Chapter 13

Wednesday, December 22, 2027, The White Tower

The fires had burned through the night.

By morning, the last of the bodies had collapsed into blackened piles of charred bone and ash. The attackers, the traitors—every single one of them had been put to the flames. Some had died screaming, others had been too far gone from their wounds to make a sound. It hadn’t mattered. The message had been sent.

Dale watched the smoking remnants from the top of the White Tower, arms crossed, expression unreadable. This had been necessary. If there were any doubts about what happened to those who turned against them, they had burned away with the bodies.

The attack had forced his hand. He had always known they couldn’t stay isolated forever, but now, there was no room for hesitation. He needed a buffer zone, a dead space between his power and anyone who might challenge it. If another attack came, it wouldn’t reach his doorstep.

They had already secured Whitechapel, Aldgate, Stepney, and Shadwell. The clear-out had gone quickly, the enemy having already done most of the work for them. The Muslims had stripped their own dead, leaving little behind except empty buildings and the occasional scavenger too slow to flee. His men had been thorough, cutting power, shutting off water, tearing through every structure in search of anything useful. They had found almost no one alive. Those they did find had been given a simple choice—join or die.

Further north, the battalion working with the Chinese was making slower progress, pushing through the Regent’s Park area, securing buildings one by one. Dale had little patience for the slow grind, but it was unavoidable. The city was massive, and every block took work.

Even with the expansion, they had only taken in 200 new people over the last few days—far fewer than usual. That was probably a good thing. Space was tight.

The Tower itself was no longer a place for daily life. It was a command centre, barracks, and fortress. The cellars were storage, the ground floor was fully militarized, with a radio room, an armoury, and fifteen men permanently stationed to react to any threats. The first floor had been given over entirely to women with small children, now packed together in the confined space. The top floor was his, housing his inner circle, his officers, and their companions.

The shift had tightened their command structure. Food was now served exclusively in four separate cafeterias, spread across the city. Childcare had remained at St. Paul’s Cathedral, operating as its own entity under Rebecca and Sigrid’s watchful eyes.

Today, he was making bigger changes.

They needed to spread out, and Stepney was the logical next step. Stepney City Farm wasn’t large—just 4.5 acres—but the surrounding twenty acres of empty land had potential. If they farmed it properly, it could support far more people than it seemed at first glance. It was too cold to plant anything now, but they could clear the fields, build fencing, dig irrigation, and prepare for spring. The farm had a well, which made it even more valuable.

There was a school next to the farm, solid and intact, capable of housing 400 people comfortably. It would be the next settlement, but not yet. Dale refused to send anyone there until they had secured at least a mile-wide perimeter. The slaughter in Whitechapel had likely terrified anyone nearby into submission, but he wouldn’t take the chance.

Once Stepney was secured, they would push toward Regent’s Park. The area was perfect for fortification—wide-open spaces, clear sightlines, natural barriers. If they took Regent’s University, they could station 600 people there permanently. There was a borehole at the far end of the park, a critical water source if they were going to hold the area.

But there was a problem.

A large mosque sat on the western edge of the park showed activity. He didn’t need to guess what was inside. It would have to be cleared out eventually—but it wasn’t time yet.

For now, the focus was on locking down the university, establishing a foothold, and securing the water supply. Once that was done, they would deal with the mosque.

Dale stood at the battlements, looking east, where the ruins of Whitechapel still smouldered in the distance. The war had started.

And he was going to finish it.

Now that the immediate threat had been eliminated, Dale turned to something just as important as territory—control over the minds of his people.

War wasn’t just fought with bullets. If they were going to survive in the long term, their people needed a vision, a purpose, something beyond just survival. If they believed in the cause, they wouldn’t just follow orders; they would become true believers, willing to die for the Tower if necessary.

Allegra had already started laying the groundwork. She had handpicked seven women—smart, practical, and completely loyal—to form the Council for a New Future. The name was deliberately vague yet inspiring, giving them broad authority over culture, education, and ideological cohesion.

Their first task was education.

“Kids are in school until fourteen,” Allegra explained, seated across from Dale in the command centre. The radio buzzed faintly in the background, officers coordinating patrols across their expanding territory. “After that, they contribute fully. Apprenticeships, training in practical trades—whatever is needed. No dead weight.”

Dale nodded. It made sense. They needed people capable of fixing the infrastructure, not endless talkers debating nonsense.

Amy, one of the new council members, sat beside Allegra, flipping through a stack of papers. She had been a teacher in Westminster before the pandemic, in her mid-forties, with greying auburn hair pulled into a tight bun. Her eyes were sharp, but there was something quietly haunted about her, a woman who had spent years watching her country fall apart and had finally had enough.

She spoke carefully, her voice steady but filled with conviction. “We’ve drafted the curriculum. Reading, writing, arithmetic. Sciences, engineering, practical mechanics. That’s the focus. We don’t have time for anything else.”

Dale leaned back in his chair. “And history?”

Amy smiled slightly. “History will be ... restructured.”

They weren’t going to waste time teaching about how terrible the British Empire had been, how evil colonialism was, or how everyone was oppressed. That garbage had been part of what weakened the country in the first place. No more grievances. No more victimhood.

Instead, the history lessons would celebrate strength, conquest, and resilience. The Anglo-Saxons and Normans would be central—their warrior cultures, their survival, their dominance. The Industrial Revolution would be framed as the great leap forward that built modern civilization, and the Empire would be reclaimed as a source of pride, not shame.

The children would learn who the real enemies had been—those who had undermined the nation, filled it with resentment and weakness, until the Great Punishment came and wiped away the rot. They would understand why the old world had fallen and how they, the survivors, were the chosen ones to rebuild it as it was meant to be.

It was part history, part ideology, part religion.

Dale liked it.

“Make sure they understand that this isn’t just education,” he said. “This is a duty. A purpose.”

Amy nodded, her thin lips pressing together. “I’m on it.”

Religion itself was trickier.

Dale had no patience for Christianity. It was weak, a corrupt institution that had spent centuries bending to whatever the world wanted rather than standing for anything real. Even before the collapse, it had been hollow, reduced to empty sermons about tolerance and guilt, constantly apologizing for its own existence.

More importantly, it wasn’t English. It had been a Middle Eastern desert cult before the Romans repackaged it, and he wasn’t going to base his people’s future on borrowed myths from a foreign land.

But people needed something.

Allegra and Natalie had been working on it, shaping something new but familiar. They weren’t inventing a new religion from scratch—that never worked. Instead, they were repurposing what already existed, shaping it into something useful.

Dale sat across from Allegra and Natalie that evening, the two women leaning over handwritten notes, their voices quiet but filled with conviction.

Natalie had always been more thoughtful than most, her mind sharp, her words careful. “We’re going to reclaim what’s already ours,” she explained. “Take the holidays, the traditions, the community—strip away the weakness and rebuild it as something that strengthens us.”

Dale nodded. It made sense.

Christmas? Repurposed. No longer about some foreign-born saviour preaching humility, but a time to celebrate survival, resilience, and the family unit. Easter? Reframed as a day of renewal, of honouring those who had died to build a better future.

The pandemic, the fall of the old world, was their Great Cleansing—the event that had purged the weak and the corrupt, leaving only the strong to rebuild.

“What about doctrine?” Dale asked, watching Allegra carefully.

She smirked, her dark eyes flashing with something calculated. “Doctrine comes later. First, we build loyalty and community. We create rituals, moments of shared experience, and a sense of purpose. Over time, it will become something people believe in—because they’ll have nothing else.”

Dale looked between them, considering.

The future wouldn’t just be built with guns and farmland, not that they had that yet.

It would be built inside the minds of the next generation.

“You have my approval,” he said finally. “Do it.”

Allegra and Natalie exchanged a glance, then nodded as one.

The new world was coming, and it belonged to them.

Dale sat at the head of the table, listening as Allegra laid it out for him.

She had been the driving force behind this—he could see it in the way she spoke, calm, confident, completely certain. Her dark eyes flicked between Rebecca and Polina, reading them both as she laid the foundation for what was coming.

“This is the next step,” she said, leaning forward slightly, her voice smooth but firm. “We have territory. We have food. We have order. But if we don’t start thinking about the future—real long-term stability—then we’re just playing at being a civilization.”

She turned her gaze to Dale. “We need families. We need children.”

Dale had known this conversation was coming. Allegra had been hinting at it for a while now, pushing subtly, making sure he was thinking about it the right way. Now, she was putting it into action, wrapping it in logic, structure, inevitability.

Rebecca nodded slowly, arms crossed. “Families aren’t exactly easy to come by anymore.”

“No,” Allegra agreed. “They’re almost non-existent. Most of the people we’ve taken in are alone or have only a child or two with them. The collapse destroyed the traditional family unit—and if we don’t rebuild it, we’ll be nothing more than a stronghold waiting to burn out.”

Polina tapped her pen against her ledger, already running the numbers. “We’ve got twice as many women as men,” she said. “Some of that’s because of who we’ve rescued, but even beyond that, men died at higher rates during the collapse. Fighting. Overreaching. Taking risks.”

Dale leaned back in his chair, processing.

If they pushed traditional marriage, a lot of women would be left out. That wasn’t necessarily a problem for the older ones, but three-quarters of them were still young enough to bear children. If they were going to rebuild—really rebuild—they couldn’t afford to leave potential mothers out of the equation.

Allegra knew what he was thinking, because she was already there.

“We normalize monogamous marriage,” she said. “That’s the ideal. But nature isn’t in balance yet. And until it is, we acknowledge that things have to be practical.”

Dale raised an eyebrow. “Practical how?”

Allegra met his gaze without hesitation. “If a woman marries, she swears loyalty to her husband, the community, and you. The marriage is documented—registered with Polina, recorded as an official bond. But—” she glanced at Rebecca, then back to Dale, pushing now—”she is expected to introduce new partners if she is unavailable.”

Rebecca frowned slightly. “Unavailable?”

Allegra smiled slightly, but there was no amusement in it. “Pregnancy. Menstruation. Sickness. Injury. If a wife isn’t able to sleep with her husband, it’s her responsibility to ensure he isn’t left wanting.”

Rebecca gave Dale a measured look. “And if she refuses?”

“Then he’s welcome to accept the advances of any willing woman”, Allegra replied.

Dale exhaled through his nose. “there’s going to be no coercion. But this is about expectation, not enforcement. It becomes the norm, and people follow the norm.”

Allegra nodded approvingly. “This isn’t about forcing anything. It’s about framing it as natural. As necessary.”

Polina finished a note, then pushed her glasses up her nose. “What about the women who don’t pair off?”

Dale shrugged. “They retain full rights. They can reject any suitor. They’re full members of the community.”

Rebecca cleared her throat, pulling the conversation back. “What about children born outside of marriage?”

“Same rights,” Dale said immediately. “Same responsibilities for the parents. The focus is on growth, not division.”

Rebecca still looked hesitant, but she nodded. “And homosexuality?”

“Tolerated,” Dale said simply. “As long as they still do their duty. They marry to procreate, they have children, they contribute. What they do beyond that is their problem, not ours.”

He turned to Kat, “Just keep an eye on STIs. I want to nip that in the bud. If things don’t go as planned we can always course correct”

Allegra smiled again, this time fully satisfied. “This will work,” she said. “But we need to introduce it properly. People need to see it in action.”

Dale considered for a moment, then made his decision.

“We start his week,” he said. “We set the precedent immediately. Make it clear that it’s the way forward.”

Rebecca exhaled, rubbing her temples. “I’ll start sorting who’s already paired off and who’s looking. We’ll need to handle this carefully.”

Allegra stood smoothly, stretching slightly, looking pleased with herself. “And I’ll ensure the right women are at the forefront. This needs to be seen as an honour, not an obligation.”

Dale nodded, his mind already moving ahead.

This was a foundation, not just a policy.

A structured society, a regulated population, a system that would endure.