BLUEMANTLE by Karen Langston (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud TXT) 📕

bodies. Some fell. Unable to get up, they were trampled over, their cries unheard. The heat and the terror intensified. Bodies crushed together, lungs unable to breathe. Many fainted, adding to the fallen underfoot. As further shots were fired, parents huddled over crying children. Everywhere, the chilling colour of carnage.

Citizens called out for the troopers to stop, yelled for lost loved ones, cried in horror. Those on the edge of the crowd tried to escape through the tunnels, but foot troopers, deaf to their screams, barred their exit. With nowhere to go, the crowd were trapped, helpless, terrified.

Then the horses moved in, crushing bodies like grapes beneath their iron-shod hooves.

Thirty-seven people lost their lives.

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In his vitriolic assessment of the disaster, Governor Wallace denounced the behaviour of the citizens attending, declaring it ‘a wilful act of rebellion’. As festival-goers struggled to regain their wits and regroup, Wallace asserted that they were ‘resisting arrest’. The use of live ammunition was ‘standard practice’, he said; state troopers had ‘no cause to expect, nor tolerate, such acts of defiance by the citizens they were trained to protect’. It was ‘unfortunate’, he conceded, ‘that a number of bullets ricocheted within the stadium, causing unintended fatalities’, including twelve children. The ‘hysteria of citizens caused the horses to stampede’, resulting in ‘regrettable, yet inevitable loss of life’. In his scathing conclusion, Wallace blamed the deaths on the ‘wantonly rebellious and defiant behaviour of the crowd’, claiming they ‘resisted proportionate measures of control’.

Meanwhile, Wallace locked his sights onto what he perceived as the true culpable cause. Besides, he had face to save; that meant parading scalps.

The Authority charged the last two bands to perform with inciting violence through a hypnotic influence exerted through their music. The influence could not be accounted for, yet the police officers who had removed their helmets and succumbed to the lure attested to its power. These accounts provided sound justification. Tagging them ‘Music Makers’, Wallace declared the accused ‘enemies of the state’ and ordered their immediate arrest, at any cost.

The Music Makers became the smoke screen for what the Authority couldn’t understand and what its governor feared most: a challenge to control and order. Wallace believed in the scapegoat of his own making. He set his sights on their capture and vowed they would not evade due punishment.

Blinkered by determination, he misread the mood of the city, overlooking the rumbling unrest – the growing resentment that yielded the fruits of true rebellion.

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Prior to Rideout, Wallace’s agenda had focused exclusively on productivity and fiscal growth. A number of his early interventions proved popular, distracting attention from his less-than-transparent election into office. These included free travel on the expanding tramway system, capped rents in the purpose-built Rader Tenements and Wallace Estates, food stamps for families participating in the Three Child Initiative. Although never well liked, Governor Wallace was regarded as a progressive reformer with the interests of Wydeye at heart. Once they had adjusted to the changes, citizens recognised merit in his ambition and bought into his vision of prosperity.

Perspectives soon changed.

The first policy to provoke protest was the introduction of the Milk Tax to fund the construction of the self-aggrandising Authority Complex. Cows’ milk became unaffordable for the majority. Families who had benefitted from the Three Child Initiative struggled, holding down multiple jobs just to afford milk for their babies. Enterprising minds spotted an opportunity and began breeding and selling goats for their milk. Ten months after the introduction of the Milk Tax, over thirty per cent of households owned or held shares in a goat. Two years and several heated protests later, the Milk Tax was abolished.

A further measure that proved unpopular was the demolition of popular arts and cultural venues across the city and the removal of creative subjects from the curriculum. Wallace maintained that arts and culture were an irrelevant distraction, without any measurable contribution to productivity.

Frustrated citizens took to the streets once again. However, their collective voice was an ineffectual murmur. The rights and will of the people were not part of Wallace’s lexicon of leadership. Empty demands posed no threat.

Then came Rideout and subsequent demonstrations, prompting Governor Wallace to revise his opinion of the collective voice.

When the witch hunt against the ‘Music Makers’ was triggered, followers of the Scene organised a public protest. They gathered on the Pentagon, flags of allegiance unfurled. Then they marched up First Went and congregated outside City Hall and the Exchange. Impassioned chants demanded charges be dropped and the bands’ freedom of the city be reinstated.

Citizens unassociated with the Scene also joined the protest. They empathised with the plight of the persecuted bands, drawing parallels with the struggles they endured at the hands of the Authority. They vented their anger at the cover-up over Rideout, which had exonerated the Chief of Police and trooper Commanders. They discovered a release for the pent-up pressure they had begun to take for granted, the strain of life under the weight of productivity targets.

The protests grew in scale and intensity. Citizens had had enough. They demanded change. With one voice, they challenged. With one fist, they fought back.

As did the Authority.

In swift retaliation, Wallace countered the escalation with a full-scale assault. Special Forces descended on the protestors in a storm cloud of terror. ‘Any means necessary’ was a free pass taken to the limit.

Troopers surrounded the protestors, weapons raised. The followers who had led the campaign stood their ground, faces defiant in their call for justice. They did not falter as their emblazoned flags were torn down and set alight. Behind them, citizens who had joined in noble solidarity, huddled like cornered prey. Some raised their hands in surrender. Others cried pleas for mercy.

Yet, orders were orders. The troopers had a job to do. They closed in, relishing the task.

Limbs were broken, blood was shed, lives were lost.

Within an hour, brute force lay waste to the protest – the collective voice silenced for good.

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Wallace declared Rideout and the ensuing ‘Rebellion’ incidents of epidemic mass hysteria – a sociogenic