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	Chorus (Verse 4)
	Chorus (Verse 4) Snapping back into focus, I assessed my situation. The emergency exit door was far away and already crammed so full that no-one could get through it, and the stairs had been taken over rapidly by the Police. I knew that the jump from the open sides would be fatal, and there was nowhere to go but into the barrel of a gun. People fell, just screaming and running to fall silent and drop like something soulless to the ground. I pushed around the edges of the wall, toward the Police but blocked by the sound equipment, using it as a shield from the bullets peppering the room. The floor around me was an obstacle course of rubbish and bodies. The shooting stopped, and the rounding up started. People were pulled out of the heaving crowd to be tied together by transparent cord, and then pushed to one side to wait while friends were added to their numbers. My heart pounded and stuck in my throat as I saw Seth fight a man twice his size like a vicious dog, and then fail to win and get his hands lashed with vigour. Nicholas drew up beside me, out of breath and eyes trained on Seth as he was manhandled across the room. He grabbed my arm in a vice-like grip. “We have to get out of here.” He murmured, hiding us both behind the largest amp in the room. “What about Seth?” I asked, glancing back at the group of radicals now reduced to a pile of limbs and rope. Seth was out there. “We have to leave him.” “Leave him?!” “Yes leave him! Don’t make this any harder than it is Amos. We can…I don’t know, ambush them from outside or something. Seth…Seth has lots of guns and traps that we can set up for when they leave. With those we can fight them on our own turf. We’re getting out of here and we’re going to get everyone home, and they’re not going to take him any more than they are the other survivors here.” I looked into his eyes, hard eyes from suppressing fear, anguish, sorrow…I knew that he was right. I hated him for it, and I wanted with my entire being to shake him and tell him to shut the hell up and jump out there with me to kick some butt and get Seth back. Seth, the guy that had saved our asses more times than I could count. But the guns were ringing their lethal bells, and Nicholas could hear it and made me to cock an ear too. I nodded, and forced myself to see the logic. “Alright, we’ll be able to do more if we’re not tied up.” “Good, let’s go.” He leapt up and began to run toward the other side of the room and the edge. The edge that lead to the drop. The drop that would probably kill anyone that fell its length. I wondered if following Nicholas was any safer than remaining behind the amp. Casting all thoughts of doubt aside, I followed and dodged the heaving, terror-driven crowd to skid across the cement floor. A uniformed Secret Police officer grabbed at me, but had his attention monopolised by something kicking up trouble behind me. I threw a look over my shoulder. Cory used a broken guitar to swing at an officer, The Drummer made the best of his mountainous size to snap officers like twigs, and others dotted around the room bit and scratched and punched. Nicholas called my name and, when I reached him, pulled me up onto the ledge. Below was a mound of earth and scrap that had built up against the wall of the ambushed multi-storey car park. “We can get down there, can’t we?” “I checked this morning. It’s easy to climb both down and up, and we’ll need that, because we’re coming back to get these bastards.” Nick swore with conviction. He braced to jump, but was stopped by a slim hand on his arm. “Why are you leaving?” Ry asked, her white face backed by chaos. “To get tools from Seth’s house. We’re going to free everyone when they get them outside.” Nick replied. “They’re outside too Nick. We’re surrounded.” “No! They’re not everywhere. We can skirt them, keep to the doorways, and there’s no Mincers either…” “Look down there Nick!” She ordered. He opened his mouth to reply and she raised her voice even more. “Look down there!” He followed her orders and saw men in black with guns and other killing mechanisms. They moved every so often in the darkness, occasionally breaking the shadows with an arm, leg or gun barrel. Nick ran a hand through his hair. “What…What do you expect me to do then? I have to get my little brother and my best friend out of here before we’re all blown to Timbuk-fucking-tu and no-one is helping me!” “I’m helping you Nick.” I promised him. “And if there’s no way out then we have nothing to lose.” “If there’s no way out then we have to make them regret that fact.” Something grabbed my arm and I suddenly realised how few people there were left in the room without ropes round their wrists, they’d not stopped to give us time to argue, after all. The officer who held my arm had his face covered by a protective mask. The coward wasn’t even man enough to show his face during a massacre. Kicking out, I caught his shin, but he refused to let go. I heard Nick scream at me somewhere, but I didn’t register as I watched the metal rod speed toward my head. I closed my eyes and tried to cover myself as best I could. Shit. A hearty laugh drew my eyes open again. A boy stood in front of me, about seventeen, maybe a year older. He had dark hair with dyed-blue tips, wore a strange pinstripe suit jacket with a pair of silver ski goggles and, probably most importantly, he had my attacker at his feet, unconscious. “What the…?” He winked at me and drop kicked another officer charging us. Nick joined him with punches and a feral look. “The apocalypse is coming, but you shan’t have the honour of initiating it!” Ry yelled as she pushed an officer behind her and over the ledge. From the grunts I heard, he must have rolled down the hill and hit every lump on the way. The boy with the goggles turned to me and yelled over the mess. “Your friend over there has an idea. And, though it’s great fun kicking the ass of these secret agent wannabes, you should probably go quick. Not everyone is enjoying this as much as I am.” He grinned and elbowed an officer in the face as he was pulled into a headlock, and as I ran across the room my last image of him was leap-frogging over one officer to pull a face at another. He must have meant Seth when he so cryptically said ‘friend’, Seth was the only one who could come up with an idea while warding off officers and screaming kids at the same time. It was no easy task getting to Seth though. I’d love to say that I leapt over the fallen bodies of the officers, and saluted those still fighting as they kept my other oppressors at bay. Not true. I was stopped every five paces by some officer or another. Some with guns, others with sticks and poles pulled from the ruins outside. Every one of them swung, shot or stabbed at me. By divine intervention of some sort, I dodged, bluffed and shoved my way out of their range and hoped they fell over the lifeless body of the last kid they’d run through. Not to say that I didn’t do the same thing; not only bodies but shoes, bags, cans clawed at my feet and the untied laces of my converse boots. When I threw myself out of the way of one officer, I was pulled into the group of tied teens, and they blocked me. A human wall against the fighting not two feet away. I was half lead half pushed through them all, and I kept a look out for a familiar head of dark hair. “Amos!” I heard my name. “Amos!” Again. I looked around frantically. There. Seth didn’t look angry, he looked livid. Like he was going to turn into some mass murderer. I made my way to him and got out my knife to untie him. “Amos, listen to me, there’s a way out of this. Once you’ve freed me, I’ll help you untie everyone else, and you have to get anyone with a blade to do the same. The order then is to fight. Keep them busy for as long as possible.” Looking up from sawing at the rope, I noticed a ruckus in the imprisoned crowd further down. They had sent officers after me. “The magnet packs, listen Amos, we don’t have much time.” I turned back to him, ignoring the feeling of vulnerability at having my back to my worst enemy. “I can reverse the magnet packs. The Mincers will re-activate, but with a difference. They’ll be haywire, like when you put a magnet to the reverberator of a air bike. They’ll attack everyone, not just us. Where we now how to fight them, the officers have no clue, we’ll have an advantage. We just have to get outside.” I nodded, and he was free as the rope finished fraying and finally snapped. Methodically I moved on to the next person, starting with the bigger guys so we’d have some muscle. It was like a disease. Spreading through the roped mass, people began to move, like a pot boiling over.The ropes snapped, the people began to riot. If we were going to die anyway, why not go out kicking? Officers working through the prisoners were stopped and beaten, people seeped out of the cluster they were in to join the fighting with the survivors, and in the middle Seth pulled out a little device that looked like a disk with buttons. “Get outside! We have to get outside, there are more there!” They’d started using their guns again. I don’t suppose they’d expected a real battle. Well, surprise, surprise. The word ‘fight’ was on everyone’s lips, people were angry, and they wanted payback. Cornered mice will always fight like bears. “Outside! Sort out these guys and move outside, and watch out for the Mincers!” People were following my orders. The officers radioed for backup, but the doors were held by the bigger guys and others were streaming out into the night. I heard the battle begin to rage outside. There were ropes on the floor by that point too. I picked one up and swung it, as a weapon it wasn’t what I would have usually chosen, but these weren’t usual circumstances. Creeping up behind the nearest officer terrorising some boy, I heaved the rope around an caught his head. He fell, I cheered. The whole suicidal fighting thing wasn’t that bad. Maybe we could become what Cory was expecting. Faceless men were being thrown out of the car park, and the fairy lights were either tangled on the floor or flickering dimly. The sky was getting lighter, slowly, but everything was still a sludgy grey to the eye. Something caught my arm and it gave out, refusing to lift. It hung limply at my side as a dodge-rolled and feinted around the dark figures that lunged at me. Some sharp menace nicked my face, and I felt hot blood slide down my cheek. Turning with my heart burning a hole in my chest, I realised there was no-one to fight, and the man who’d attacked my face was sprawled on the floor below me. He raised his gun shakily and I made a sloppy attack with my rope. There was a sudden cry of victory, and I realised the only officers inside the room then were either dead, groaning among the dead, or in front of me getting lashed by a piece of rope. I hope it was humiliating for him to get beaten by a sixteen year old boy that only had a piece of heavy binding to fight off his gun. “Yo Amos!” I turned to see Nick. “You okay? Where’s Seth and Ry?” “I’m fine, but I don’t know where everyone else is. It’s complete mayhem.” I replied. He had a cut above his eye that forced it shut, and a bruise across his left cheekbone. Blood oozed from a gap in his arm too. “They’ll be calling in more soon.” “I know.” “Everyone has to leave by then. Go, spread the word.” “I will.” “We’re going to get through this.” “…After everything that’s happened, we’d damn well better.” With that I turned and fled into the masses. I told the most agile and ferocious fighters to remain for as long as possible, to give the impression the parking lot was still heavily fortified while others evacuated. If we could hold them off for long enough, we could flee. The fighting lark was all well and good for then, but the moment reinforcements turned up, we’d all be barbequed for Consortium state dinners. I looked beyond the edge at the outside, over the heads of some still fighting, others fleeing and officers struggling with Mincers. Their metallic pincers and slicing legs fatally punched and swiped. Where rebels dodged, officers fell. If it wasn’t so gory, perhaps I would have egged them on, the metal menace finally did something useful. Nick had found Seth, I saw them both below too, and they signalled ‘come the hell down’ at me. There were only a few people in the room with me, around twelve. I jumped the edge there and then, skidding down the slope and almost having to be caught by Nicholas when I couldn’t stop. The first ray of dawn broke over the scene, and Nicholas grabbed my hand and began to pull me along. “We have to get out of here before the morning. It’ll be easier to escape in the dark, and then we’ll go home.” He promised. I followed almost blind as we stumbled through junk and rocks and mess, better than bodies but never as good as simple, flat tarmac. But from that point on, nothing would be simple. Now the Consortium would be out for blood. Our blood. And that thought was enough for me to worry about peeing my pants.
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