Servitude

Angus awoke on the floor of a makeshift army tent as the sun rose. He did not yet understand how the world he was living in had fundamentally changed. No amount of explanation could really drive home what was happening. The battle had already ended. With great effort, Angus managed to stand and looked outside of the tent.

“What the-”

He was outside of Warwick’s walls. There were dozens- no, hundreds of army tents in a grid pattern. All of the survivors of the battle and civilians of Warwick were forced outside of their homes, where the riflemen now resided. The speed at which the postwar preparations had been laid was dizzying; it almost didn’t feel real. A loud rumbling horn sounded and riflemen directed the survivors to gather in a field. Although he was unaware of the full extent of this new cold reality, it was quite easy for him to piece together. He knew he had to comply or be killed.

In the field, all of the men and women were lined up in two separate groups. Angus stood completely still, trying to take in his new reality. Several riflemen kept them in line with their SCOP-R4000s. The first step for them grabbing control of the common people was to execute many recognizable leaders in front of the men. It started before the demonstration, when they showed the mangled body of Clyde hanging from a pole. The first one to be killed in front of the crowd, though, was Charles, the Marquis. If Edward and his immediate relatives had died, Charles would be next in line for the throne. His relation to Edward made him quite recognizable in Warwick.

“What are you doing, unhand me you demons!”

Charles was kicking and screaming as he was dragged on top of a stage and placed in something similar to a stockade. A rifleman then drew his weapon and pointed it at Charles’s head.

“Gentlemen, this is your Marquis. Charles, any last words?”

“You’ll pay for this!”

There was a small flash of light and then the crowd collectively groaned in discomfort. Charles’s head was cleanly severed off. The top of his neck and the bottom of his neck were separated through teleportation.

Charles was conscious throughout the entire experience. Although he could not breathe, he experienced his head separating from his body. Everything seemed to slow down as he approached the floor. The pain from the cut was not immediately apparent, but when his head hit the ground, he could feel it immediately. He could blink and he could open his mouth to scream, but he was detached from his lungs. He couldn’t make any noise no matter how hard he tried. The blood left his head and then his brain ceased to function.

Next was an officer that led the archers. It was John, the man who shot the lucky arrow. Although he was somewhat reclusive, his expertise was known throughout all of England. He was given the same treatment. John was laid in the stockade without the blood being washed off of the front. Although he had seen many battles in war, he still almost vomited. Again, the rifleman aimed his weapon at John’s head.

“This is your archery officer. Any last words, John?”

“You underestimate the people of Warwick. We will fight back until you’re gone or we’re dead!”

Everything slowed down for John as his head was separated from his body. The entire time his head traveled to the floor, his brow was furrowed with determination. He wanted to send the message of resistance to the people, even if it meant giving their lives.

A third victim was brought up before the crowd. It was Sturgeon Easton. The spectators, already quite disheartened, were now empty shells of themselves. Collective groans and grumbles were heard. The stockade was opened up, and as it closed around Sturgeon’s arms and neck, the remaining blood from the previous victims splattered onto his face.

“Sturgeon Easton. You were the man behind the plan of resistance. If it weren’t for our numbers, we may have had quite the difficult time in taking your city.”

“Bastard!”

A thin chain was placed around his neck and pulled up, restricting any possible airflow that would allow breathing, let alone speech.

“You should understand the position you’re in now. If I recall, your company did something very similar in Ireland. No, in fact you were worse.”

The crowd stood silently.

“You burned their homes, we are keeping yours intact. You slaughtered all of their officers. We are only killing the top brass. You forced the Irish to labor for your soldiers and sent goods back to England, working civilians to the edge of starvation and death… I guess we’re about to be even in that matter.”

As Sturgeon struggled to breathe, a bit of blood started to drip from his fresh neck wound. The chain loosened.

“Now that the shoe is on the other foot, do you have any last words, Sturgeon Easton?”

Sturgeon couldn’t even think of anything. He knew of the suffering that his way of life caused, but experiencing it took out all layers of abstraction. Waves of regret crashed in his mind and his train of thought was directionless, careening through any option that could help him or his city survive. Then he saw Angus in the crowd, confused and scared. He was brought back to the cold reality he faced. Unable to move, he shed a single tear as he looked at Angus.

“Last call, spit it out!”

Sturgeon didn’t even have time to think. He just said the first thing that came to his mind.

“I’m sorry that I failed you all! I underestimated our opponents! But soon they will underestimate us and we will take back our lives!”

Barely having enough time to finish, his head was separated from his body. Time seemed to slow down for everyone as his head hit the floor and the blood left his skull. Many in the crowd stormed the stage unarmed and beat the executioner to death. Riflemen watching the line popped the heads off of several people and the others were returned to the line. A new speaker took the stage.

“Because of your insolence, this is not over. Today it was your military, tomorrow it will be your king. We are now the law here. You are to work the fields from sunrise to sunset.”

He pointed at the portal in the sky.

“Everything you harvest will go through the portal, everything you mine will go through the portal, everything you have saved in silos and barns and warehouses will go through the portal. Your livestock, your soil, your water, your air, your trees, and the women we think we can sell. All of these things will go through the portal.”

The crowd silently looked at the portal as half of a loop made of chain fell through the portal.

“And here’s our delivery mechanism. Guards, set up the line!”

‘The line’ was set up. It was a giant chain loop affixed with many hooks. If you had something to send up at the end of the day, you would attach it to the constantly-moving chain and it would be taken up into the portal. The first day everyone was given an identifying brand on their right shoulder. Men, women, children, and elders were all given unique brands that would be scanned by guards every morning to make sure nobody was missing. It was explained that if someone ran away, collective punishment was common such as the removal of food for multiple nights.

The next day, it was indeed their king. Edward was escorted onto the stage and placed in the stockades. The blood from the previous day had not been cleaned, and the smell was so foul that Edward visibly had great difficulty resisting the urge to vomit. The number of tents had grown. Many people from London were now outside of Warwick to labor as well. They wondered why they didn’t just execute Edward in London, but it was soon clear.

“Warwick, you have been such a thorn in our side, causing us a significant number of casualties and loss of expensive military equipment. For your resistance, you get to watch your King Edward be executed.”

It quickly became apparent that when they arrived at London, they quickly capitulated instead of resisting their forces.

“Do you have any last words, your highness?”

A wave of anger erupted from the crowd. The new executioner shot in the air to silence them, and then Edward could speak.

“It wasn’t Sturgeon’s fault, he was the best man for the job. It was mine. We saw the crack in the sky for twenty years and only started preparing last year. I apologize for what you must now live through.”

The new executioner raised his eyebrow a little at that statement. It was unexpectedly calm. Stoic, even. In the end, the result was the same. Edward’s head was removed from his body with a shot from a SCOP-R4000. As everything slowed down and his face was meeting the floor, he felt a wave of regret crash over him, but also a weight being lifted from his shoulders.

Starting then, Angus and the others were forced to work, day after day, week after week. He dug soil, sowed seeds, gathered stones, and was even forced to mine. Most of the women were sent to work in similar conditions, including Angus's mother, Mary Easton. However, it was easy to notice that some of the teenagers and young adults were missing. As everyone worked, their clothes and shoes would wear out and tear until they were no longer usable. They were not given any replacements and had to work in their undergarments, leaving harsh sunburns that covered their bodies. Everyone was forced to work in this same way. At the end of each day, After a few months, people were assigned exclusively to the jobs they performed best at.

At the end of each day, Angus lined up with everyone else with what he had reaped. Attaching bags of soil, grain, rocks, or anything else he was tasked with harvesting was the easy part. The hard part was watching it travel through the portal. It wasn't difficult to do, but on a psychological level Angus could almost feel the world getting lighter. Such a concept wouldn't even have been able to occur to him just a few months ago. In times like these, he thought back to the battle. "What if we won?" was not just a common thought, it was a means of escapism- not to some fantasy, but to how the world should have been all along.

Whenever he was out of line or simply didn’t work fast enough, he received the same punishment as the others: the shack. The shack was a small steel structure full of hungry rodents that carried the bubonic plague. To be locked in the shack didn’t just mean missing a finger or a toe the next day, it meant you were marked. As you suffered through the disease, nobody would talk to you or even get near you. People with the plague had to line up in a separate line every morning to keep at least most of the workforce healthy enough to work.

The shack didn’t guarantee you would get the black death, but it was quite likely. The second time that Angus was sent to the shack, he contracted the bubonic plague. He had every common symptom such as the swelling of lymph nodes, severe fever, muscle aches, and the formation of buboes. They formed in his armpits and groin, about two inches wide. When they burst open, blood and pus steadily streamed from these wounds until they closed weeks later. Angus survived the plague, but he was left with scars from the encounter. This experience is what brought him to start scheming.

While he worked, he spread a plan to others: To sneak some of the rats out of the shack and infect the riflemen who watched them work every day. Over the course of weeks, more and more of the workers began gathering after dark to plot the overthrow of their captors. They gathered in a tent of a deserter, digging out space underneath to create more room to meet.

One fateful night during one of these meetings, the flaps from the tent suddenly burst open.