Noble Causes

Chapter 6

The first sound I heard was shattering glass, although I couldn't be sure where it was coming from. The next thing I heard was heavy pounding on my bedroom door.

"Ms. Crawford. Ms. Crawford!" a man called out from the other side of the door.

"Yes? What's happening?" I replied as I slipped out of bed and wrapped my robe up around myself as I answered the door. Two police officers, looking deeply concerned, were waiting for me. "Ms. Crawford please come with us. We need to move." One of them said as he reached out to take my arm.

Outside on the street there was the sound of more broken glass on stone.

"What's going on? What's happening?" I asked as we walked quickly down the hall.

Arriving at the door to my washroom the officers fairly pushed me inside.

"Ms. Crawford we can explain all of that shortly but right now we need to determine if we're going to be able to stay here." One of the officers explained as he shut the door. Turning, I found Kim and Avery sitting on the edge of the bathtub looking at Avery's mobile.

"Guys, what's happening? What is all this?" I asked.

"There's people rioting outside. They wanted you in here because there's no windows." Kim replied.

"Rioting?" I asked incredulously.

"They started arresting people last night. They may not be able to block the web site but obviously they can track who's going to it." Avery explained.

"I don't understand."

"Neither do we. Honestly, all of this IT stuff is just more than we know about but they started going door to door in Anfield. They started arresting people, fining others." Kim explained.

"Word got out fast and people are upset." Avery added.

"Can they do that? I mean is that even legal?" I asked.

"I guess they can. It must be, right?" Kim answered.

We stayed in the bathroom for over an hour while the police dispersed the protesters. The girls had their mobiles and we did our best to stay on top of the coverage but, for the most part, we had to rely on the network news channels on TV. Some social media sites were slow to load and others wouldn't load at all.

We learned that police in Britain, Canada, The United States, and Australia had all begun making arrests based on interpretations of their own anti-terrorism laws. The media seemed to ignore it but the arrests were taking place away from affluent communities as far as I could tell.

"They can't seriously think they're going to be able to arrest everyone who looks at the site, can they?" I asked out loud but more to myself.

"I don't know if that's really the point. They don't have to arrest everyone. They just have to arrest enough people to scare everyone else away from going to the site." Avery said, sounding as though the idea had occurred to her before.

Eventually the police said it was safe to come out of the bathroom but advised staying away from the windows. When no one was looking I would wander over to one of the windows in my office or in my living room or wherever I happened to be and look out. The streets were deserted except for police officers with guns.

Three months to the day that all of this had started and the world had begun to come unhinged I sat alone in my office, watching the live feed. Edward sat in a corner, barely recognizable as the man who gave me the little stone statue. His beard was long and rough. He had been brutalized for months in almost every possible way and he wore every second of it. He looked, for a moment, like he would try to stand before he lay down on his side, wincing and convulsing as his body made contact with the ground. He lay there for a minute, then two, then three before he began to trace letters on the ground. He traced the letters invisibly at first, just his finger sliding over the filthy floor. Slowly, the letters became clearer and clearer with every motion as he left faint traces of blood, traces of him, on the ground. He kept tracing S C over and over again until it was clearly visible on the camera as he pushed away the spilt food, muddy footprints, and blood stains.