The article I wrote made the front page of The Witness. In it, I named each and every scientist, test co-ordinator, lab assistant, even janitor, whom I had come to know during my time in that sterile hell. I pulled no punches, spared no one's sensibilities. I relayed, in grim and graphic detail, everything I had witnessed, dissected the system and left it bleeding, as they had done to so many of their test subjects. I dragged in front of the eyes of a disbelieving world, the not mindless, but meticulous brutality I had observed at Westbridge, and in which I had played my own hideous part.

Only in retrospect now, can I see that the storm had been brewing for a long time. My exposé was merely the first lightning strike, and I held my breath and waited for the thunderclap.

At first, nothing seemed to happen, or at least nothing to speak of. A few ceremonial sackings took place, as is inevitably the way with these things. Government spokesmen decried the behaviour of 'a minority of rogue scientists' operating at the Westbridge Testing Station, and assured the public that this affair, while regrettable, should not be viewed as an indictment of an otherwise compassionate and invaluable institution. It could probably have all ended there, had I let it. In hindsight, I possibly should have.

But I didn't, couldn't. I had seen too much of the truth and it burned inside me, desperate for a way out. I was young and idealistic. I thought I could take on the world. I thought I could change it.

I did the tour of the more topical late-night talk shows, editorialised in subsequent articles in The National Witness and wrote freelance columns for various other publications. My fame, or infamy, grew. By the end of the first week after my article went to print, my mail constituted over 70% of The Witness' total correspondence. I received letters and emails from friends and relatives of convicts who had been mangled by the system I sought to expose. Some of them had survived their sentences, in body at least. More had not. I replied to as many as I could. If you, reading this, were one of those to whose posts I did not reply, then I can only say that I am sorry, and hope that my subsequent actions and their repercussions have gone some way to making up for it.

Less than two weeks after my first article went to print, the first of the protests began. Ashen-faced, my editor walked into my office (since my sudden shunt into the public eye, I had been granted my own office) and flipped on one of the bank of television screens that made up one wall. Aerial footage: a mass of people gathered around the front elevation of the Westbridge Testing Station. Their voices were drowned out by the rhythmic whirr of a helicopter rotor. He flicked through another couple of channels. Each told the same story. Up and down the country, outside every Scientific Testing Station, the same scene. A voice-over cut in: '... while no official spokesmen for the demonstrators have yet come forward to issue a statement, it is unsurprisingly assumed that the events we are witnessing here today are as a direct result of this month's damning exposé by National Witness correspondent, Christie Heller. Heller's recent stand against the...' Feeling suddenly weightless and insubstantial, the remote control in my hand the only thing in the world that seemed real, I turned the television off. The TV reporter's voice was replaced by static silence. All my editor said to me was: 'I hope to God you know what you've started.'

By one of those bizarre coincidences that seem to happen all the time, the head office of The Witness, now home to 'the nation's most intrepid and relevant reporter' was located a mere twenty minute walk from Westbridge Testing Station. Within five minutes of seeing the television footage, I was out of the office and on the streets, running as fast as I could until I could feel my heart pounding in my head in time with every footfall. I didn't know myself why I was going, whether my motivation was professional or personal. Was I here as a journalist to cover a story, or out of a sense of responsibility for a chain of events I had set in motion?

Why now? Why me? A country too tired and impassive to revolt for generations, suddenly up in arms because someone they'd never met had told them something they could have found out for themselves.

Closer to the station, closer to the eye of the storm.

I was still a street away from the testing station, but already a few of the more cautious or less convicted protesters straggled in untidy groups. Some of them recognised me; someone shouted to me. I didn't stop.

The street ended and opened up onto what would, under usual circumstances, have been a wide, roomy, cobbled square, with the testing station set back, safe and secure behind its high barbed wire-topped fences and checkpoints and barriers. But these were not normal circumstances.

The crush of bodies filled the square to bursting.

Police, unaccustomed to dealing with protestors, had positioned themselves between the mob and the station, looking very much like people who wished they were somewhere else. They loitered, edgy and uncertain, behind riot shields in which they seemed to have little faith. I could see that they were all heavily armed.

As I approached, a ripple appeared to spread through the crowd of protestors and a path opened up in front of me. A hush descended on the mob which suddenly felt more like a congregation, and I heard my name whispered and echoed around the square in reverential tones. Too many eyes to count turned upon me, and I found myself pinned by their collective gaze, crushed by the weight of their expectations.

The police too were watching me, apprehensively, as though I might charge at them, or explode. The only person who didn't seem to be theorising as to what I might be about to do was me.

Slowly, every step a struggle, as though wading through treacle, I walked down the aisle that had opened before me, to the steps of the steps of the testing station. None of it seemed real.

Once I had gone as far as the police cordons would allow, I turned around and looked back at the sea of faces. I'd never seen a demonstration first-hand before, but I'd watched enough films and seen enough photographs (from other countries, other eras) to know that this wasn't how they were supposed to go. There was something important missing here, something indefinable. These people had forgotten how to protest. And, as would - in just a few short moments - become horribly, abundantly clear, the police had forgotten how to deal with protestors.

I opened my mouth to speak, although I hadn't a clue what I could possibly say. Should I tell them I had only tried to do what I thought was right? Should I commend them for being here, thank them for listening to me, send them all home? No matter what I decided to say now, I realised, it would no longer make any difference.

The thunder that had been building finally broke.

Since that revolt, which has been dubbed 'the Westbridge Square Massacre', I have heard innumerable conflicting accounts of what exactly happened next. Some say that a protester, drunk on the spirit of rebellion, pitched a loose cobble stone at the ranks of police, that the stone's sharp impact against a riot shield, sounding like a gunshot, prompted a nervous, inexperienced officer to open fire on the crowd. Some say that there had indeed been a gunman in the mob, that it was he who had fired first, and that the police retaliation, while extreme, had been justified.

I was there and I don't even pretend to know what happened. In any event, before I'd had a chance to say anything to the assembled throng, the air around me suddenly erupted into a rage of screams and bullets. Chaos engulfed the square, as too many tightly-wound tempers snapped and a full-scale riot broke out. People fell to the ground to be trampled underfoot by their fellow protestors, bodies peppered with new, bleeding holes tripped fleeing feet. Skulls cracked under the blows of police batons. By the time reinforcements arrived, it was already over. The demonstrators had been decimated. Those who had not yet taken flight were no longer able to, sprawled in bloody puddles on the cobbles of the square, slumped insensibly against police blockades. I had been buffeted, bruised, caught in the cross-current as the two opposing sides had clashed around me, but I found myself unable to move of my own volition. As the crowds ebbed, I stood rooted, committing to memory every broken body, every crimson smear on every riot shield, until heavy hands took hold of me and there was a sharp chemical hiss. My eyes burned, blinded, a pain like nothing I'd known before, and I could hear myself screaming as though from a long way away. I recalled Naomi Jane Whitworth and the industrial bleach. Then something unseen hit my temple hard and the world reeled away from me.

Want to comment on this Short Stories? Sign up to Edit Red and you will be able to comment on Short Stories and get access to: Upload your own stories and poems, get readers and their feedback, promote your work...