Democracy is Dead

Chapter Six

Athena's ears were ringing.

"Where were you?"

"Did you feel it?"

"How did you escape?"

The words were different, but the topic was the same. Everyone was talking about the explosion in Trafalgar.

"I was so lucky to escape alive," Cress told the boy standing next to them. "A few more metres to the right and I wouldn't be standing here today. Of course, having Demi there meant so much to me."

"You were with Demi Lyons at the time?" the boy asked, looking impressed.

Cress smiled. "Oh yes, we walked to Trafalgar together. We were both really looking forward to hearing the result announcement." Cress kept her tone casual, but Athena could see the excitement colouring her friend's face and the way she raised herself slightly onto her tiptoes, bouncing with joy.

Cress had already repeated this story half a dozen times around the room. The pink number hovering above her left ear on Athena's glasses had risen two places. Athena was steeling herself to listen to Cress' story at least a dozen more times over the course of the evening; Cress was trying to increase her rating by five by the end of the night.

The boy they'd been talking to left to get himself another drink from the bar and Cress grabbed Athena by the arm, steering them towards a small group of first years they hadn't spoken to yet. But the girls were halfway across the wooden floor when a hush descended over the room.

Demi had climbed onto the small stage to the right of the bar. She was standing at the microphone, wearing a vibrant pink jumpsuit that was too bright to look at directly. Athena turned her attention to the front row instead. She spotted Dora at once, a red light blinking on the right side of her glasses, signalling that she was recording tonight's speech.

"Welcome back," Demi's voice had lost the peppy tone she usually adopted at campaign meetings. Tonight, she sounded serious. "I'm pleased to see that all of you made it here safely after yesterday's events; I know that other groups at the NLUP were not as lucky as ours and countless students are still being treated for serious injuries in hospital."

Low murmuring broke out among the group, but Demi's next words silenced it once more.

"As those of you who watched Mr Leighton's press conference are no doubt already aware, there are people in this city who want to see us silenced. They want to take away our right to vote and our choice in the way we live. But we cannot let them win," Demi continued, her voice rising with conviction. "We cannot let anyone threaten our peaceful political system. We need to send a strong message back to whoever planted that bomb by pushing this vote through. We want the results announced immediately and I want all of you to update the feeds now, demanding it."

The room fell quiet while the students updated the feeds with furious responses. They'd worked tirelessly on this campaign for months; they wouldn't let their hard work be wasted.

"She's so inspirational!" Cress whispered in Athena's ear. To anyone else, Cress' words might have sounded awestruck, but Athena could hear the envy beneath them. Cress would do anything to trade places with Demi and run the campaign meetings herself. It was one of the reasons she'd thrown herself into the campaign for the healthcare vote, dragging Athena along with her. It had been the first national vote of the girls' university careers and its long campaign time and high profile nature had given ample opportunity for Cress to attract the attention of the senior members of their group and raise her own influence rating.

"Look at that!" Cress added, her eyes focused on the screen of her glasses.

Athena checked the feeds to see that the call for the health result was already the top topic. Not all of the credit for that could go to their group; all university campaign societies met at the same time each week, triggering huge spikes in campaign coverage.