Today was the day when Operation Fire-guard was launched in all of the UK military services, the day when the sub-dermal implants started being implanted in all military and civil-service personnel. The program had gone well and the launch was only a week behind the estimate given by Pickles Industries, two full weeks before it was realistically expected. Field Martial Sir Alan Robinson sat in his office feeling very self-satisfied with the way he had managed the operation, indeed, he had not felt like this since his promotion to general, many years ago. His wife had still been alive then and her pride in her husband had been obvious. Since her death in two-thousand nineteen, his duty to the crown had taken over his life completely, the one thing that gave his life meaning. So many people died in that flue epidemic, the man-made strain that escaped the laboratory. All known antibiotics were useless, the human body had become resistant to them through a combination of the over-loading of animal feeds and certain agriculture sprays used to keep fruit and vegetables healthy. Close to two million people were lost from the UK alone.
The com-unit's trill sound interrupted the Field Martial's daydream into the past and it took several seconds for him to shake himself out of his thought train and back to reality.
“Yes?” Robinson spat as he prodded the soft-button to answer the call.
“This is Major General Russell Sir, I am afraid we have a problem developing with Fire-guard, it seems that about thirty percent of the personnel are refusing to have the implants.”
“Isn't it a little early to be making assumptions like that Russell, the programme has only been going a little over three hours,” commented the Field Martial.
“Well maybe Sir, however at some bases we have some sort of picket line operating,” Russell told his boss, “there are civilians as well as military people in the blockade.”
“Blockade?” screamed Robinson, “Blockading a military base is totally illegal, get the word out, any military personnel who refuse will be arrested, this is mutiny and we are within our rights to shoot mutineers.”
“Sir, with the greatest respect, we just have not got enough military police to arrest everyone,” said Russell, “and then there's the problem with the civilians.”
“Get off you backside man and call the police in,” said the Field Martial, “I'll contact the Home Secretary and let him handle the civilians.”
“Yes Sir,” Russell said in a tone that was a little too begrudging.
Two minutes later the Field Martial was speaking to Henry Harden the UK's Home Secretary, and quickly explained the problems.
“Yes, I have heard,” said Harden in a voice that betrayed the fact that he was already angry, “from what I hear, it's those bloody Christians again.”
“I don't know who they are Henry, I just want them gone, said Robinson, “can you sort it?”
“I am already onto to it Alan, I have troops on the way to all bases where a disturbance has been reported.”
“What will you do with them; if you just move them on they will come back later or change target to another base.”
“Don't worry Alan I have that in hand as well, I have invoked some emergency powers of arrest, we have been expecting something like this and I have been opening up half a dozen mothballed Army and Air-force camps, and the old prison ship down at Portland. They will find that we have plenty of luxury accommodation for them.” Harden chuckled as he told the Field Martial to relax and have a good day.
The Reverend Kenneth Woods, sat in his hotel-type prison cell that he had shared with two other Christians for the past two days, reading charge sheets. Two days ago he had been arrested under the emergency Protection from Terrorism act, whilst protesting against, what saw as the start of the Biblical prophesy concerning the mark of the beast. He'd seen worse prisons, as a pastor he had visited local prisons often, and this was luxury in comparison. This shared cell was not locked, and contained comfortable beds a private bathroom desks, easy chairs, a TV screen, and everything a hotel may offer, except contact with the outside world. The installation had been built almost seventy years before to accommodate military security people who were to protect a near-bye government research establishment in the years of the Cold War.
More people were arriving every hour as the protests continued at most of the military bases around the UK. In two days over fifteen hundred people had been arrested, the majority seemed to be Christians, the remainder mostly civil rights people. For some reason the arrestees were being separated, this centre contained purely Christian or religious protesters. It had been rumoured that some were being consigned to old prisons and the hell that was the prison-ships converted after the Second World War and refurbished during the prison population issues in the nineteen-nineties. These ships were now leaking rust-buckets that until now had been more tourist curios than anything else. In the north-west of the UK, the Victorian prison on the edge of Liverpool, one that had been served as a museum for the past fifteen years, had opened up the unused wings. In the north-east Durham Prison, also a museum for some years, had reopened its disused wings in expectation of new interns.
The Reverend Woods had always been a strictly 'Biblical' Christian, with strong religious principles, and it was those principles that had led him to take part in the demonstration outside of the British Army Headquarters at Aldershot in the county of Hampshire. It had been a peaceful demonstration, many of the Christians standing in groups praying against what was happening beyond the high wire fence. At just after nine in the morning solders started to wander out of the base and join the people demonstrating, saying that they were refusing to accept the implants. These solders were greeted as heroes by those outside. At just before mid-day MP's (Military Police) had streamed out through the main gate and arrested every solder they could find. Generally the solders gave no resistance and were marched away in plastic manacles, to the “boos” and hisses of the civilians. At around twelve-thirty more than ten blue buses arrived, followed by a stream of vans. Hundreds of police officers flooded out of the buses and started to make arrests. The civilians were piled into the many caged vans and driven away to unknown destinations. Each person was processed and charged with 'Inciting to Mutiny', and here they were, waiting for what would happen next.