Eighteen, 24 February

Blows strike, bodies fall

Feb 24, 2025

Black waves of dronikus

‘Down dronikus, down! Let’s hear it: down dronikus, down!’

The column looked like a large detachment of medieval and futuristic warriors – thousands of marchers sporting hand-beaten body armour, shields of old car body parts, outdated flack-jackets woven with protective tubing adapted to cover arms and legs, movie-themed masks, camouflage netting strung across poles, whitegoods panels refashioned into brightly painted jousting shields, and colander-like helmets glinting in the sunlight.

In close up, a myriad of Lumpyfaces could be seen, in an assortment of colours, shapes and patterns, many adorned with sequins, jewels, mirrors, and lights.

‘Down dronikus! Down, down, down. Down dronikus! Down, down, down!’ they chanted, in tune, beating and grinding and shaking metal on metal.

Amandine, dressed in an elegant Joan of Arc suit with shiny silver body armour and a mail headdress, led the march and the chanting. Her words resounded across the wide boulevard, relayed through the compact speakers mounted on the marchers’ headsets. Despite the armour, the crowd did not have the appearance of a battle column; little weaponry was visible and there was no aggression among the marchers. It looked much like a fancy-dress version of a peaceful demonstration of old, through the streets of a polite ancient city. As it progressed its numbers swelled with new marchers joining from all sides, becoming a huge throng, filling the boulevard.

Rain clouds were amassing as usual in the southern skies, but the sun had a clear passage to the horizon. The whole scene glowed in a soft, orange light.

As the march approached the Peoples’ Palace, it passed in front of the Pandoke Building complex. The volume of chanting – and what became jeering – rose enormously. Beyond Pandoke, at the level of the Palace, stood row upon row of military rators, many in upright two-legged form, many in the four-legged ratordog form. Lined up behind them were the vehicles and equipment for riot control – or demonstration suppression, in the view the marchers.

A makeshift podium appeared before the portentous gateway to the Pandoke complex. Amandine rose above the crowd, the warm sunlight glinting off her armour. She removed her helmet, releasing her matching, voluminous silver hair.

‘We are here to celebrate the National RePO Day!’ The crowd cheered. ‘The National RePO Day is a day of non-violence. It has always been thus since it began. We are here to demonstrate in peace!’ More cheering. ‘We are here to seek solutions. We are here to offer partnership with those who want to talk, with those who also seek peace and justice!

‘Government has turned against its own citizens! This has to stop! This has to stop now!’ Her words were greeted with an eruption of chanting, shouts and screams, music riffs, banging of drums, and clanging of metal.

‘Some weeks ago, two of our people were murdered by dronikus during a demonstration in the Unidad Square. Murdered by dronikus! This is war, war against your own people! Let them hear us when we say that we are here to talk. We do not want war. Government, can you hear us? Come on everyone: hear us, talk to us! hear us, talk to us!’ The crowd duly took up the chant.

Amandine continued: ‘We say: no more attacks by the dronikus! We say: no more unacceptable…’

At this point loudspeakers around the area began to blast out across Amandine’s words: ‘Attention, attention. This is an illegal gathering. You are notified to leave this area immediately. Failure to do so could result in serious consequences.’ It ran on a loop, over and over. The volume on Amandine’s loudspeakers rose to match the official loudspeakers, pushing both up to an eardrum-shattering level. The cacophony became the trigger; the atmosphere changed. The crowd turned with menace towards the phalanx of rators.

‘Oh shit!’ said Zola.

He and Chun watched the video feed in the Civil Aviation: Data and Archives Room.

‘It’s the same every time,’ said Chun, ‘the temperature rises, each side provokes the other and…’ Heesh stopped in mid-sentence as one of the monitors showed a close-up image of Chesa. Chun said into the microphone, ‘it’s starting over towards the Palace.’

She looked at the camera, ‘Yeah, I see. This could get very nasty, very quickly.’

‘You stay safe, hey?’

‘Always. You know me. You with Zola?’

‘Heesh’s here next to me,’ Chun said.

On other screens, dronikus came flying in and spraying gas above the crowd. ‘Get your mask on.’ Chesa pulled her mask from her pack and had it on before the spray got to her.

The gas caused only minor bother in the crowd as they soon all had masks attached. The loop on the speaker had changed and now warned people that they had five minutes to begin to clear the square or ‘face consequences.’

These words seemed to be a sign for a group of protestors on one side of the boulevard to attack the line of rators. Armed with grinders, stakes, and axes, they began hacking and dismembering the rators before them. A tight squad of rators responded to this provocation, moving forward at high speed, encircling the attackers, beating them with clubs and subduing them with stun guns. The crowd nearby responded in turn, weapons appearing from nowhere, and pitched battles began to spread across the whole boulevard.

On the main front before the Palace, the rators had formed a solid wall by interlocking their limbs and began advancing, dozens of ratordogs patrolling the front, pushing the mob back, crushing those in the way. The rators moved directly into the crowd, knocking people over, riding over those on the ground, whipping people with high-tension blacksnake whips.

A laser beam sprang to life from within the crowd, cutting through the line of rators, chopping them at the legs. Three dronikus swooped down on the laser and disabled it, but not before it had cut a significant breach in the rator wall. A crowd of RePO warriors pushed through, all now armed – some with axes, lances, and swords, some with whips and lassos, others with lasers and Molotov cocktails. They got near enough to the Palace building to cause damage, breaking windows, spraying graffiti on pristine walls, and setting a corner of the building alight. Rator-driven armoured vehicles moved in and with high pressure hoses drove the protestors back until the vehicles themselves were attacked and disabled. Large numbers of rators poured into the area and managed to overwhelm the protestors, arresting many and pushing back the others beyond the perimeter fences.

Rays of the setting sun lit up the scene across the boulevard, catching the tear gas smog hanging in the air, the smoke from the burning section of the Palace, and the numerous small fires being lit here and there. Firefighter rators used heavy hoses on the Palace, assisted by utility dronikus dropping water from above.

The audio loops on both sides had abruptly quietened down. Both the rators and the RePO crowd had pulled back to regroup – a temporary cessation of hostilities, a moment’s pause for the demonstrators to catch their breath. But soon they began again. They beat metal on metal and chanted, in a slow tribal hum, ‘RePO, last line, no retreat, RePO last line, no retreat.’ Amandine stood in the centre, urging calm but the people had turned away from her.

On a monitor, Zola noticed a few small groups of rebels dousing the rators and their machines and even buildings with handheld spray guns. ‘What’s going on there?’

‘It’s glo-slime. 100% the same as what they spray on us,’ said Chun.

‘Why would they?’

‘If everyone is glo-slimed it’s no longer of any use. It has worked well for them up to now. But seeing that we’ve also got it I’m sure they’ll stop using it.’

‘Smart. What’s going to happen next?’ asked Zola.

‘It’ll start up again soon,’ said Chun. ‘How are you going there, Ballie?’

‘Mmm…’ came the reply.

‘This next phase will show who wins and who loses,’ Chun said to Zola.

Almost on cue from Chun, a group of rebels pulled away from the crowd and turned their attention to the Pandoke Building, attacking the fencing with heavy implements and dispensing with the few rators that guarded the perimeter. They broke through and opened a wide breach for the following mob to swarm through into the gardens in front of the building. A shower of firebombs rained down on the glass facade and elegant entranceway. Fire soon began to take, and the large plate-glass windows cracked and shattered under the repeated blows from projectiles hurled at close distance. The rebels stormed forward – unstoppable and rampant, determined to take and ransack the whole building.

But then all changed. Packs of ratordogs burst from the entrances, rators dropped on ropes from the top of the Pandoke building, armoured vehicles coming from around the sides disgorged rators, others came by cutting a pathway through the crowds on the boulevard. They viciously attacked the surprised and outflanked protestors. This had been well planned.

‘Oh shit!’ Zola and Chun shouted together.

‘We weren’t prepared for this…’ said Chun as images and sounds of ferocious battles erupted on the monitors before them. ‘This is not good. Ballie!’

The rators’ numbers and speed drove the protestors back in the fiercest, most brutal, clashes of the afternoon. Blood was spilt as people were crushed against the perimeter fencing. Something had changed: the rators seem to be under instruction to not pull back, and to pursue the protestors as they retreated. They drove forward, creating clusters of human bodies squeezed together into ever-reducing spaces.

Zola grimaced as he saw the blows strike and bodies fall.

‘Ballie, can we do it? It’s urgent,’ cried Chun.

‘Mmm… not sure…’ came the reply.

‘We’ve got to give it a go, now, if not sooner.’

Zola looked across the room and saw that Ballie and his coworkers were furiously working their terminals.

‘Mmm… we need a bit more time.’

On one of the monitors Chesa screamed: ‘Chun!’

A column of black smoke rose from the front of the Pandoke Building. Rators from the defence lines around the Palace now joined and began attacking in formations, moving against the protestors with brutal intent.

‘Ballie!’ Chun shouted again.

No reply. The four clicked furiously at their keyboards.

‘Chesa! Move from there!’ Chun shouted into the microphone. She was caught in the stampede away from the Pandoke Building. The rators continued to rout the protestors. And at that moment they froze.

‘Ballie! You did it!’

‘Mmm…’

Just as had happened in the Unidad Square, the system crashed and the rators and all their equipment ceased functioning. Many were caught in mid-action becoming statues, others in mid step or off balance fell down, some of those descending on ropes off the roof dropped to the ground, while others swung, suspended in mid-air.

On screen Chesa raised her fists, a large smile across her face.

Chun turned to Zola: ‘Okay get ready now for the dronikus.’

Zola checked the duccs on a monitor and looked at a count of the active dronikus: ‘I think we’re okay.’

The warriors seized the moment and began attacking and dismembering the immobile rators with vigour and anger. They were easy targets for the dronikus which now moved quickly into the void, spraying gas and firing stun darts from mounted tasers.

Zola instructed the duccs to counterattack. He placed them in static positions in such a way that they could fire their lasers on and disrupt the dronikus that, to avoid being hit, had no choice but to fly up and out of the conflict zone. Where previously, in the Unidad Square, the duccs had followed the dronikus into one-on-one combats, here Zola held the duccs back, keeping their firepower focussed on those dronikus still attacking the mob on the boulevard. It was a winning strategy, clearing many dronikus out of the conflict zone.

‘Zola! Great work there,’ Chun said. ‘Ballie, how much longer?’

‘Mmm… I think we got them for a while.’

On the ground the warriors had regained their purpose and direction and energy. They moved through the frozen and recumbent rators back towards the Pandoke Building.

Amandine called out, discouraging anything too dramatic, reverting to the chant: ‘Hear us, talk to us, hear us, talk to us!’ Her words were drowned by the metallic clanging of the protestors as they moved into the Pandoke Building.

Zola gasped at what he saw on the monitors. ‘Oh my fuck!’

‘Oh fucking hell!’ said Chun.

The rooftop of the Prosesor Building, in which they sat, was alive with hundreds – even thousands – of dronikus taking to the air. The screens were filled with black wave upon black wave of dronikus. Images shot from the boulevard showed a red sunsetting sky darkened by a massive swarm of dronikus, like a flock of enormous bats flying to feeding grounds.

‘Fuck! how did we not know about this? Ballie! How did we not know about this?’

‘Dunno.’

The lead dronikus directly attacked the duccs. Zola attempted to pull them back and to take evasive action, but they were overwhelmed by the speed of the dronikus and their sheer numbers. The duccs fell to the ground in balls of fire and smoke. The dronikus, arriving in wave upon wave, began to attack the people on the ground.

‘Shit, look what they are doing!’

A camera was close up on Amandine as she looked up at the sky. One, then two, then many darts hit her armour and bounced off. She realised what was happening and began to turn her head away but was too late. A dart entered her eye and exploded. She crumpled to the ground clutching at her face. Across the boulevard the people fled, pursued by dronikus firing darts at them from all sides. The cameras captured hit after hit as the darts pierced the warriors’ makeshift armour or found a way to unprotected flesh.

‘Get out of there, Chesa! Now!’ screamed Chun into heris microphone.

Just then the rators sprang back to life; the system was back online. The audio level jumped to maximum, gas billowed across the crowds, and the rators returned to action.

‘Shit,’ Ballie said.

‘Come, we must go!’ shouted Chun. ‘Cover your tracks, team.’

Rators and the dronikus attacked the fleeing, panicking, screaming crowds, killing with intent, accuracy, and savagery. Chesa was one of the many fleeing the boulevard. In terror, she ran past the dead and the dying. Corpses began to pile up where many were trapped – against a fence or a gap in the vehicles, bodies now crumpled on top of, or next to, or under others – their broken, brightly coloured, blood-spattered armour proving to have been wholly inadequate. The first of the rains began to fall, soaking the scene and making pools and then fine, watery rivers of blood snaking across the pavers of the boulevard.

Chesa managed to evade the rators. She ran down side streets, away from the boulevards, fleeing with other terrified crowds. She found safety in an alleyway where she collapsed on the pavement with many others around her, shaking and sobbing, traumatised.

In the Civil Aviation: Data and Archives Room they closed their terminals. They deleted all access points and hid their tracks as best they could. They went out a small side door and down a fire-escape passage. They did not run but walked fast, their heads covered, their faces masked.

Chun and Zola clasped each other as they moved, fearful for Chesa, devastated by what they had witnessed on the monitors. In many ways it felt like a movie, but also not like one at all.

Hey, what's that sound?

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Hey, what's that sound?

Eighteen, 24 February

Blows strike, bodies fall

Dronikus, a novel set on a burning planet called Earth.

Discussion about this post