1985

6.30

'One and-a two, and-a three...' whispered Detective Dave Fellows, he was counting down with his gangly fingers, signalling to a group of fellow Thought Police and uniformed police officers in riot gear. Dave was a string bean, he looked like a dry corpse apart from his electric blue eyes that frantically darted around beneath overgrown blonde eyebrows. The group were all crouched around him, outside a flat door on the balcony of Victory Tower, London, Airstrip One, Oceana.

On four Dave's partner, Detective Mike Grant, put his battering ram through the flimsy door of the 75th floor flat, the door slammed open with a loud crash. Inside the flat a family portrait in the hallway fell off the wall and its glass smashed as it hit the floor.

The door was old and battered, a hard shove from Mike and he could of gained entry. Mike was a big man with muscular arms covered in thick ginger hair, his pale heavy skull sat between heavy shoulders. The doors of these flats were not meant to last, just like the building itself, just like the people who occupied it.

But Mike liked the battering ram. He liked it's indiscriminate destruction, it was loud and it put the 'fear' into people. Usually uniform operated the battering ram, but Mike used his rank as a detective to make sure he handled its use.

The two detectives rushed in first, shouting, trampling the portrait of mother and son. Dave followed Mike, both un-holstered and raised their tasers. Uniform were just behind them, armed with submachine guns and shotguns, dressed head to toe in black riot gear.

In the rooms and in the corridors, the telescreens were on loud, probably a cheap trick to drown out any conversation. The residents would not have known the very same screens were being used to monitor the flat 24 hours a day for the last month.

Dave violently swung open the door to the front room. There sitting on the sofa before a small window that looked out over the crumbling city, sat the suspect drinking tea with his mother. The suspect was already in party overhauls ready for his day of work. His mother who must have been about 90, was still in her night gown.

The suspect looked at the invaders, he sipped his tea calmly. He was expecting them. To commit a crime against Big Brother you accepted you would be caught. It was not a case of if, it was a case of when. Unfortunately his mother was not so prepared, foolishly she got up in surprise. Age had worn her wits, maybe she was slightly demented. She had forgotten the facts; it was useless to protest, stupid to consider an objection and suicide to intervene.

Dave screamed at her, 'Sit down or I will be forced to sit you down!'

The woman didn't heed the warning fast enough. She was confused, scared by the six men that had broken into her home and trampled into her life. She panicked, shaking and whimpering. She let out a weak moan and moved toward the intruders her hands held up.

It certainly wasn't the reaction Dave was expecting, his face screwed up, he was insulted. He pulled the trigger and shot the twin bolts of the taser into her chest and neck. It hit her like a lightning bolt, stretched her arms out like a scare crow. Holding down the trigger Mike released the 50 amps of electricity, it was way more than necessary. She shook like a kite on the end of a piece of string, held upright by the volts coursing through her rickety frame.

The suspect flung his tea cup and went to grab his mother but uniform got through the detectives to reach him. They slammed him through the coffee table into the dusty red carpet. They got a hood on his head as he watched his mother fall to the floor, still shaking she was suffering a heart attack as she coughed and sucked at dry air.

Dave watched her shaking on the floor as uniform hauled the screaming man from the room. Dave's skeletal finger continued holding down the trigger. Mike stood over the woman alongside Dave, his large frame causing a shadow. She crumpled like a paper bag into a ball. What felt like minutes passed, she eventually stopped shaking. She was curled up, her hands clenched into rat claws. Dave took his finger off the trigger.

Dave and Mike began searching the property. Uniform returned, unfolded the woman into a body bag, then dragged her out onto the veranda of the flat to be be taken down the stairs or tossed in the garbage shoot to save time.