week. Pretending that she had been making her voice heard while observing the peace at other marches had felt hollow, even in her own head. While she didn't condone the destruction elsewhere this morning, in some ways it felt justified given the violence protesters had suffered in the last twenty four hours.
This was a crossroads and she could feel it. If only she had more time to think. Her heart felt like a formula one car while her mind was a low level corvette trailing behind on a speedway. This turmoil had kept her up all night, and she'd still not landed on any conclusions. There were too many variables.
A clash erupted in front of her, the citizens had struck at the riot shields, curses and orders hailed. Anxiety boiling, Kal closed her eyes, only to be hit by a plastic bottle in the same instant. There was no flash of anger across her irises, only compassion for the fear in the crowd. A nervous cry for support came from one of the officers to her far left, someone else shook her, told Kal to snap out of it, and fall into formation. What was going on? How was she going to help?
Who was she going to help?
Six large bangs from behind made Kal flinch. She looked back. She looked up. Beautiful coloured smoke trails decorated the sky above. The volume from fearful, furious shouts increased in amplitude again. A surge broke the line.
All
Hell
broke
loose.
The tear gas was thrown back where it came from. Officers started taking wild swings at citizens, those on horseback plunged into the crowd, trampling protesters. Kal threw her baton to the side and ran into the chaos unarmed like a running back. Dodging, jooking, spinning to a collapsed area of the mob. She pushed aside officers that were hammering down on the fallen. Digging through the chaos she reached, and lifted the hands of protesters pinned below. At the bottom was a young woman, out of breath, bleeding, leg twisted in the wrong direction. Kal grabbed below her armpits and pulled. The woman yelped and reached for her foot. No time to hesitate, Kal dragged her into a doorway for shelter. Kal's fingers scrambled to unfasten her helmet, and place it over the injured woman's head. She leaned her shield over the protester to protect her until the pandemonium passed. No time for pleasantries or comforting words, Kal ran back into the madness as fast as she could.
Almost immediately she saw one of her fellow officers taking a beating from three frothing young men. With all her force she barrelled into the gang breaking up their storm of fists and kicks. She grabbed the downed man's wavering limp wrist and towed him towards safety.
As she pulled him across the pavement, she zagged between other clashes. They passed another control officer beating a collapsed, fetal protester. Without qualm she kicked out his knees, and tossed away his weapon. She did not miss a beat as she grabbed the unconscious protesters leg and dragged him along with the other officer. The hundreds of pounds were no hindrance for the surges of cool adrenaline coursing through her.
She slid them beside a paddy wagon, and screamed for medics. The moaning officer looked at the unconscious young man beside him, and spat "whose side are you on!?"
Kal's strut into the chaos was unbroken, unfettered, by his doubt. Her pace quickened the closer she got to the front. Where her mind had been a live crackling wire before, it was now calm, cold, and decisive. Her decision made.
She would help whomever was in need.
She would not stop.
Thanks for reading!
Wazoo!
-Mr. Write