Chapter Text
London Underground (The Tube)
October 8th, 1997
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A distant beeping, a slow whirring, and a distinctive mechanical groan echoed through the winding mass of tubes and tunnels that lay under what was self-described as the ‘Most Holy City on Earth.’ A title only reinforced by the end of the Civil War. Sitting on one of the cushioned seats, a man rested while rustling a newspaper.
“I heard they executed Seamus Twomey.” He spoke to the stranger sitting beside him, the brim of a felt cap covering his eyes. He sighed. He was clearly trying to sleep, yet couldn’t be seen to be showing indifference to the death of an enemy of the state.
“Good Riddance.” The man returned in a cockney accent, clearly he wasn’t quite as well off as the man with the newspaper. He lacked a suit and tie, an essential for those with character. Yet, the Conservative Party hadn’t made being poor illegal…yet. All one had to do to stay safe in Epharim was simply to keep one's mouth shut, stay pious, bow for the portrait of the king, and stand for the national anthem.
Simple, right? All of those poor rebels and Reds didn’t think so, and now they are dead. History will sweep over them, just as it did the Philistines, Babylonians, and those pesky Romans…
The man rustled his newspaper once more. The felt cap man sighed. “Which one was he again? One of those Irish fellows?”
“Something like that.” A sullen response, before suddenly an accusation flung forward. “You aren’t Irish, are you?”
The man sat up straight almost immediately, lifting his felt cap. “No, of course not!”
“Nor Catholic?” Another accusation, being a practicing Catholic in Epharim, was a death sentence ever since the SRME proved they couldn’t be trusted.
The man tried to conceal his cockney accent with a cough. “N-no, of course not! I would never, I swear on my mum!”
The newspaperman looked down at him with skeptical eyes. He pointed to a badge on his lapel, the infamous motto of the Kingdom stared right back at him. ‘Dieu et mon droit’, ever since the Civil War ended and the opposition was gutted like a snake, the symbol of an English Lion was enough to make any god-fearing Briton snap to attention…for better or worse. It was most often associated with the dreaded ESIS, though most often it is simply an undercover policeman trying to scare the populace into thinking they were worse than they were.
“Right, well. You should get some sleep, young man. You look like you’ve just seen a ghost. I'm sure when I pull up your record, we will see nothing of the sort.” The man chuckled, knowing that if this man was who he said he was, he would have nothing to fear. “God bless.”
A feeble, frightened voice replied. “God bless…” before slowly pulling his cap down and drifting into a slumber to the sound of rustling paper and the distant trundling of the subway on the tracks.
Life continued as normal. Epharim would stay holy, and sometimes, God wants people to disappear, cleanly and calmly, as if they were never there.