There’s four historical artefacts tucked away in this story. Four that I’m aware of putting there, anyway. One of them is the building where the bell is found. I’m curious if readers can name them all.
In Freedom’s Name Do These Bells Ring. There it was, a little inscription tucked away on the inside lip of the bell. Geoff and his team had been searching for these bells for weeks. And now they were going to melt them down. The damn things had been held up as a symbol of what was right. Well, this symbol was going to die, and never be found again. And look at it, cracked. Geoff struck the bell with his rifle butt. A barely heard sound.
What kind of idiots think a cracked bell that cannot ring is a symbol? Next thing they’ll be telling stories of a drum that summon ancient admirals. Geoff jerked his hand, and the bell was lifted onto a truck and carted away. That was the end of that.
Next, he waved the demolitions team into place. No building which had housed fugitives or fugitive objects would be allowed to stand. It wasn’t his directive, but he loved the work. Seeing all these hideous old buildings going up in smoke was one of the highlights of his work. Like that damn fake Grecian temple down south. The resistance had put up quite a battle not to have that one destroyed. In the end, the air force had had to come in and level it with bombs, because getting near it on the ground was too damn dangerous.
Well, the resistance was crumbling now. Their symbols were all but destroyed, their history was written out of the textbooks and would die off in a generation, and even their race was being bred out of existence. Resisters were sterilized whenever they were found. Inferior cretins, not recognizing our right to rule, and our long legacy of supremacy.
After disease had ruined their population and climate change had thickened the clouds in the northern sky, they had come all but begging to us, asking to be saved from the predicament they had caused. Only those south of the equator had survived intact, and what a wonderful opportunity that had been. Geoff loved to listen to the stories his grandfather would tell, the great masses of infantry and mechs sweeping north, pacifying and eradicating all serious resistance. He wished he’d been alive then, to march alongside his old man, gather some of that glory to himself.
Geoff looked at his watch and gestured to his team. It was quitting time, another good day’s work done. Only the demolitions to go. Outside, Geoff popped the champagne cork, and served it up to his team. With that, the building rumbled and collapsed, to a cheer and a toast. Not as glorious as the Great Conquest, but good enough.
A second, a third, a fourth, a fifth rumble followed that of the collapsed building. Geoff spun about, and saw great pillars of fire arcing upwards into the sky, curving over onto a southerly track. He wondered what the columns were. He was still wondering when a sniper’s bullet smashed his brains onto the pavement.
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