Hannah whipped her head round to see Scott being brought onto the stage, he too was shackled. His face was also a purple mess, with a severe cut above his swollen right eye.

"No, no, no," she whispered, rocking a little on her feet. How could she ever have questioned his loyalty to her?

With his head hung down, Scott was pushed and prodded by two further soldiers to within a couple of feet of Cecily, his feet crunching on the remains of the shattered glass bottle.

"For the offences of planning to overthrow this government and violation of allegiance, he too, has in the last hour, been tried and found guilty of treason.

The decisions I have taken, I have not taken lightly. Their refusal to discuss or confess to their crimes has negated the opportunity for clemency and has left me with only one possible outcome. Let their actions be a warning to all those who wish to attack our way of life. We will not bow down to terrorists, so-called freedom fighters or common criminals. Later today they will be executed for their crimes."

Stunned and uncomprehending, the wild, baying for their blood from the crowd, quickly clarified to Hannah, Briggs's intent.

"Oh dear god!" she gasped.

A young man on the front row suddenly leapt forward. Pushing his hands on the stage to give himself momentum, he pulled his head back and he launched a mouth full of spittle. It hit Scott square in the face. Below him the crowd burst out laughing. Hannah watched as Scott's bound hands, clenched into fists behind his back.

The tears she had been fighting back, spilled down Hannah's cheeks as she watched Zeke and the other soldiers move forward and begin leading both Cecily and Scott across the stage. She willed Scott to turn around, but he did not. With every passing second, her eyes flitted from Cecily to Scott and to the crowd. She waited, praying for the signal, but it never came. Slowly, Scott and Cecily were led off the stage and down to the right...to The Wall. Once there, the soldiers attached the shackles around their ankles to iron rings embedded in the concrete. Cecily, shuffled her feet a little, but the strain was showing all over her body. When the soldiers released their grip of her, she wilted and could barely stay up on her feet. Scott on the other hand, straightened up his body, raised his head and turned to the stage, facing Briggs.

Unable to sit and watch, Hannah leapt out of her seat and began to run across the stage towards them. Time seemed to slow as Hannah felt a hand grab her arm and pull her backwards, immobilising her, but she was barely aware of anything. She tried to pull forward, but her arm was bent violently backward. The excruciating pain, rendered her senseless as little orbs of light twinkled in front of eyes.

Slowly, Briggs' grip on Hannah eased somewhat and she became aware of the fact that he was talking quietly to her.

"...your fault..."

"...conniving..."

She turned to him. His lips were moving, but she couldn't quite comprehend what he was saying.

"... no rescue party then, Hannah?"

"...a shame, I was looking forward to a little..."

The sounds finally caught up with the movement of his lips.

"I'd heard such incredulous stories about you this morning too, but frankly I'm left feeling a little... disappointed."

Briggs twisted her arm again, making her wince, but forcing her to focus on the impact of his words. Her eyes went wide with realisation.

"Ah, finally she's catching on."

Briggs smiled and it sent chills down her spine.

"I must say I do admire you on some level. Very few people have dared so much as even vent a negative opinion about me, but you, took it to another level entirely."

Unable to respond, Hannah shook her head, a feeble attempt to show ignorance of his words and therefore proof of innocence. But nothing, she realised was going to help her now.

"It was really rather sweet, watching him sell himself out to protect you. He even tried convince me that you had absolutely nothing to do with it. I wanted to believe him, really I did."

Briggs released her arm and then gently stroked her cheek. His cold touch, made her skin crawl.

"Dear, sweet, Hannah, what a tricky situation, we find ourselves in now, don't you think? I know about you. You now know I know... What is one to do? I suppose the simplest option would be to chain you up to that wall with them, your birth mother and maybe some of your other little friends. But, how could I possibly admit that our society's only, one-hundred-percent-perfect specimen was actually planning to overthrow me? Her own father too?" Briggs clicked his tongue.

Hannah let out a sob, her body trembling and her legs barely able to stand.

"I am rarely surprised these days, Hannah. The benefit of years of experience somewhat erodes the element of surprise, but when your supposed birth father came to me this morning, telling tales of grand conspiracies, I must confess to being a little astonished. He was quite the fountain of knowledge and all for what really amounted to such a paltry reward for his information. Turns out, his son was about to be reclassified as a Flawed. Happily for him, that will no longer happen... well, for now at least."

Briggs tilted his head, gesturing for Hannah to look over his left shoulder. In the corner of the stage, a porter in white hospital scrubs pushed a wheelchair up a ramp. Barely conscious and slumped in her seat, her mother was brought onto the stage, her head lolling to one side. The porter wheeled Lynne to where Diana was seated, while a guard removed one of the spare chairs. Lynne's wheelchair was reversed into the empty space. She wasn't supposed to be here. Tucker was supposed to have seen to that. She locked away thoughts of her friend. She did not want nor have time to think about him right now.

"Oh good, both adoptive mother and birth mother finally here to witness your big day."

"No, please, no," Hannah found her voice and began to beg. "I'll do anything you want, just don't hurt her. She has done nothing to you, nothing."

Hannah watched as Diana lifted Lynne's lifeless hand, placing it in her own lap. Gently, she began stroking the surface of Lynne's hand with her own thumb. That simple, kind gesture fractured Hannah's heart, thought of losing either or both women bringing a sharp pain to her gut.

"I know, Hannah, I'll offer you a compromise." She pulled her eyes back to Briggs. "I hear compromise is the secret to good parenting these days and as your father, I would hate for you to think that I was remiss in my role of good parent. So I'm going to issue my proclamation and you, dear girl are going to go along with everything I say and do. And in return, I will allow your poor mothers to walk away from all of this."

Hannah eyes flitted towards Scott.

"No sorry, Hannah, that would be a step too far I'm afraid. Although, maybe I could provide your friends..." he said, gesturing to Scott and Cecily, "with a more, 'humane' end. That's a fair compromise, don't you think?"

It was hopeless. It was over. Defeated.

Hannah looked to her mothers and then back to Scott. He was staring right back at her and he knew. He knew just what was being asked of her. His eyes beseeched her, her own pleaded back at him. But with a momentary, sad nod of his head, Scott turned away from her again. The intense heat she'd felt when they'd connected fled, leaving her icebound.

"Do you have an answer for me, Hannah?"

Bile rose up in her throat. Unable to reply, she lowered her head and submitted.

"Good, good, see that wasn't too hard, was it?"

Briggs took hold of her hand again and pulled her back to the podium.

"For many years we have used the measure of eighty to determine those who are most worthy and should be rewarded within our society. With advancing medical care and improved social management, the resulting overall increase in those attaining plus-80 is therefore placing an unsustainable demand on our resources. Therefore, at midnight tonight, I will be raising this SPR threshold to eighty-five. All those below eighty-five and above eighty will now be classified as Flawed. In the case where a child is below 85, but the parents have a higher SPR, they are invited to either submit their child for adoption or opt to be reclassified themselves. This rule applies to all children under the age of sixteen.

The crowd before them, reacted with a stunned silence as Briggs began to describe the details of the new legislation. Several people in the crowd were shaking their heads in disbelief. Quite a few more had their mouths open in astonishment. Hannah caught sight of a woman two rows from the front of the crowd. Holding a small baby wrapped in a pale lemon blanket, the woman pulled the infant tightly to her, covering its tiny head in kisses, the mother's body wracked by sobs. Further back, a man began to shout out his angry reaction to Briggs' revelation. Within moments, Hannah watched as a team of guards bulldozed their way through the crowd. Once they reached the man, one of the guards took out a baton and whacked him on the back of his legs. The man cried out in agony as he fell, grabbing onto the nearest person in vain. In spite of the fight he put up, the guards managed to tie his hands behind him, placing a black cloth bag over his head. Once he'd succumbed to the torrent of baton whacks applied to his back, they dragged him away.

"Candidates for reclassification will immediately forfeit their rights to all property unless owned outright. Employment rights will be ..."

Hannah looked over again to Scott. He stared straight ahead of him. Until that very moment, she was ashamed to admit that she'd continued to hold on to a trace of doubt about him, never quite believing that he was totally on her side. Trust was a luxury where she came from and one which usually required an advance payment. How could she have ever doubted him?

"This will be an unsettling experience for many, but we must rebalance the needs of the worthiest with those that are not ..."

Deep in the middle of the crowd, a flash of colour caught Hannah's eye. A small orange flag had been raised aloft- its colour in sharp contrast to the country's flags which adorned the crowd. Not now surely!

Then further over to the right of the square a second orange flag was raised. Hannah would have laughed if she'd had the energy. The brightly coloured pieces of cloth seemed such a small, futile gesture. Several metres from the first, two more flags were raised. Briggs, his eyes fixed to the sheet he was reading from had yet to see them, but as the seconds ticked over, more flags were being raised. The sight of them horrified Hannah. She wanted the brave but foolish display to stop. It was too late and nothing but pain could come of this now. John had seen to that.

John. As if she had magically summoned him, she saw him in the front row. Beside him, stood Edward, his eyes fixed on his mother on the stage. John though, was transfixed by Briggs, nodding vigorously at every word Briggs uttered. He caught Hannah looking at him. His face was devoid of emotion. No signs of love, hate or regret and he looked through Hannah as if she was a sheet of glass. She was used to that look. That was how most people looked at the Flawed. Better to imagine them not there, than to have to acknowledge their unsavoury presence.

Hannah was the first to break the stare as she looked back to the crowd. The sight before her made her gasp, making Briggs look up too. In a crowd of a few thousand people, several hundred orange flags now waved above them, not in pockets of colour, but spread evenly as far as the eye could see.

"What is ..." Briggs exclaimed, as an aide rushed across the stage and whispered into Briggs' ear.

In fury, Briggs turned to Hannah, covering the microphone with his hand.

"You silly girl!"

"But I..."

The hushed audience began looking around themselves, alarmed.

Briggs nodded to the aide, who rushed back across the stage, straight to a silver- haired man in uniform, the lapel on his jacket barely holding up under the weight of the medals and stripes emblazoned across it. The soldier who was already holding his ComDat to his mouth spoke into it, his lips moving fast with the orders he was clearly giving out.

A flurry of activity caught Hannah's eye. To the right of the crowd soldiers rushed out of a side entrance and began filing down the perimeter. This activity was repeated down the left side also.

The whispers and murmurings of the crowd became loud chatter, and Hannah could feel the tension in the square growing. One man ripped the flag off another and punched the quiet protestor in the face. Others backed away, some falling as further people were drawn into the fracas.

"So is this the revolution then, Hannah? A few flags?" Briggs laughed.

Hannah couldn't answer. Nothing that had been planned had so far happened. She had no idea what was going to happen now.

"There are two ways we can play this. I can give my orders to shoot and the resulting loss of life will be regrettable but necessary, or you can stop whatever it is you have planned."

Again, Hannah had no words.

Briggs lifted his hand off the microphone and issued an order.

"Move in."

The soldiers now surrounded the square, spaced just a few metres apart. They lifted their rifles and took aim; their action drawing frightened shrieks. As the soldiers slowly edged forward, the crowd shrank back towards the centre. Flags were being ripped down across the square, but more kept being risen aloft. Hannah noticed, however, that none of the protestors fought back at the abuse they were being subjected to. Two soldiers rushed out onto the stage and over to Briggs.

"Sir, we need you to come with us."

Defiantly, Briggs shrugged off their concern and spoke to the crowd.

"It appears we have somewhat of a protest happening here. I was fully expecting this, and I urge you all to drop your flags before this situation worsens. The punishment for such reckless activity is severe and may I remind you that there are innocent women and children amongst you. Lower your flags, leave this square peacefully and no more shall come of this.

The flags continued to flap defiantly in the breeze.

"Remove them this instant and you will be free to leave this square unharmed."

He covered the microphone again.

"Hannah, this is pure folly and simply must not happen. Finish this at once."

Hannah reflected quickly on the original plan. By this stage, the army should have been overrun, Briggs taken into custody and Hannah ready to make the declaration of leadership. She had absolutely no idea what she was expected to do in this situation. There was no contingency plan, there hadn't been the time to come up with one.

"I don't know how to," was all she could answer.

"Well then, let this be on your head and your head alone."

"Matheson, execute the prisoners," he barked over the microphone.

Her adrenaline surged as she saw Zeke and three other soldiers file quickly towards Cecily and Scott. They were now mere metres away from them. Instantly her heart began to race, aware of a buzzing sound inside her ears. Even her blood felt like it was beginning to fizz and pop beneath her skin. Without a second thought she ran, pushing Briggs out of her way this time. She reached the edge of the stage and launched herself into the space now cleared by the soldiers. The path before her lay empty, but the distance seemed immeasurable. She landed heavily, throwing out her hands before her. Her right knee smacked the hard ground, yet she welcomed the smarting pain. Pushing off from the ground, she drove forward. Somewhere behind her Briggs was now screaming his orders over and over again. Zeke and the soldiers formed a line.

Hannah raced on, with every fibre of her body burning. Six steps... five steps... the soldiers lifted their weapons...fours steps, three steps...they took aim... two steps, one step... She flung herself in between Scott and Cecily, grabbing onto Scott's jacket to keep herself upright.

"Hannah, no!" Scott bellowed at her.

She ignored him and turned to face Zeke and the soldiers, her abrupt arrival having confused them into momentary inaction. Hannah held out her arms, her palms splayed in front of Scott and Cecily and looked over to Briggs.

"I refuse to let you do this," she shouted at him, her voice sounding more confident than she felt, reverberating off the high wall behind her. The crowd was, not for the first time that day, mute.

Briggs cackled. "You refuse! Some jumped up, dragged up, slip of a girl refuses me! You are an abomination! Matheson, kill them and kill her too."

Hannah didn't know why, but she couldn't stop herself from laughing, even as Zeke lifted his weapon again.

"An abomination am I? Well I really must be chip off the old block then, dear father. After all, it is your blood that runs through my veins, your DNA that helped create me and may I remind you, it was your organisation that rated me in the first place. I guess that must make me your perfect abomination."

Briggs was apoplectic with rage, pacing back and forth.

"The tests must have been wrong," he screamed at her.

Collectively, she heard the crowd gasp.

"But, General Briggs, the tests are never wrong, are they not? I thought perfect meant perfect. Because surely if they were wrong about me, then... then they could be wrong about anyone here today...even you."

Briggs looked like he was about to self-combust.

"So, General, we could even say your testing regime is faulty? No, that's the not the word I'm looking for. Flawed. Now that would be a more appropriate word don't you think? Years of division and suffering all the result of a flawed process, operated under a flawed doctrine, created by a flawed man."

"Matheson, I ordered you to kill them. Do it now."

Whether it was down to bravery or just sheer, reckless stupidity, Hannah's confidence was growing, even as Zeke took aim at her.

"A flawed man, who will tonight condemn another five percent of our population to degradation, while he happily manipulates his own SPR score to suit his own ends. I've seen your old medical records, General. I've seen your real scores and you are far from perfect"

"Matheson!"

Zeke's hand was shaking, ever so slightly.

"Zeke, look at me." Cecily's weary voice spoke softly. "My dear boy, you cannot do this. This is not who you are. This isn't you."

"I SAID FIRE!"

Looking through the scope, Zeke moved the rifle towards Cecily, his finger hovering over the trigger.

"Give me a weapon," screamed the heavily decorated general on the stage, standing behind Briggs. "I'll damn well shoot them myself."

He took a pistol from a junior rank and marched down the seven steps. "Get out of my way he yelled." Marching furiously, he got into firing range and lifted his weapon.

A single gunshot cracked the air. The grey-haired general's eyes widened in shock as he took an unsteady step forward. A narrow rivulet of blood bubbled up and dribbled out from his slackened lips and down his chin. He stumbled forward again and then crumpled to a heap. Zeke hurled his rifle away and he too, dropped to the ground at Cecily's feet mumbling a stream of barely coherent apologies.

"Fire at will, fire at will," Briggs screeched into the microphone, imploring the hundreds of soldiers around the square.

Screams filled the air. The crowd scrambled around like trapped ants beneath a lifted rock, but no shots rang out.

"I ordered you to fire!"

Several skirmishes were going on around the perimeter between the soldiers themselves but still not a shot was fired. Slowly, an odd sense calm, fell about the square.

"Oh dear, General, if only you'd have issued the order to fire before you announced your plans to demote the majority of your armed forces here today. What a difference that might have made."

Dumbfounded, Briggs hunched over the podium, his mouth agog and she watched as he broke; the veneer of sanity had worn too thin. His body tremored and his eyes bulged with rage.

"All...all you had to do, Hannah, was make the decision to stop this." Spittle flew from his mouth.

"I've never had a choice in any of this," Hannah shouted back, taking a step forward.

"Oh, so it was a choice you wanted. Silly me." He made a strange, unhinged giggling sound. "Well, if that's what you want, then that's what you'll have." Briggs pulled his pistol from its holster, stood up to his full height and staggered across the stage towards Lynne and Diana, drunk on rage.

"No," Hannah screamed and now she found herself running back the way she had just come. Running to her mother, to Diana.

"Which one, Hannah? Which one do you want to save more?" His voice, no longer amplified by the microphone, yet somehow sounded louder and more sinister.

Briggs held the gun out before him and slowly moved it from Lynne, to Diana and back again. Diana clasped her hand over her mouth to hide a sob, her wild eyes fixed on Hannah's, while Lynne remained blissfully ignorant of the terror before her.

"Go on, here's that choice that you wanted so badly. Make it."

"Put the gun down, Briggs."

Both Hannah and Brigg's heads whipped round at sound of that voice.

Briggs convulsed into laughter, causing his gun to waggle frantically in the air. "You!" Briggs shouted incredulously. "Now this farce just keeps getting funnier by the goddammed second."

Tucker gingerly took two steps forward. He looked a frightful mess, sporting similar facial bruising to Scott. But it wasn't the bruising that concerned Hannah as much as the smear of blood across his cheek and spattered down his jacket. Holding the rifle unsteadily in his hands Tucker spoke again, with more confidence. "I said put the gun down."

"Since when do you even know how to use that thing?" Briggs scoffed and Hannah couldn't help but have the same thought.

"You stupid boy, I almost want to see you try to shoot me. Go on, if you dare, but I'm going to put at least one of these down before you can stop me. You'll probably end up accidentally shooting one of them yourself!"

"Tucker, please, no!" Hannah cried.

"See, Tucker, she wants to choose. Don't you, Hannah? So which mother do you love more?" he asked pointing the gun at Lynne and sneering. Even at this desperate point when faced with two lives in front of him, Hannah could already see who he was opting for. His hatred of the Flawed still governing his every decision.

"Come on, Hannah, choose."

Hannah lowered her head, unable to witness the sorrow in Diana's eyes anymore.

"No, I won't choose. I can't."

"Very well then."

Briggs fired. Diana reacting instantaneously, throwing herself on top of Lynne.

Hannah watched her birth mother's body spasm as the bullet contacted her spine and Hannah felt every inch of Diana's pain as if it were her own.

A piercing scream came from somewhere nearby, matching her own.

Slowly and lifelessly, Diana's body slid down and onto the wooden stage. Briggs, clearly stunned by Diana's self-sacrifice, struggled to regain his composure. As he lifted the gun to fire again, Tucker squeezed his trigger, the recoil throwing him back. Briggs didn't move for a few seconds. But then, like a stopper had been pulled from a bottle, blood suddenly squirted out from his neck. The gun slipped out of his grip as he clasped his hands to his throat, a thick redness spilling between his fingers. With a slight wobble he toppled to the floor.

Stricken, Hannah rushed over to where Diana lay and dropped to her knees beside her. She gently touched Diana's cheek where her tears had made tracks through her makeup, revealing bare, ashen skin beneath. Hannah fell forward and drove her face into Diana's hair, breathing in the heady scent of Diana's favourite floral perfume.

She had so few memories of this woman. No day trips, no birthday parties, no snuggling up under a blanket and listening to her read the same story over and over, just like she had of Lynne. The grief of not having had, nor ever having again, was all too much to bear.

"Don't do it, son."

She turned her head and looked up to see Edward on the stage, grasping Briggs' gun, with John scrambled up onto the stage behind him.

"I'm no son of yours," Edward screamed back.

"There was no other way, Edward. You were going to be demoted and your mother's obsession with that girl for the last eighteen years, only made the situation worse. I lost her that day, all those years ago? I couldn't afford to lose you too."

Edward slowly approached Hannah, eyes fixed only on his mother whose hair was now sprawled amidst a sticky crimson shroud, the rapidly cooling blood now soaking into the hem of Hannah's skirt. The gun lolled heavily in Edward's hand. He stood looking down over his mother's body and only then did he make eye contact with Hannah.

His face mirrored her own. He wore the same grey mask of grief.

From behind him, Briggs made a low, groaning sound.

"If only you'd never been born," he spat at her. "If only I had been there first. I was never enough though, right from the start. It was always you. Even now. You."

Hannah had no words to offer him in comfort. Her own pain was too great.

Edward raised the gun. "This has to end," he said.

Hannah nodded to him. After everything that had happened, she welcomed the end. She was too tired to go on. She lowered her eyes to make it easier on him, the only thing she had left to give, and she prepared herself. Taking one last glance at Lynne and then Diana, she closed her eyes.

The gun fired once.

Hannah waited for the pain to bite, but it never came. She heard a howl and then a gurgling sound. She dared to open her eyes and look up, but Edward no longer stood over her.

Instead he now towered above Briggs, who was choking on his own blood.

"Someone should have done this years ago." Edward aimed again and fired the contents of the magazine until it was empty.

"Now it's over," he said. Throwing the gun to the ground, he walked off the stage.

Tucker rushed over to Hannah and threw his arms around her. She collapsed into him.

"Are you hurt anywhere?" he asked.

Hannah was in agony, but her wounds weren't the kind that needed a doctor. "She's gone," she cried, sobbing into his chest.

"I know honey, I know."

Wrapping his arms tighter round her body, they huddled together, while the world around them erupted.

************************************************************************************************

The soldier turned the key in the remaining ankle cuff and the device fell to the floor.

"Now untie her quickly," he ordered. "Will someone please get her some water? Zeke...ZEKE! Stay with Cecily." Zeke still clung to Cecily's legs. "Take care of her and don't let her out of your sight."

He set off at full speed towards the stage. All he could see was Hannah lying in a bundle with Tucker. She wasn't moving. His vantage point by the wall had been limited. He powdered forward, ignoring the steps, vaulting up onto the stage.

One of his men, rushed towards him, shouting that they needed to secure the crowd and the exits, but Scott was in no mood for diversions.

"Get out of my way! Move it!" He ploughed forward. "Hannah!"

Tucker turned towards him, partially revealing Hannah huddled in his lap, her mother dead at their feet.

He slowed almost to a stop, side stepping the body of Briggs and then continued with caution, fearing the worst.

"Is she hurt?" he mouthed to Tucker. Her skin had a deathly pale colour to it, her eyes closed.

Tucker shook his head. Scott tried hard to cover up his relief.

"Are you?"

Tucker shook his head again.

Scott looked around them. He'd last seen Tucker and his friend, Nathan being dragged away, as he was frogmarched to the stage behind Cecily. Wasn't Hannah's father supposed to be with them too?

He leaned forward and spoke quietly in Tucker's ear, "where is Dan, is he okay?" 

Tucker looked down at Hannah, who had gone limp with shock in his arms and let out a long breath. With tears streaming down his face, he shook his head.