The morning after a storm always has a deceptive quiet. I sat in my office at Downing Street, a cup of hot tea steaming in my hands. Outside, London was beginning to lick its wounds. Cleaning crews were sweeping shattered glass from Parliament Square, and the burned-out husks of cars were being towed away like the skeletons of prehistoric beasts.
The television broadcast the images in an endless loop, a breakfast-time montage of chaos. On every channel, trembling pundits—sociologists, legal scholars, political commentators—spoke in funereal tones. They used words like "tragic," "unprecedented," and "a dark turning point."
They were right on that last point, though not in the way they meant.
The screen then cut to Kaelan Richards. He stood in front of the Labour Party headquarters, looking haggard and defeated. The fire in his eyes had been extinguished, replaced by the embers of despair. He was no longer calling for revolution; he was calling for "an independent inquiry" and "dialogue."
I snorted softly. He had unleashed his dogs, and when they turned and bit civilization itself, he had no idea what to do but whistle weakly in the hope they might come back. He had shown his fatal weakness: he believed in the inherent goodness of an angry mob. I knew the truth: a mob has no goodness, only appetites. And appetites must be controlled, or they will consume everything.
Simon Blackwood entered, carrying a tablet like a priest bearing holy scripture.
"The media fallout is worse than we anticipated," he said without preamble. "But that doesn't matter. This does."
He showed me the overnight polling data. My approval as Prime Minister had plummeted among voters under 30 and in the urban centers. But among voters over 45, in the smaller towns, and in the countryside—the 'Real England,' as I thought of it—my ratings had skyrocketed to 75 percent.
"You gambled that the country feared chaos more than it feared a strong hand," Blackwood said, a flicker of admiration in his cold eyes.
"You won."
"It wasn't a gamble, Simon," I replied, setting down my cup. "It was a diagnosis. And now, we continue the treatment."
…
The Cabinet Room felt like a morgue. My ministers sat rigidly in their chairs, avoiding my gaze. They had seen the images. They had felt the tremors of the political earthquake I had unleashed.
"I will not mince words," I began, my voice cutting through the heavy silence. "Last night, the government of the United Kingdom came under attack. The symbols of our nation were desecrated. Our police officers were firebombed. This was not a protest. This was an insurrection."
I paused, looking at each face. "And an insurrection must be put down in a way that ensures it will never happen again."
I picked up the documents Blackwood had prepared. The System has given me the tools.
I thought. Now it's time to use them.
"Thanks to the actions of those anarchists, I have invoked a national security clause that grants me Level 1 Emergency Authorization. This means that, for the next thirty days, I have the power to suspend certain laws in the interest of maintaining public order."
A collective gasp went through the room. Even Sterling looked taken aback.
The Lord Chancellor, Christopher Hayes—an old traditionalist who viewed English law with a sacred reverence—finally found his voice.
"Prime Minister… this is… this is unprecedented in peacetime. This is the road to tyranny."
"The road to tyranny, Christopher?" I shot back, my voice like ice.
"Tyranny is when citizens cannot walk their own streets without fear. Tyranny is when a mob can burn the center of our capital with impunity. I am not destroying the law. I am re-forging the sword of law that you have allowed to grow dull and rust."
"Therefore," I continued, giving him no chance to reply, "I am announcing the creation of Emergency Public Order Tribunals. They will try the 642 individuals arrested during the riots. There will be no juries—too slow and too susceptible to intimidation. Just a single judge. The process will be expedited. Sentences will be handed down in days, not months. And the penalties will be exemplary: mandatory minimum prison sentences for anyone found guilty of assaulting a police officer or destroying public property."
Hayes rose to his feet, his face ashen. "I cannot… I cannot be a part of this. This is an affront to every principle of the Magna Carta."
"In that case, I accept your resignation, Christopher," I said calmly. "The door is over there. Don't let it hit you on the way out."
A shocked silence fell over the room. I had just dismissed the Lord Chancellor, the guardian of the nation's legal traditions, as easily as I might dismiss a footman. The message was clear: you are with me, or you are gone.
Hayes stared at me for a moment, his eyes filled with a mixture of horror and disappointment. Then, without another word, he turned and walked out of the Cabinet Room, closing the door softly behind him.
I looked at the empty chair. "Does anyone else wish to join him?"
No one moved. No one breathed. I had broken the last of the resistance within my own government. From now on, there would be no more questions. Only compliance.
…
That evening, I spoke to the nation.
Not from a podium in a sterile press conference room, but from behind my desk in my office, with the portrait of Churchill looking over my shoulder and a Union Jack standing solemnly in the corner.
"My fellow countrymen," I began, looking directly into the camera lens, into the millions of living rooms across the nation. "Last night, you all witnessed painful images. You saw fire and violence on the streets of our capital. You saw the statue of the man who saved this nation from tyranny defiled by the very symbols of that tyranny."
"The instigators of this chaos, and their enablers in Parliament and the media, would have you believe this was a legitimate protest. They are wrong. This was an assault on you. On your family. On your way of life. On the very idea of Britain itself."
I leaned forward, my voice dropping to a powerful whisper. "For years, you have been told to be quiet. To accept the decline. To pretend that the decay around you was 'progress'. Last night was the inevitable result of that lie."
"Tonight, I say: no more."
"Your government has acted. We have arrested those who would tear us down. And they will face swift, firm justice. I have authorized emergency measures to ensure that our streets are safe, and that the message is heard clearly: in the Britain I lead, the law is not a suggestion. It is a certainty."
"There will be those who call these actions harsh. They are the same people who stood silently by as our country slid into chaos. I do not serve them. I serve you."
I paused, letting the silence hang. "There are two paths before us. The path of anarchy, division, and weakness that they offer… or the path of order, unity, and strength. Choose wisely. Because as of tonight, we are walking the second path. Together. As one nation, united, under one law. Good night, and God bless Britain."
The red light on the camera went out.
I sat in the silence, feeling the weight of the words I had just spoken. I had drawn a battle line that could not be erased.
Simon Blackwood entered the room, a thin smile on his lips. He handed me a small note.
"Just came in through diplomatic backchannels," he said. "Not from Washington or Brussels. This one is from Beijing. And another from Moscow."
I read the notes. The messages were nearly identical. They offered no endorsement, of course not. They simply stated their "understanding" of the need for a government to "maintain internal stability" and expressed their respect for "strong leadership."
It was a nod of acknowledgement from fellow wolves.
I crumpled the notes in my hand. The battle for the streets of London was over. The battle for the soul of Britain had just begun.
But far away, on the global chessboard, the other great players were beginning to take notice. They saw an old lion they had thought toothless suddenly grow its fangs back. And they were wondering… what it would bite next.