The tedium of the wait was interrupted by the return of an hysterical announcer on the station TV's replacing the coverage of the international bog-snorkeling championship.   Rainbow Girl - Part 5 - Refuge by Alys

The queue of passengers slowly made its way along the station corridor leading from the platforms to the main exit. After a few seconds thought I had decided to take my chances with the search at the checkpoint rather than sit on a coach to Swansea near to some fired up members of New Hope Militia. Even if they were too stupid to work out a link between my present female identity and their new male terrorist báªte noire, the prospect of over an hour in a confined space with a bunch of arrogant, and probably drunk, blokes was not appealing in the least.

There were plenty of stories of young women being assaulted and even raped by inebriated 'Soldiers for the Third Way', as they sometimes called themselves.

As the pressed up mass of people mingled and merged I made sure to keep myself behind tall people whenever I noticed an observation camera that could get a view of my face. No point in giving them too much information about my whereabouts, I thought, if it could be avoided. The tedium of the wait was interrupted by the return of an hysterical announcer on the station TV's replacing the coverage of the international bog-snorkeling championship.

"This is a special broadcast, we apologise for interrupting your programme of bog-snorkeling. The House of Commons has just passed, unanimously, the Consolidation Act. Our leader, the Right Honourable Mrs Cherie Bliar will be addressing her people in a short while. Earlier on she thanked the acting leaders of all the opposition parties for their maturity in supporting the government in the fight against terrorism. We now return you to our exciting bog snorkeling final"

I finally reached the station concourse, some ten metres away from the line of temporary search desks that had been set up. I noticed that the process seemed fairly routine and seemed mostly to be only low level intelligence gathering. The sort of activity that an increasingly coercive state was obsessed with doing. Even if the mountain of information about the movement of people was never completely analysed, the actual process of collecting it disrupted peoples' lives and made them aware of the who was in control.

Another quarter hour or so of boredom and then at last I could escape into early evening Caerdydd and a fast food restaurant or cafe. I was looking forward to having a meal somewhere as I hadn't eaten since lunchtime. My thoughts of filling my empty stomach were interrupted by the flash of red light in front of me. I looked up to see a young man, at the head of the queue I was in, getting up from his seat in front of a piece of equipment with a camera and a small light. It was a retina scan machine!

My prospects of some rest and refreshment in the immediate future receded alarmingly. Unless the local detention centre was now run by Starbucks. A retina scan would confirm my identity documents but if they had set the information gathering to cross check against those now categorised as enemies of the state, which was highly likely, then I would soon be getting used to the delights of prison catering, and other unwelcome experiences if they decided to detain me with men.

I tried to keep the feelings of absolute terror from affecting how I moved, while I looked around for even the slimmest chance of escaping my fate. Suddenly a way out was arrived from a surprising source.

"We apologise for interrupting bog snorkeling again but Mrs Bliar has just issued her first decrees using her new powers under the consolidation act. Firstly tonight's traditional Guy Fawkes night celebrations will be renamed New Hope night, all pubs in the UK will be ordered to provide free drinks for members of New Hope Militia."

There was a huge cheer from the militia in the station concourse. I sidled up to a middle aged member, guarding one of the side gates.

"Excuse me sir," I said with my most endearing smile, flutter of eyes and slightly bowed head, "can you let me through to the toilet, woman's problems you know," I continued as I discreetly showed him the sanitary pad I had taken out of my bag.

He looked a little uncertain. I pressed the issue.

"The second decree of our gracious leader is as follows..."

"Please sir, I'll be back before anyone realises, I really need to change something now"

"OK, but be quick," he said before being distracted by the rest of the announcement.

"...and the leading members of these now illegal political parties will be assisted in presenting themselves to appropriate retraining centres by our efficient New Hope militia. The third of our leader's decisions are...."

I missed the rest of whatever the glorious Bliar thought about compulsory bog snorkeling or whatever by slipping quickly into the loo, and then in a few seconds out of the other door that lead onto the bus station. I jumped onto a bus that was leaving, paid the standard fare, and slumped into a seat in relief at my close escape.

Within a minute the bus was out of sight of the train station, I got off at the first stop, in case the guard who had let me go had realised my escape and issued a warning over the radio. I took bearings of where I was and began walking out of the city centre in the direction of where my only hope of refuge for the night.

As darkness deepened the traditional Guy Fawkes night fireworks began lighting up the sky with multi-coloured flashes. As I walked as quickly as possible, I reflected on the irony that just over four hundred years after the initial gunpowder plot we were seeing the aim of the conspirators realised. They had intended to blow up parliament to install a Catholic absolute monarch and now New Hope had basically abolished parliament, killed opposition leaders and installed a Catholic almost monarch. Maybe that was the next part of the plan, Queen Cherie I?

I walked around a corner and came across a pub where drunken members of New Hope militia were spilling out into the pavement.

"New Hope, New Hope, we're the future, we're New Hope...", they chanted

"Hey sexy!", one of them shouted over to me, "come and join us, we're having fun"

"New Hope! New Crap!, more like!," I shouted out, and then discretion overcame valour and I ran round some side streets and hid in the complete darkness of an unlit lane, pressing myself against a wall, trying not to breathe too much.

I heard some stumbling steps after me, they stopped about fifty metres away.

"Where did she go Jack?", asked the voice of my erstwhile 'friend'.

"Can't see her mate," replied her companion, "probably gone to ground in one of the houses here. Come on let's have some more drinks"

"New Hope, New Hope...", chanted the two as they stumbled back to their booze.

I realised that I had been holding my breath, I let it out and slowly, carefully, as quietly as possible I made my way in a direction opposite to that of the pub.

The smoke from numerous Guy Fawkes night bonfires spread across the sky. it began to rain. Soon my cardigan and the rest of my clothes were damp. As I slowly trudged towards my destination my spirits fell and feeling tried, wet and depressed I almost stumbled onto a small gang of New Hope militia marching up the street, blocking all the traffic, carrying flares and chanting similar stupid, non-rhyming, slogans as the earlier group.

I was more careful from then on, which meant that my journey took longer. By the time I reached Parc Y Rhath, I was completely soaked. It was as the sound of the New Hope anthem was blaring from all channels on the TV's in peoples' houses that I knocked, apprehensively on the solid oak door of number 35.

The door was opened, and a small, middle aged woman in a casual dress looked out.

"Yes? What is it?" she asked looking with disdain at my sorry attire.

"I'm Enfys, I'm a friend of Hywel's, please can you help me, I've got nowhere else to go"