With an utter disregard for her dignity, sanity and welfare, Jenny was dragged out of the cell and shackled, then marched along a narrow, grey-walled corridor. Her fear was such that it was hard to take everything in, but the lack of any other cells made her question whether this was a jail at all? Her mind was racing now, trying to imagine what was coming next. Would it be an intense interview by Australia’s equivalent of the FBI? Torture? Or perhaps they’d re-watched the footage from London and realized they’d got it wrong after all, that she was actually trying to save the planet, not condemn it. Or was she going straight to trial…or worse?
After walking for what felt like miles along a maze of further corridors, dragging her feet because the weight of her chains made it impossible to pick them up, her guards led her out into an open, garage-like loading bay which stank of exhaust fumes. In a brief moment of rest, she became aware of a deep, resonant noise which seemed to fill the air; an ominous bass-filled buzz like constant thunder.
There was a cage up ahead, roughly the size and shape of a phone box. She was shoved into it and it was locked and bolted before she was able to turn around and protest. The cage was then hoisted onto the back of a flat-bed truck, and she gripped the cold bars tightly as the truck began to move. Her hands were numb and her arms grew quickly tired but she had to hold on. There wasn’t even room in the cage to sit down.
A roller door lifted and the truck, surrounded by an attachment of armed guards, drove out into the open. The light was so bright after her hours of captivity that Jenny couldn’t initially see anything. She screwed her eyes shut, nauseous with a combination of nerves, movement, and sudden activity, and instead she focused on the background noise, which was continuing to build. It had become an all-consuming wave of sound; a tsunami of shouts and jeers. Christ, she thought, how many people are out here?
The answer was tens of thousands.
The truck was heading along a gravel service track towards a huge sports stadium. Jenny could hear an announcer’s voice on a PA, and even though she couldn’t make out any of what was being said, it was clear the crowd was being whipped into a frenzy. The truck climbed a steady slope then turned off onto another track and followed a gentle bend around to one of the cathedral-like stadium’s service entrances.
The noise became deafening as they approached. From her elevated position on the back of the truck, Jenny could see that the place was packed. The stands and pitch alike around the elliptical stadium were packed with people, with a gap a couple of meters wide running directly from where they’d entered to the opposite end of the colossal building. There must have been close to a hundred thousand people here, and the hatred that every last one of them had for her was palpable. The view in whichever direction she looked was awful—fractious hordes, all baying for her blood—and so, instead, she just focused forward and tried to block it all out.
“Traitor!”
“Scum!”
“Evil bitch!”
The volume increased as the truck trundled deeper into the crowd, and it came almost as something of a relief when the cumulative noise reached such a peak that she could no longer make out individual insults and threats. She was hit with a barrage of objects from the crowd: pints of beer, bottles of piss, rotten fruit, broken hoardings, torn up seats—whatever people could lay their hands on. At times like this she questioned whether this world was even worth saving anymore.
As horrific an experience as it was, she could see how it must have been therapeutic for a population waiting helplessly to be slaughtered. She wished she could have a chance to explain why she’d done what she did and how, if they’d just let her go back to the clockwork room, there was still a fraction of a chance she could turn things around. But there was no point. Any one of the assembled throng looked ready to tear her limb from limb because of what they’d decided she’d done.
The truck slowly trundled down the entire length of the stadium before stopping in front of a massive makeshift stage. A crane dropped down and grabbed Jenny’s cage like an arcade claw game, then picked her up like a prize and swung her around. She was deposited in the middle of the stage, completely alone.
Though it was already at an ear-splitting volume, the crowd’s noise increased again. All Jenny could do was stare out at the endless faces staring back at her. There was no escape. Absolutely nowhere to hide.
And then every single voice was silenced.
Pumping, militaristic music began blasting out of the speakers positioned around the ground. Jenny looked around, struggling to move in the close confines of the cage, and saw that lines of figures were filling seats behind her. Some uniformed, others suited or robed, they looked like some kind of bizarre opera chorus. There were so many of them that it took several minutes to get them all into position. A row of particularly miserable looking bastards filed into the seats closest to her. She noticed that two massive video screens—one either side of the stage—had flickered into life. She didn’t know where the cameras were, but they were showing who this motley cast of characters were: religious leaders, military leaders, members of the government (including the prime minister), then a woman who, according to the caption under her face on the screen, was “Chief Justice of Australia, Briony Griffiths.” She was a frightening looking creature; grey-haired and grey-skinned, as wide as she was tall.
Then the cameras switched, locking onto Jenny’s face in tight close-up. Whichever way she turned now, there was another one ready to
