Chapter 7 – The Rising

 

Chapter 7 – The Rising

The warehouse hummed with tension as Salty paced, boots thudding against the concrete. Sarah sat at an old folding table, scribbling names on a cracked tablet screen. Around them, small groups of men and women spoke in hushed voices, their eyes flicking to Salty with reverence and fear.

Word had spread overnight. Dock workers. Ex-army veterans. Disillusioned youths from Tallaght and Ballymun. Truckers forced out by AI fleets. Nurses who’d seen too many trafficked girls come into A&E with bruises and empty eyes. By dawn, over a thousand had gathered, crammed into the warehouse and spilling out into the docklands’ crumbling roads.

Salty stood up on a rusted forklift to address them. The morning sun glinted off the steel beams overhead, casting harsh lines across his lined, powerful face.

“Brothers and sisters,” he began, his deep voice rolling across the silent crowd. “For too long, we’ve let men like Connor Devane – The Snake – sell this country’s soul for profit. They flood our streets with drugs and human misery. They bring in the vulnerable through Belfast and traffic them like cattle. And all while our so-called leaders sit fat and comfortable in their glass towers.”

Murmurs of anger rippled through the gathered mass.

“No more!” he roared. “Today, we take a stand. Today, we tell The Snake, The Horizon Network, and every corrupt official feeding from this rotting carcass – OUT, OUT, OUT!”

The crowd roared back, fists punching the sky in unison:

“OUT! OUT! OUT!”

Sarah stepped forward, holding up a large Irish tricolour. The green, white, and orange rippled in the stiff sea breeze streaming in through the broken windows. A young dockworker clambered onto the forklift beside Salty and tied the flag to a bent steel pole. The colours flapped proudly above the heads of the assembled army.

Salty raised both arms. “This is our land. Our future. Our people. We march today not to divide, but to drive out the parasites who feed on our nation’s weakness. We march for the trafficked girl who never made it home. For the homeless man frozen on Grafton Street. For the working mothers paying AI taxes while billionaires buy up our homes. We march for Ireland.”

“IRELAND!” the crowd thundered back.

Sarah stood beside him, eyes shining with fierce pride. “They think we’re powerless,” she shouted. “They think we’re divided. But today, we stand together. Today, they will hear us roar.”

Salty felt a surge of hope and rage so strong it almost brought tears to his eyes. He leapt down from the forklift, boots slamming into the concrete with a crack of finality.

“Form up!” he barked. “Flags at the front. Veterans, take the flanks. No masks – let them see our faces. Today, Ireland rises.”

The thousand strong began their march through the docklands, voices unified, echoing off the silent glass towers looming overhead:

“OUT! OUT! OUT!”

As they turned onto East Wall Road, AI drones zipped overhead, scanning the mass of heat signatures. But no one flinched. Garda riot vans lined up along the quay, lights flashing, but the officers inside watched silently. Some even nodded, recognising the veterans among the marchers – men they once called sergeant, corporal, friend.

At the front, Salty carried the tricolour on his broad shoulder. Beside him, Sarah walked with unbreakable poise, blonde hair whipping in the salty wind. The chants rose louder with every step.

They were no longer afraid. They were no longer silent. They were Ireland reborn, marching to reclaim what was theirs.

And far away, in his glass tower office overlooking Dublin Port, Connor “The Snake” Devane watched the live drone footage, his thick fingers drumming the table. For the first time in years, he felt a flicker of fear.