Riot: A Science Fiction Thriller

By M.G. Herron

Countless starving people. One seed of hope.

 

Enshi is in crisis. Years of famine and enforced rationing have led to food riots and mass uprisings across the country.

 

Only one hope remains to avert total disaster—a genetically modified rice seed created by a genius biologist who's just trying to protect his family from an angry mob.

 

Can Magistrate Kai Ming retrieve the seed from his old friend and deliver it, in secret, across an area that's become a minefield of deadly riots?

 

Can the seed be used to avert complete societal collapse?

 

Accompanied by his bodyguard, ex-military scout Ari Klokov, whose past is shrouded in the fog of amnesia, and assisted by Po, the genius biologist's tenacious daughter attempting to reunite with her family, the three undertake a desperate quest to save the country... and maybe the world.

 

Riot is a science fiction thriller about a futuristic uprising, where rioters face down mechs, genetic engineering saves lives, and ordinary people have the power to rise as heroes in a time of crisis. Grab your copy and start reading today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: M.G. Herron
• Release date: Aug 9, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386740377

Book preview

EPISODE 1

STOLEN CHOICES

1

Commissioner Kai Ming stood in the wings of the hastily assembled stage and sweated through his suit. The air in the crowded market square was thick—not just with the damp heat of a late summer afternoon, but with the palpable tension of unrest.

Magistrate Alber tried to speak to the gathered assembly of concerned citizens from a podium at center stage. When his frail voice lost itself among the noise of a plaza packed with restless people, the magistrate glanced back at Ming, and his wrinkled face furrowed with frustration.

Ming showed his palms and flicked his hands skyward. Louder, man, he thought.

The magistrate put his mouth closer to the microphone and cleared his throat. Thank you all for coming. The audio projection squealed and faded. A hush fell over the square. I know this has been a difficult month for all of us.

Ming winced. A poorly worded start. He should have been at the podium, giving this speech himself instead of that frail old man. With protests bogging down the city and the hunger crisis worsening, the home office extended the Magistrate’s retirement with the claim that they favored a slow transition in this unstable time. The old man had been serving for over forty years—nearly the entire lifespan of the young Republic. What they didn’t realize was that frail, old Alber had lost his edge. And, for some exasperating reason, public speaking was one part of the job that he’d never been good at to begin with—even less so now.

On Ming’s left, Ari Klokov shifted his weight. A tall ex-army scout of Slavic origin, Ari was one of several specialists recently brought on for additional security at the Fields prefecture. The broad-shouldered European stood as he always did, with his hands clasped behind his navy blue suit jacket in a relaxed but ready posture. Ming also noted that he appeared as unfazed as ever. Sometimes having a bodyguard shadowing your every move was cumbersome, but today Ming found his presence comforting.

A man and a woman in navy blue suits just like Ari’s stood on the opposite side of the stage—Alber’s bodyguards. They kept the magistrate in their line of sight and scanned the crowd with eyes hidden behind dark glasses.

Magistrate Alber continued. The Agricultural Committee has authorized the installation of two additional Ration Distribution Centers here in Greyhare Market. A murmur ran through the plaza. It will be up and running by next week.

The magistrate paused to catch his breath. Boos and jeers clamored up above the murmur of the restless crowd.

I’ll believe it when I see it! a man’s voice, distant but strong, called out.

Who’s going to wait in line for me while I’m at work? a woman asked. Her voice came from the left.

You look like you ate more for breakfast than I’ve eaten all week! This voice was the closest, and a tense laughter followed.

Settle down! the Magistrate croaked. Please, now is not the time for questions.

Ming clamped down a snort of derision and forced himself to keep his face impassive. Do those sound like questions to you?

After the bitter thought crossed his mind, Ming knew he was being unfair. It was not Alber’s fault that a genetic disease had decimated the year’s scant rice harvest.

The food shortage hit the whole city hard, but Fields bore the worst of it. In summers past, the stores in this market teemed with produce. Smells of roasting meat and freshly baked bread once mingled with the steady flow of commerce. Now, half the vendors had shuttered their doors. A few of the more successful shops moved to wealthier areas, but most were forced out of business due to skyrocketing food prices and sinking wages.

Today, the square held no food, no open vendors, no smells of cooking, only thin people with black bags under their eyes and lips pressed into pained sneers. In their place, Ming, too, would have been outraged to hear that his market was being turned into a Ration Distribution Center. And yet what else could be done? The population of this district continued to swell. Over a hundred people per day migrated to Fields from the broken, depressed districts at the country’s western and northern borders. And that was just one district’s numbers. There wouldn’t be enough food for everyone during the hard winter to come without strict rationing now.

A magistrate could only do so much.

Gazing into the crowd, Ming watched as a tall, grim man pushed his way to the front of the stage, where a row of waist-high metal fences lined with wary police officers separated the crowd from the politicians. The stranger had close-cropped jet black hair and a face so lean his cheekbones cast shadows. He was close enough that Ming could see the scar on his right ear—ragged and torn at the top like someone had tried to bite it off in a cage match.

At the rail, a balding man with a wide, flat nose glanced behind him, saw the tall grim man as he approached, and seemed to puff up as if dosed with a shot of courage. Flat Nose spun and shouted into the face of the police officers. It’s not enough, Alber! My children are starving!

Two helmeted officers shoved the man back into the crowd.

The austerity measures affect us all, Magistrate Alber said. We must pull together in this time of crisis.

Bullshit! Flat Nose hollered as he scrambled back to his feet.

More lies, said another voice that Ming couldn’t place.

The tall grim man said nothing. He watched the Magistrate with an unwavering gaze.

Ari shifted his weight. A full head taller than Ming, he had to bend down to speak in the older man’s ear.

Commissioner, Ari whispered, we may need to leave in a hurry, sir.

Ming covered his mouth with his hand. Eyes ahead, soldier, he said, though he trembled with fear.

The floor of the stage gave ever so slightly as Ari readjusted his feet and unbuttoned his suit jacket.

The line of wary police officers on the other side of the fence adjusted their grips on the heavy truncheons they carried. Scratched and scraped plastic body armor was strapped to the limbs and chests of each of the officers, men and women alike, so they looked from Ming’s vantage point like so many deadly toy soldiers.

No more lies! yelled a thin woman near the stage.

Magistrate Alber rushed through the next few lines of the speech Ming had prepared.

Idiot, Ming thought. They can smell your fear.

No more lies! another shouted in solidarity. Yet more took up their cry, and it spread until individual complaints merged into one unified voice.

Magistrate Alber continued trying to speak into the microphone, but his words were swallowed by the chanting.

No more lies! No more lies! they shouted over and over again. No more lies! No more lies!

Fists punched into the air in rhythm with the three-part chant. The words echoed off the grimy stone walls of the plaza.

Suddenly, as if the crowd had a mind of its own, a knot of people surged forward. Flat Nose and the entire front row dove into the line of police officers. Metal clattered as several of the low fences tilted to the pavement and disappeared underfoot.

The line of officers held, and pushed back. The crowd bucked like the sea in a storm. Outraged voices, pained cries, and the barking orders of the police mingled and rose in volume until the noise lost all meaning. Ming held his ground, somehow expecting the police to regain control of the crowd.

They always had before. Stand firm, he told himself.

The magistrate shouted into the microphone in a useless attempt to calm the crowd. The two bodyguards at the other end of the stage ran forward. They peeled Alber away from the podium and escorted him down the stairs at the back of the stage. A black sedan pulled up from the street behind them, cordoned off ahead of the event for just this sort of emergency. The driver threw open the passenger door.

Let’s go, sir, Ari said, his breath hot in Ming’s ear. Now.

Ming recognized his firm tone and turned. The stage shook. His legs wobbled as the crowd rocked the flimsy portable stage back and forth. The floor jostled like a tugboat in a maelstrom. Ming stumbled toward the edge and bumped into Ari, his throat constricting in fear even as he took a sharp breath. He staggered. His foot missed the floor.

Ming landed on the cobblestones below and struck his head. Dizzy, he tried to get up and move toward the magistrate, toward the car to get away before the crowd could smell his fear and pounce on it. He couldn’t seem to get his feet underneath him. The world tilted and dumped him back to his knees.

On all fours, Ming swallowed and took a deep breath. Looking back over his shoulder—up, he realized—Ming saw Ari’s face as he peered down from the stage. Ari pulled back when the stage swayed again.

Ming managed to struggle to his feet by bracing himself against the unstable metal frame beneath the stage. The line of police officers finally broke. A wave of people poured around the stage, trapping Ming.

He stood on his tiptoes and craned his neck to see Flat Nose rush forward and smash a brick through the driver’s side window of the black sedan while the tall grim man and a woman with long wavy red hair put themselves in front of the car, blocking the way. Flat Nose yanked out the driver, tossed him to the ground, and reached back into the car for the magistrate.

Stuck against the stage, Ming watched as the magistrate was forced to his knees, below Ming’s line of sight. Flat Nose picked up a large iron pole he had found somewhere—a bar from the stage?—hauled it back like a baseball bat, and snapped it down. Blood sprayed across the face of the tall man, who smiled, and the redheaded woman, whose lips pulled down like she might be sick.

A cheer went up.

Ming moaned helplessly while his gorge rose. A wave of chills ran along his skin under his damp and dirty suit.

The bloodthirsty roar of the crowd died down. Then something hard and unforgiving smacked into the back of his head. The pavement came up face and crushed the air from his chest. A shaft of aluminum sparked against the cobblestones two inches from his face, nearly impaling him. Ming turned onto his back as the makeshift stage collapsed, and a cross beam came down hard across his thighs. When the creaking and crashing stopped, Ming realized, that he was still alive. A space had formed by the metal frame around him, preventing the cracked wood of the floor from crushing him.

The collapsed structure blocked the sun and left him concealed in shadow as the dust settled. If he lay there for ten minutes, he lay there for an hour. The sound of glass shattering drifted in from the market’s edge—the vendor’s windows as the rioting expanded into looting? Or was it the protestors smashing the windshields out of cop cars now that they had overwhelmed the police? The noise was dampened by the debris around him—more shouting, ambulance and police sirens, the occasional gunshot. Images of Magistrate Alber being forced onto his knees, of Flat Nose with the makeshift bat, of the tall grim man and the redheaded woman, flashed through his pain like a glitchy vid screen.

Ming cried out as the stage shifted. Pieces of debris were peeled back, one at a time, as someone clawed them off.

The face of a man and a woman Ming didn’t recognize appeared above him. They were both sickly thin, probably malnourished. The man held a chunk of cobblestone in one hand. The woman had pulled her surprisingly well tended hair back into a severe ponytail that stretched her face into a sneer.

Put him out of his misery! the woman said, pointing at Ming.

When the man shook his head, the woman tore the chunk of cobblestone from his fingers, stepped to Ming, and raised it over her head with both hands, her face lighting up with a wicked glee. Ming had just enough time to wonder how they got the piece of cobblestone pried up from the floor of the market square before a shot rang out. The woman yelped and dropped the stone. Ari stepped forward, his firearm pointed at the man.

Don’t, Ming said. No more bloodshed.

Ari glanced at Ming, sniffed, and nodded once. While he kept the pistol trained on the man, who raised his hands into the air, Ari stepped onto the woman’s arm and put enough weight onto her wound to keep her grounded.

Ming watched as Ari finally got the attention of Captain Wallace, whose boots slapped the pavement noisily as he came running, trailed by several other police officers. Two officers handcuffed the couple that had tried to kill Ming. The rest lifted the metal frame high enough for Ari to pull Ming out and carry him fifty yards to the other side of a barricade of police cars.

Half a dozen ambulances and police reinforcements had arrived since Ming had been trapped. A young, blonde paramedic with cold hands and a no-nonsense attitude asked him to put weight on his legs. When he tried, a sharp sciatic pain shot into his buttocks and lower back. She pressed him back to the stretcher and prodded his hips until he groaned, then handed him a painkiller, which he swallowed without water, and let him rest.

Ming’s head lolled to the side. Ari came back and sat by him and together they watched as the chief of police reamed Captain Wallace in front of his men. The captain stood stoically while frothy spittle flew from the chief’s mouth, a large man with what you might call a gullet that wiggled as he talked. Ming didn’t need a transcript to know that Captain Wallace would be doing night shifts for some time.

Five days later, the magistrate’s funeral was held outside in a nice cemetery on the south side, with groomed grass and clear blue skies. It proved to be the last warm day of the season. Ming leaned on a cane as he walked from his car to the burial site. Ari stayed by his side, taking in the surroundings and noting exits and canvassing tree-lines with his eyes. When Ming stumbled, Ari caught him and propped him up until he managed to get his weight back on the cane.

The next day, Ming opened an email from the president. In a stiff paragraph, it notified him of his promotion to magistrate. He sighed. His staff produced an iced bottle of champagne when he told them, but Ming’s heart wasn’t into the celebration. His glass went flat and he ended up pouring it down the sink.

To assuage his guilt over Magistrate Alber’s death, Ming threw himself into his work. The protests continued in Fields, but the police switched to more heavy-handed tactics, using armored cars and long range acoustic devices to break up knots of violence.

What really ended the protests, however, was the arrival of winter in mid-November. The next time a magistrate returned to Greyhare Market, Ming went to oversee the removal of two bodies. A man and a severe woman with a scar in her arm lay entangled at the market’s edge. The lovers had frozen to death overnight as they clutched each other.

Ming swallowed a mouthful of bile as an undertaker pried their stiff hands from each other’s arms and stuffed them into separate body bags.

Though these two had attempted to end his life, Ming decided it was he who had let them down. He vowed to do everything in his power to make it right.

The bodies of the poor couple were the first that Ming buried that winter.

They were far from the last.

2

Magistrate Kai Ming could just make out the soft whir of the car’s electric engine over the staccato chants of protestors in the distance. Ari guided the black sedan with government plates through the streets of Enshi while Ming fidgeted in the back seat.

Can you believe it’s been almost a year? Ming said as he rubbed his legs. He didn’t need a cane to get around anymore, although this morning his legs throbbed, a deep ache like his bones themselves were bruised. He had spent too much time on his feet the day before. Overworking had become a habit.

Ari snorted. Only a year, sir?

Ming barked a harsh laugh. Well, our hard work is about to pay off.

Ari nodded slowly. Work the system and the system works for you, Ari said. You taught me that.

Ming scowled, angry at himself more than he ever could be at Ari. I told you what Senator Khan said, didn’t I? The rice seeds still have to go through a committee review, no matter how hard you or I, or especially Ben, has worked to get them ready for trial. It makes my blood boil. Those rice seeds will save lives, but we’re running out of time. It’s already August. If winter comes early again, our storehouses will be empty six weeks after the new year, and that’s only because we started rationing earlier this year.

Ari simply nodded.

Ming clamped his mouth shut and silently thanked the man for his patience. Ming didn’t need to repeat himself. He was wasting breath. Those rice seeds could save lives. He leaned on that phrase like a mantra. It kept him going through the hard winter. It kept him going when the Ration Distribution Centers ran empty in the coldest January on record. The Agricultural Commission had signed off on Ming’s proposal to fund Doctor Ben Li’s experimental rice seed project based on the conviction of those words, despite Senator Khan—the Commission’s chairman—and his many objections about the budget and long-term viability of genetically modified seeds. Yes, it was a risk. Ben knew that, too.

Ming shook his head to clear it of these distracting thoughts and focused on the present. The rice seeds were almost ready to enter trial.

Almost.

If we make good time, we can get the seeds back to Congress by tonight. I can’t get around the committee review, but I need to do everything I can to speed up the process. Those rice seeds could save lives.

Ari nodded and depressed the accelerator.

The early-morning sunlight slanted off the polished high-rise glass and steel office buildings near the Fields prefecture. Those fell behind and the vehicle bore them across an ocean of apartment buildings, brick townhouses, smaller wooden houses, row tenements, impossibly tall cement project buildings, and, finally, the endless clusters of patched sheet metal and wood shanty towns that sprawled west to the edge of King Valley.

Despite the hour, they were forced to avoid activist-occupied intersections. Lines of people marched back and forth across the road, hefting signs condemning the government, demanding relief and reduced food prices, while men and women with bandannas tied over their faces hurled stones at the car. Now that the pressure of the rationing could be felt again, encounters like this were common. People reacted different ways to that kind of pain and fear. These people protested. Ari drove. Ming thought about the rice seeds.

They turned a corner and encountered another set of protestors. He admired Ari’s composure as the car whipped into a tight U-turn, but flinched when a heavy rock bounced off the roof over his head. The protestors slipped from sight when the car swung around a corner.

Ming expected trouble for the rest of the drive, yet the road remained clear. They reached Greyhare Market by mid-morning. Ming didn’t realize he was holding his breath until he exhaled heavily with surprise.

The square normally swarmed with people. Today, it was deserted.

This is weird, Ming said. Where is everyone?

At the protests, Ari said. Or hiding from them.

Lucky for us. This is usually the worst part of the drive.

Yeah, Ari said, gazing warily ahead of them. Lucky for us.

Ming grunted his agreement. He didn’t trust the convenience of it, either.

They drove on for another hour. The slums fell away abruptly and the electric sedan punched into an open space, like a train coming out of a tunnel. A government-protected strip of grass and mud several hundred yards wide led to the deep gorge of the Enshi River, the natural barrier separating the sprawling city of Enshi from King Valley.

A group of protestors gathered at the near end of the bridge. Ari drove slowly through an opening in the small crowd, and though they pounded and shouted and pushed on the car, it was not enough to hold them. Ming held his seatbelt tight but didn’t shy from the angry gazes of the protestors who hollered and spit at his window.

If only they knew, Ming said. But it wasn’t safe for most people to know about the rice seeds.

I believe in you, sir, Ari said. If it’s any consolation.

Thanks, Ari.

The protestors fell away and Ari took the car across the gorge on an elegant suspension bridge whose cables had been engineered to resemble a soaring double-helix. White and black strands entwined the road, over and under the half-mile bridge. Six triangular pairs of legs supported the road, their columns diving into the muddy river below.

A calcium-white line along the shore twenty feet above the surface of the slow-moving river was a dry reminder of how unseasonably low the water flowed. Even at low water, the deep river was an impressive sight. The car bumped as the tires of the electric sedan rolled over bridge joints at the middle section, where the roadway would part if the bridge were raised. Ming didn’t think the drawbridge had been used all season.

Ari eased his foot off the throttle as he approached the checkpoint at the opposite side of the gorge. It looked like a toll booth made of shining metal. They were waved aside by a cadre of armed guards. Twenty men wearing full riot gear and with machine guns slung over their shoulders stood every few yards across the length of the bridge. One helmeted guard, the man nearest the car, snapped up the plastic visor covering his face as they came near.

ID, please.

Captain Wallace, Ming said as he handed over the card. It’s good to see you here. Did you get reassigned again?

Ming held still while the captain ran a security scan using the microchip implanted in his left eye. The device relayed the information on Ming’s card, plus a scan of his face, back to a central processing server.

Wallace nodded. We’re short on men, so they had no choice but to give me back the Valley.

No kidding.

Yes, sir.

A new command. Day shifts. Sounds like a promotion to me.

Night shifts, too, if you can believe it. I haven’t slept in twenty-four hours. We cornered a group of rebels in King Valley last night, about ten miles north of here. They crossed upriver and hiked in the long way. Must have taken the better part of a week.

That was near Ben’s property. A cold shiver ran down Ming’s spine. Urban sprawl in the Republic was like a wasting disease that consumed any piece of land it touched. As people sprawled, farmland receded, and each year fewer farms provided the food needed to sustain the region’s burgeoning population. If the rebels managed to breach the gate into King Valley…

Citizen? Ming asked.

The court never pinned Magistrate Alber’s murder on a specific person, but it was widely known who was responsible. Citizen. An arrogant moniker. As if they alone were the voice of the people.

Captain Wallace bobbed his head from side to side. Probably. They aren’t talking yet.

Did anyone get hurt?

No, thank God. They seemed to be scouting the area.

That’s not encouraging. Ming paused. Then he asked, Does Senator Khan know?

The Agricultural Committee, with Senator Khan in charge, would have his ass if something happened to Ben’s research.

I filed my report this morning. With the chief of police. Captain Wallace regarded Ming with flat eyes that told him how seriously he took his job. Unfortunately, after what happened last year, Wallace also played it strictly by the book.

Ming smiled, trying to hide his disappointment. If the chief knew, then Khan knew, too. The senior senator had eyes and ears everywhere. You did the right thing, Captain.

Ming caught Ari’s blue eyes in the rearview mirror and looked away. Senator Khan’s characteristic, exaggerated TV-voice yammered on in his head like a devil on his shoulder, as if incarcerating those who disagreed with them and building a giant wall on their northern border to keep out the refugees would solve their problems.

Wallace must have been thinking along the same lines. "You ask me,