V brings Evey to his lair, where she is told that she must stay in hiding until the 5th of November in the following year for her own safety. Evey helps V to escape, but is knocked out in the process.
He urges the people of Britain to rise up against the oppressive government and meet him in one year, on 5 November, outside the Houses of Parliament, which he promises to destroy. Norsefire tries to explain away the incident as a controlled demolition, claiming the building was no longer structurally sound, but V takes over the state television broadcast the same day, exposing the lie. He leads her to a rooftop to watch his destruction of the Old Bailey. Evey Hammond, a young woman who works at the state-run British Television Network, is rescued from an attempted rape perpetrated by members of the secret police by a Guy Fawkes-masked vigilante known as 'V'. The United Kingdom is ruled by a totalitarian government under the fascist Norsefire party. In 2020, the world is plagued by environmental plight and the former United States has become balkanized.
