A Clock Without a Craftsman (TW: Racial Violence)

Before reading this thread, I find it imperative to offer a warning to anyone who may happen upon it. This thread will discuss upsetting imagery and themes, such as racism, classism, and racial violence. These themes are being discussed to explore the harms that can be caused by racism and economic disparity, and should not be misconstrued as glorification. Regardless, those who have personal experiences with the topics may want to exercise caution in reading this thread.

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Screaming.

That's the first thing Emmanuel Padhi heard on his first day as a part of the force. It was quite surreal, really. In training he'd been told that the biggest part of his job would be monitoring the speed of motorists and checking parking meters. And now, here he stood, in the flaming wreck of New Surat, with a police force woefully unprepared for the task at hand.

"Alright men!" barked the superior officer, "We'll be breaking into three units and clearing out the three streets branching out from this square. Please break yourselves up into three groups and lock shields."

Padhi was horrified to see the city around him. Stores lit ablaze by men in black masks, women and children shoved out of their houses and beaten mercilessly for seemingly nothing, and the blood. The branching streams of blood falling from the clothes lines, trickling from the doorways of homes, and flowing from the fronts of store windows. This borough, a once thriving community of Syrixian-Calliseans in the province of Bannet, had been ripped from prosperity in less than a day.

"If you see anyone with a black mask on," the man continued after the police had formed up, "you must first inform him that he is in violation of the law and, if he does not desist, will be taken into custody."

He lived here. That's what disconcerted him the most. He dreaded the end of this riot more than anything, because it meant going home. It meant finding his apartment in whatever shape it may be and having to carry on as though nothing ever happened. But that's not what was important right now.

"He will, obviously, ignore you and refuse to disperse. When he does, you must do your best to corral him out of the alley. If he's with a large crowd, you are authorized to use tear gas and rubber bullets. If any of them make any skin to skin contact with you, you have permission to use lethal force to restrain and make the arrest."

Padhi shook with fear. He had taken part in crowd control simulations in the academy but nothing like this. Nevertheless, he took his position in the wall and awaited orders. He watched as his superior officer turned on a megaphone before speaking to the rioters.

"Attention citizens. You are in violation of the Callisean Anti-Rioting Act. Please disperse or we will be forced to make you."

A bottle flew from the crowd, nearly missing the officer's head. In front of the police line, rioters largely ignored the threat. In a fit of anger, he turned around and screamed at Padhi and his colleagues.

"ROUND THEM UP!"

The smell of burning wood and carnage filled Padhi's lungs as he made his way down the street. At first, the crowd control job was easy. Men in black masks were slowly pushed back by the wall of riot police. Then, they started mounting a counter attack. Rocks and empty bottles were hurled their way, and were met in the air by canisters of tear gas and a barrage of rubber bullets. Nevertheless, the crowd persisted. After their magazines were expent, the horde charged the riot shield and began to harass the officers.

"Pigs!" One shouted.

"Race traitors!" Cried another.

But in spite of the abuse, the wall held. As the gunners reloaded, officers began to withdraw their batons and beat away the riled up mob. After another round of rubber bullets, it seemed like the crowd was due to disperse. But as the road in front of them cleared up, a truck crossed the street. In the back were three men in black masks, wielding assault weapons and holding explosive cocktails.

"Hold your lines!" The commanding officer cried. But it was not enough to deter the men from seeking cover. As a hail of bullets gunned down those officers who had held their ground, the rest of the unit scattered into the surrounding buildings.

Padhi found himself in the hollowed out storefront of a shop, next to the unit's commanding officer. His arm had been caught by a bullet in the attack. "Oh my God! Are you okay sir?" Padhi shouted.

"I'll be fine," the man replied, wincing and nursing his wound, "we just need to get some backup."

He pulled out a radio from a pouch in his vest and pressed the transmitter. "Clear. This is Sargeant Eines. My unit is facing three combatants armed with assault rifles and rudimentary explosives, we need an armored unit to clear them out."

"Copy that, we'll have one sent as soon as possible." The radio barked back.

"Over," the officer replied, before turning to Padhi, "Listen, son, I need you to peak around the corner. If these idiots get into cover they can take more innocent officers lives."

Padhi stared at him blankly. He wasn't prepared for this, ANY of this. All he could do was nod his head in response, and shamble his way to the street and peer around the corner. Before he could get a clear view of the rioters, an explosion sent him flying back, scarred, and with a loud ring in his ear. As he got up, the world spinning before him, he noticed a peculiar site across the road. A Syrixian woman lay flat on the road, a child crying over her. She struggled to get up as she bled profusely from her leg. As insurgent fire continued to soar over them, the daughter began to cry harder and harder.

"Don't think about it," his superior said sternly, "we can't afford to lose more men."

Padhi looked at his commanding officer, and then back at the people caught in the line of fire, before running out into the street. Using his shield as cover, he quickly made his way to the woman and child.

"Don't worry, honey, it's going to be okay," he said to the girl, as reassuringly as possible, before lifting the barely conscious women over his shoulders and grabbing the little girl by the hand.

"Thank you," the woman sighed as he rushed them across the alley.

As Padhi closed the distance to shelter, he almost convinced himself that he might make it. But in an instant, he found himself lying on his back. A homemade explosive had knocked him and his charges back. All of a sudden he heard a loud shriek. The woman's leg, already pierced by a bullet, was now completely broken. Padhi tried his hardest to choke back vomit as he looked at the twisted shape her ankle had taken. The girl sobbed uncontrollably as her mother wailed. Using all the strength left to him, Padhi lifted the woman and her daughter and rushed into shelter, before promptly placing them on the ground next to his commanding officer.

"Are you fucking crazy?!" the man shouted in anger, "You could've gotten yourself killed you idiot!"

Padhi simply slouched against the wall and breathed deeply as he was berated. After a short rest, he finally mounted a response. "I'm sorry sir, but I couldn't allow these civilians to remain in danger. One of them requires immediate medical attention."

The officer turned his gaze to the mother, now passed out and with a leg wound that appeared more grotesque than before. "Jesus Christ!" he said, as he limped to her to tend to her wounds. The girl continued to cry with all her might, as Padhi did his best to console her. All of a sudden, Padhi heard a loud boom. He looked down the alley to find the armored division barreling down the sidewalk, firing round after round at the would-be insurgents.

"Hey idiot, get over here." Padhi's concentration was broken by his officers voice. He crawled over to the officer, who was now standing over the woman in the rubbled of the store. "Her leg is badly beaten up. If we don't amputate it, the shrapnel could lead to a non treatable infection."

"Well what do you want me to do about it?" Padhi replied.

"Well, she's asleep for now," the man continued, "But she very well might not be once we saw through her muscle tissue. I need you to give her something to bite on if she wakes up."

"What?!" Padhi said, horrified.

"Here," he said, withdrawing a handsaw and rag from his bag, "Pull this tight and put it between her teeth. When I count to three, she better be ready to go." The man looked to her daughter, "Look away sweetheart."

Padhi didn't have times to raise objections before the officer began to count.

"1... 2... 3!"

The man began to saw rapidly through her leg. The women's eyes shot open and she cried out in pain. Padhi did his best to keep the rag still in her mouth as the procedure continued. After what felt like an eternity, Padhi watched as his officer wrapped her stub of a leg in a tourniquet and sat her next to her daughter.

Padhi sat down and looked at the ground, unable to process what had just happened. He stared blankly as his commander peered around the corner, finding the street clear of insurgents. As he turned back he made eye contact with Padhi before placing a hand on his shoulder.

"I don't believe we ever formally met. Sargeant Philip Eines. Welcome to the force."

"1973, Director Vaillancourt sells native Callisean soil to a foreign menace. He lies, tells us that it's an opportunity to provide jobs to Calliseans. Then, as administrators are followed by scabs, more and more pureblood Calliseans are put out of work. Callise is a dead nation, and the flies have already begun to lay eggs on it's corpse. Any true patriot that wishes to save his nation must actively fight against this foreign menace."

"Retribution is here. We are the Knights of Laurens, the sons and daughters of this land, the true children of Callise. We never disappeared, we were just forced to wear a mask while the cucks and liberals and milksops made a quick buck off of the labor of subhumans. We will not disperse until every single insect that has come to dwell in our lands has been purged, and the filth is washed away from our streets. Peacefully... or otherwise. The choice is yours."

The dark room comes to life as the lights are switched on. Noé Durand squints through his glasses, rubbing his eyes with his sleeve before allowing his glasses to rest once more on his nose. The Deputy Director of Counter-terrorism addressed the room.

"That, as you probably guessed, was the debut propaganda broadcast of the Knights of Laurens. They explain it pretty well, they're mad about perceived economic injustices in Callise and they blame those injustices on the Syrixian community living in Bannet. Tensions have always been high between the groups, a big fuss was made when the Bardin Barbarians Rugby was changed to the Bardin Dragons to be more inclusive of Syrixian culture. But there has never been major conflict between the groups until this date: March 5, 2020."

Noé Durand took extensive notes as the Deputy Director spoke. He had been a member of the Agency of Counter-Terrorism for three years, since he'd graduated from University with a degree in Forensics, but this was his first real case. Normally his job consists of reviewing the case files of an alleged terror attack, issuing a report to his supervisor, and having it declared a non-threat. But with the race riots occurring in Bannet, he finally had a real case to solve.

The Deputy Director continued: "On March 5, 2020, there was a crossing of picket lines. The Western Association of Fuel Workers had been striking for better wages since the start of 2020, but on the 5th a large number of Syrixians crossed the picket line and resumed work on the gas wells. This came as a shock to the union, as they'd just organized a merger agreement with the Migrant-Worker Union of Bannet that included provisions about holding the line. Resulting conflicts over how to proceed led to the collapse and subsequent factionalization of the union. At first, it seemed like everything would return to normal; workers were returning to their posts and profits were soaring. Then, on March 17, the police department gets word of public acts of violence in New Surat. They deploy the anti-riot squad to find a crowd of roughly 200-300 men and women in black cloth burning Syrixian homes and businesses, killing and beating men and women, and looting from buildings in the area."

Durand's throat somewhat tightened at the mention of racial violence. Growing up in contemporary Pourpreville, he hadn't been subject to this sort of ugliness before. The Callise he knew was one of small villages, progressive values, and relative economic abundance, not one of violence and hatred.

"After the riot, there was roughly hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, 100 people dead, more than a thousand injured, and the threat of further violence. We chose you ten to be our boots on the ground. Your role will be primarily to assist the police as they deal with this threat, report to the Directorate, and carry out orders issued by me."

He gestured with his left hand to a man standing to the side of the projection screen. "This is Florentin Marais, Principal of Bannet. He will be your main resource on the ground."

The Principal spoke, "Thank you, Deputy Director. We want an end to this violence more than anything else, so please, if you need any information from my office just send me a message. Together we'll get through this."