Port Said, Egypt

There was no great burst of gunfire, no flares to signal the advance, nothing to give away the fact that four hundred men, their faces and weapons blackened to match the night, were slipping quietly into the city. They went in small groups, no more than a dozen at a time, using the reeds and ruins as cover as they darted from shadow to shadow. Thankfully the night was mostly dark, the odd cloud parting to allow the moon to show through.

Delgado went first, as they knew he would. He had his rifle slung across his back to prevent the desire of using it until the most dire situation. In his right hand he carried his bayonet, the metal blackened with fire soot until it looked like a billy club. His foot falls were gentle, reminding him of the times he had stalked wild game on his fathers farm. He was amongst those to use the water approach, the most dangerous. He lowered himself ever so gently into the water, wincing as the water reached his groin and then beyond. He was thankful it no more than waist deep and, ducking low amongst the reeds, he moved forward. One by one the dozen men he had selected came after him, their movements in the water hidden by a small wind that came up, causing the lake to ripple of its own accord.

Reeds brushed against his face and chest as he went, the mud sucking at his boots, and on more than one occasion he was forced to pause and yank a boot free, Each time he would pause afterwards, waiting, hoping no one in the enemy held buildings would see him. Those behind him struggled as well and for all he could tell, they were making enough noise to wake the dead but no voices called out, now shots rang into the darkness. All was quiet.

Worry assailed Delgado. What if the enemy knew and was simply waiting until they got close enough to kill them all. He tried to shake the worry but every time the moon came out he froze, expecting the night to come alive with the crack of rifles and the screams of dying men. But the shots never came, no voices called out over the water. Only the wind seemed to be awake, that and the occasional explosion of crack of gunfire from where the Spanish Armada was held up by a bunch of poorly armed Ethiopians and a single warship.

Delgado came at last to the far bank, a place he knew that enemy forces had been spotted by observers as they planned their attack in the brief time given to them. There had been four or five men, all of them trying to keep a keen eye out without becoming sniper bait. He climbed from the water, cringing as the sound of his movement sounded like thunder in his ears. Nothing moved.

His footfalls were careful, the same skills he has used to hunt wild boar as useful against men as it had been then. His men came behind him until all twelve of them were kneeling in the reeds. He looked from left to right as they all nodded to him and then they stole up the bank. The enemy lookouts were still there, indeed they had lit a small fire that was well hidden from any viewers on the Spanish held airfield. Four were sitting quietly, speaking in low whispers, the fifth was keeping a steady lookout, how the advancing Brigada Internacional had not been spotted he would never know. He waved his blade forward and they went forward like wraiths. There was a brief struggle, sound of blades pricing flesh and then the smell of blood was rich in the night.

Moments later the Brigada Internacional was moving swiftly into the ruins of Port Said. Those who had never killed a man less than a few hours before were now learning how to do it with a knife, learning the weak spots in a man so that he might be killed swiftly before he could give the alarm. They did not spread out but moved in a path no more than fifty yards wide, slaughtering their way towards the Canal. It was a blood letting like the world had not seen since the Great War. Men struggled and died in a welter of silence and blood. How they made it to the Canal without the alarm being sounded Delgado would never know but suddenly the ground dropped away and the Canal was before them. He could vaguely make out the ships of the Armada to the north, and to the south the Aksum, just on the edge of his sight.

He could see figures rushing about the edge of the Canal and trucks, their lights removed, hurrying up to unload cargo. The majority of his men had arrived, a few had died along the way or been wounded and left to fend of themselves. He crouched, waiting and watching, he hadn't planned for the attack to go so well and was almost unsure of his own intentions now. At last he realized that delaying would only make matters worse and so, taking the flare pistol from his belt he fitted a red flare and then, with a deep breath, he fired it into the air.

The moment he pulled the trigger he knew he'd made a mistake. HIs men were not deployed properly but it was to late for that. The instant the flare went up, all hell broke loose. The Brigada Internacional opened fire on the men and their trucks where they had frozen in the act of dumping more debris into the canal. He fitted another flare and fired, this time a yellow one. It arced away, bouncing off the top of one of the trucks and skittering across the ground. Within moments the reports of Spanish naval guns sounded and shells, sounding like freight trains, trundled overhead and the trucks vanished in massive geysers of earth and fire.

"Begin to advance southwards!" The Brigada Internacional spread out as best they could and, the element of surprise over, opened fire on everything that moved.

Green Island, launch facility

The dull throb in his head was only mildly put off by the view out the conference room window. He could afford to ignore a bit of his annoyance looking out at the ocean and our towards mainland Taiwan. The sky was clear, affording a brilliant spring-time glow to the ocean waves. The water glowed with a bright sapphire glow. The open skies complimenting the color as it opened up above as the water was below. A flat crystal surface sparkled with a diamond shimmer.

A few odd boats traveled the water. Shen Tzen had no hard time guessing the boats. Even over the distance he was from the shore and the altitude above it. The lonesome ferry ships changing out the guard and the shifts from the morning to the afternoon. Distantly behind them, only black commas on the azure sheet of the sea the departing specks of resupply slipped into the distance.

The white trails above of planes swept overhead, no doubt on way to the Philippines most likely, there wasn't much traffic otherwise. The local airforce base kept too close an eye on the surrounding area to allow Japanese or any other international travel go over. So in all possibility it was official or goods transport, something where it didn't matter nearly as much if unchecked persons could see the island below.

But it wasn't like it mattered. To a certain range the navy allowed fishermen close. Especially when it was known or suggested there was to be a rocket launch, even a test flight. And it was this detail that would inevitably arise soon. He knew it.

But the only thing that kept him from total peace was the high-pitched irritability of Hue.

The director of launch control was giving a long enthusiastic presentation on the current flight plan for the coming mission, whenever that was going to be officially marked. For a long time it had been caught on limbo, a situation made worse by the elections on the mainland and the solid insistence of the NPN and some layers of the Grand Secretary's office to delay the launch until, as they said in their own words, “little distraction”. He didn't know if that order was from Hou himself or merely the concerns of an intermediary. Which ever the case it was concern for the Ministry of Science and Technology to petition for a lift on the hold.

Must have worked. The fat and considerably urban representatives from the New People's News were present to hear out the facilities plans and a few unnamed representatives from Beijing. Tzen had gotten no memo on what they wanted him to say, so he figured it was merely to keep up an appearance.

Some day, he'd retire from this bullshit.

Hua had a unique way of speaking that made Tzen particularly annoyed with him. Flamboyant, exaggerated, and loud. There wasn't a doubt half the floor could hear him, let alone the room. The end to each sentence with an excited jab at the last half of any syllable to escape his mouth was much like hammering nails into his temples. He fought to keep a cold face as he looked at everyone else in a dire need to confirm if he wasn't the only one. But seeing the calm unshaken expression of Beijing-trained politicians only made his own mask feel weaker. The ice was breaking, and he didn't know how long it'd be until it shattered. Would they call him dishonorable? It'd certainly be a way to retire from all this, but not nearly the way he'd like to go. He'd at least want a pension to retire on, a promise for an apartment in Shanghai. He wasn't going to be someone riveting steel plates together. Not with the degrees he held; as often as he felt he was asked to go to some other field.

“In the end we're targeting the western Pacific as our re-entry point.” Hua spoke in that agonizing cheery tone, “Which given the angled we programmed into the controls and the average height-range of the test rockets will put us down into the area after its orbit has finished deteriorating and it reenter's Earth atmosphere.

“After which, we should be able to gather it north of the Philippines and bring it – and the test-subject - back home.” if there was any respite though, it was he at least referred to that cat as something less than what it was. Not anything living. Just a subject. Another set of instruments.

“Can we be certain though?” asked one of the representatives. He spoke like he was a bull in season. Hot, aggressive, and challenging. Wrinkled and old he didn't look like he ever slept with a woman since the revolution, which no doubt attributed to his aggressive assertion.

Or perhaps it was just to appear dominant over the general in the room. Their operations commander, Xen Wu. He still operated as an officer in the airforce, having dual command of the installation on the island as well as keeping all the engineers and scientists on the island in a single basket, which wasn't as easy as it seemed; they had a habit of being more undisciplined and disorganized than soldiers. It was a fact of his position that was visible on him, despite being perhaps half the age of the representatives present his hair looked lighter in color, finer lines rung around his shallow eyes, and an otherwise round frame a little bent out of shape.

“I've been assured every possible factor has been included to present the best possible outcome in retrieving the craft.” Wu spoke. He didn't present to assert himself. His white coat, sword at his side, and mere presence was enough for the men from Beijing. “We've got the final pod equipped with several radio transmitters, we'll be able to triangulate its position easily enough. But as I've also been constantly reminded – and against our organization's general philosophy – there is always an element of luck we need to account for.

“I'm looking to coordinate with the navy beyond the simple coast guard stationed here to run a larger range in the event something goes wrong. I hope we'll be ready to sail on the border of Japanese waters, or even into it if need be to retrieve the capsule.

“We fully understand the risks and the mission and made doubly sure to accommodate for anything. If it was in reason I would request submarines on the absurd chance the Japanese commit hostile action to retrieve the craft. Or even the Spanish.”

The room mumbled nervously. A few subdued spits of anger were had among the heads. But for most, they kept silent. To Tseng's relief.

“Will this interfere on election reporting, or even war reporting?” the representatives asked.

“Current NPN viewer and reader polls only put election interest at thirty percent right now.” the reporter from the NPN acknowledged, speaking up for the first time, “And we've only got really minor concern over Africa. We've got no survey results but I'd guess we got only ten-precent really giving a shit right now.

“Our biggest coverage concern now is Russia. But we've actually got people dying in that right now, it's only natural we're more afraid of the Russian effort turning back than drum-beaters fighting the Europeans.”

“Nonsense, we do care!” spat one of the representatives, “If the Spanish get a head in Africa then we might as well buckle the Revolution down and hold fast, they're coming for us next!”

“Well it's certainly not in the interests of many right now.” the reporter shrugged.

“Nonsense, you're the conduit of information so you make them care!” demanded the politician

“Comrades, let's not derail the conference.” Wu ordered.

“I agree.” Tseng mumbled under his breath. He closed his eyes and silently thanked someone – anyone – for a little bit of sense in the room today.

“Never the less, on the terms of coverage of a launch I recognize no need to hold it off. We're ready when this is and we'll be there.”

“We were really hoping for a early-July launch.” Hue said excitedly, perhaps speaking out of his turn. But Wu didn't seem to care, he let him have the floor, “Between us, perhaps the third of next month? Or the end of the week this month! We're set, all that needs to be done is some final adjustments and some last-key inspections on the physical launch craft and we can do it, it won't take any more than a week on our end.”

“I guess if it's inevitable,” one of the politicians nodded, “we can let it go ahead. I'll sign the papers when I get home and we'll issue the official orders then. You – and the NPN – can act as you please then.”

“So it's settled?” Wu asked.

“We'll see.”

Countryside outside of Shenzhen

The thunder of the engine motor was more that of a usual truck, but less than a full earthquake. The cabin rattled violently as the motor made each powerful heavy turn. It was most heavily centered on the backseat, where it felt a horde of riders was trampling the ground. The thunderous hooves beating the soft earth and making everything roll, body included. If it wasn't for the seat belts hugging their chests, then there was a heavy fear that what Pui Tui had made was going to throw them onto the floor.

Yan Cong was particularly unimpressed. His frail frame already felt ready built to slip through most restraints. His face was bent in fear as he held on tight to the seat belts, cursing the day he failed to convince his friend in getting rid of the engine he'd somehow managed to rig on the truck body. It was either a homage to the young boy's technical skills, or simply the vanilla abilities of a army surplus Tei-Gui engine. It was probably both, and holding on as they wound through the hills of southern Guangdong.

Alongside him sat Jin Feng, trying to lean against the window frame. Despite the heavily jostling of the entire body she looked to be taking amusement from this. Her pale skin shone in the rainy light and a pale-yellow cheongsam hugged her figure. Hardly formal, it didn't cling nearly as tight as the rest, and was decorated by a wool scarf she hung wrapped around her neck. Unsurprisingly for the oil-haired young girl her dress did little to hide the movement of her breasts in the shaking home-engineered truck.

Embarrassingly, the adolescent thoughts of what it'd take to see the women in his life naked drew up into his mind. It made him hotter and sweater than he needed to be, and if she looked to the side he was afraid of what she might see. Holding back a breath he turned to look down the road ahead, fighting to stuff away his fantasies for another night. But the tense feeling that clenched his gut did not so easily retreat, it made him feel almost sea-sick.

Outside the rain fell in buckets over the countryside. To either side of the lumbering truck long sweeping hills marched off into the countryside under a canopy of thick gray clouds. Drops of waters the size of duck eggs smashed themselves against the windshield. Wipers tried desperately to keep pace with the falling rain, but their slow languid pace was hardly enough.

Yan Cong was a sturdily built youth. Not much older than he was, and the only one in his small circle of friends who could drive. And he liked to prove that consistently. And lately, with the completion of this monster he more energetically sought ways to prove it harder. He claimed to have already ran one race with it out here, and he wasn't about to let go of another chance. Meetings were final.

Pui Tui hung himself over the steering wheel, his narrow eyes squinting out through the rain from a wide, broad forehead. Knuckled heavy and scarred over from being knocked against the metal of engine blocks and automobile frames held the steering wheel in vice-like grips, the bones shown through in a solid-white glow. His back craned out through his white shirt as he pressed his face all too close to the top of the steering wheel, helping him to keep a struggling view on the winding hillside country roads.

He couldn't see them, not from fighting to keep himself on the plastic leather seats of his friend's monster or through Feng's tight dancing breasts. But he knew at the bottom there were thick columns of closely grown trees waiting to snag them in their fingers if they slid off the wet road. Cong might get out OK, but given the powerhouse of Tui's truck he imagined he wouldn't get out so easily. Someone was bound to be looking for the thing powering this from the back, from behind a guarding of wooden planks and a heavy tarp pulled over top.

If anyone wondered, he was transporting service supplies. He learned that fast, and no one pressed further.

On the radio – another implement Tui had somehow rigged into the central console – the news droned on. They would have sought out music, but given the weather and the current terrain it seemed even the music stations from within Hong Kong could only cover the city itself, never mind the islands. News – even provincial – was the most reliable source of noise.

In today's news, some bored droning reporter discussed the events in Africa, somehow seamlessly transitioning from that to the elections. Then to the continuing implications of the autonomy zone act, and its unfolding implications. Plans to form a Cantonese Congress here in Guangdong and the plans to submit the application to Beijing by August. As well, mention about breaking that down more for Hong Kong autonomy demands.

Another of Cong's friends – Mei Hsiue Mei – was loosely involved in something similar. Or at least he remembered her parents discussing something similar in hushed tones. They lived as bureaucrats to the city of Hong Kong, and he wondered lately if they all were looking for an avenue for more power. But it wasn't his place to wonder, and he wondered if Mei herself was aware of what was going on anymore. She seemed to becoming more distant now, or something. She declined to join them, which was to him concerning. But Feng didn't seem to mind, and Tui would no doubt excitedly fill her in over lunch in any case, to her pretended enthusiasm.

The truck rumbled along through the hills, turning corners as it went. Rain pounded over head, running rivers down the windshield and windows. A distant crack of thunder rolled in the air outside, barely audible over the competing rumble of the engine and the talk radio.

Turning through the bends the terrain leveled out. Through the rain soaked windshield and the brushing of the whippers a small house appeared in the near distance. Surrounded by a number of small bushy trees it stood lit up in the distant field off the side of the road. Around it sat parked a number of cars. Several looked modified as Tui's, if in subtle ways to keep the attention of the police at bay.

“Tui, do you really want to do this. It's raining pretty hard.” Cong said concernedly. His voice trembled in time with the engine at his back.

“Yea!” Tui smiled, “Besides, it could be worse.”

Worse? How could it be worse? “Tui, look at the way you're staring out that windshield? How could it be worse!?”

“Could be snowing.” the youth said with a cocky grin, not knowing anything of value when it comes to snow.

“I don't know, I think it could be pretty exciting!” Feng said from the window. She looked over at her struggling friend as he hung to the strap on his chest. He was so thrown forward his knees were pressed up to the center console, his ass at the edge of the seat. It was a terribly awkward position to be in.

“You're not helping.” Cong groaned. He felt his heart hammer at his chest, and he didn't know why. Which only made it worse. His terrifyingly skinny body wormed back up the seat to give him a view out the front. As Tui was pulling into the house's muddied yard.

The sound of the engine died off as Tui put it in park, letting it idle as he peered out onto the wooden veranda that encased the entire outside of the small wooden home. Wooden boards swept off from the roof like wings to two sides, leaving an overhanging awning over the front porch. From inside dark shapes moved in the glow of lamplights. The front door opened up, letting out a heavyset man.

He seemed to loiter a bit, smoking a cigarette as he looked at the truck of youths. He was maybe roughly ten years older than the lot of them, well into marching into his thirties perhaps. Through the water-choked window he and Tui exchanged long stares, before with a heavy wave he beckoned them out.

“Alright, we're good.” Tui said, popping open the door of the truck, leaving the engine idle.

“Tui, what do you mean?” Cong said, satartled, “Cong, I know what you do isn't exactly legal, but how deep are we going?”

“It's just street racing, it doesn't matter.” the white-shirted grease monkey grinned through the open door. Feng was already working her way out, throwing the scarf over her head to shield herself from the heavy rain.

Groaning, Cong slid himself out of the seat and followed suit. His feet splashing in the thick mud as he exited the rumbling vehicle, and with a dash joined his friends on the porch with the smoking muscle-bound stranger.

By the time he hit the porch, he already felt soaked head-to-toe. His clothes hung off his small frame. His friends were no worse for wear. Feng though save in part by the scarf. Smiling smugly, she pulled it off her head, and carefully wrung out the rainwater.

“Somehow I wasn't expecting you to make it.” their bouncer-that-was said, his voice deep and thunderous. Rain bounded on the wood boards overhead. With an air of paranoia and of caution he looked at the two Tui had brought with him. “Who are these chucklefucks?” he asked.

“Just friends...” Tui said, there was an air of nervousness to his voice.

The man nodded, taking a draw from the cigarette. Looking from Cong to Feng he nodded, “Alright.” he said, “Neither don't look like police material anyways. This bean sprout over here doesn't even look like he could point a gun anyways.” he said dismissively as he gestured to Cong.

“Anyways, Cashier is waiting for you inside.” the man grunted, flicking his cigarette away, “After that last time he's rather excited. Step in.” he invited, stepping aside.

“Thank you.” Tui bowed with a nervous smile. Scratching at the back of his neck he stepped in, friend's following suit.

The inside of the house carried a heavy reek of cigarette smoke, mingled with that of booze. Someone's cooking loomed heavily in the smokey amber-lit air. The three city youth's shoes thudded wetly on the uncoated wood floorboards as they wound down the narrow hallway, before being let out into a large sitting room.

There in the center a small group sat at a wooden table, playing a round of mahjong poker by the light of a naked hanging lightbulb. The players paused their game to look up at their guests, as well as the spectators. The game soon resumed as one of them mumbled something. And quickly the soft tick of dice hitting the wooden table filled the room.

Worn and stained couches lined the walls, mismatched to any sense of décor. There slouched into the backs sat several more impatiently staring guests. Bottles of beer in their hands, and at least several with knives strapped to their legs. They regarded the newcomers with blank, distant looks. Too disinterested to raise anything further.

“For fucks sake, Tui!” someone barked from the far corner of the room. Cong looked over to see a tall figure jumping up from an arm chair alongside a beaten and scratched radio. One that played no sound, “I was hoping you weren't coming back dammit. You fucking made me loose a bet!”

Laughing, someone else added, “Shit, kid wasn't scarred off!” another exclaimed, “I thought he would have shied out, the way he almost slid off the road and his voice shook when he finished!

The other man was a straight black-haired man. “Lui, you owe me. Pay up!” he heckled.

“Like Hell.” the man by the radio said, Lui. The proposal didn't fly well with his black-haired competitor.

“God dammit, we had a deal!” he bellowed, advancing across the room. The mahjong players stopped their game to look up and watch events unfold. Even the thunder of a fight brought the inanimate figures on the couch to life.

“Piss on the deal, I'm keeping my money, Shou.” Lui spat.

“I'll fucking take your hand!” Shou growled, reaching to the belt of his pants. A long blade flashed in the light as he pulled it out from under his shirt. But even as long as his arm from wrist to elbow, Lui was not phased. It in fact even seemed to encourage him as he marched across the floor to Shou.

“Fucking try it, I'll break that face in.” he sneered.

“Comrades!” a voice roared over the ensuing fight, “Brothers!” it again pleaded. It was soft, its local accent tamed. There was almost something foreign to it. It had a European roll.

The two men froze in their advances. The new speaker continued, “Lui will pay Shou as agreed upon.” it demanded, “Or I'll shoot the two of you and take the money for yourself.”

Cong realized then he wasn't in his natural environment. The stern seriousness of the warning, and the barred knife registering in his brain, he knew he wasn't at home anymore. His breath shuddered in fear, his heart raced excitedly. He even felt light headed.

Fighting back anxious nausea he turned to face who had spoken. In a doorway half-way across the room stood a tall figure, of vaguely European descent. Light brown hair combed across his face. A complimenting mustache pasted to his pale face. He glowered at the two from behind vaguely tear-drop shaped eyes, but bore over everyone in the room a full head at the least.

The two stood back, the knife blade lowered. The man at the door nodded, looking out over the room. “I'll see you two in a minute and sort this mis-communication later.” he growled at the two, eyes settling on Tui he added, “Tui, didn't think I'd see you in. Your friends?” he asked.

“Yes, comrade.” Tui replied.

“I see, they can come in.” he invited, stepping back through the door whence he came. Tui followed, Cong stood by nervously.

He hesitated to follow, but a gentle push from Feng spurned him on. He looked over at her, she smiled back, the red lipstick she wore evident now more so than before. “It'll be fun.” she whispered to him, or mouthed. He couldn't tell, his heart was beating too hard.

Following the man into the side-room the door shut behind them. Muffling what whispers that followed their tails. Stepping to the side, their host walked about the edge of the room, coming to a table drawn up in the center. If not for papers littering the table's surface and the lights in the ceiling, the room was bare.

“I imagine you're here to race again.” the man said, “And who are these two?” he asked, “Family? Girlfriend?”

“No, just a friend of his,” Fend replied gently, cutting Tui off before he could reply, “though if I ever get a craving for dick once in my life, I'll be sure to tell you.” she said with a devlish smile.

The man stared at her stricken. Then slowly his eyes lit up, and a smile crawled across his face as realization dawned on him, “I see how it is.” he laughed, “If I might make my introduction,” he continued; bowing, “if for your benefit. Then I am The Cashier. I ask you refer to me by nothing else.”

“The Cashier?” Cong asked.

The Cashier nodded, taking a seat at his table, “I'll let you know, I was born in Macau. My father was a Portuguese business man. My mother a local well-off woman. Both attended the gambling dens in the city often, at least before the Japanese ended all that when they occupied the city.

“In their hobby's memory,” he said loudly, banging his hands on the table, grinding his palm against the lacquer coating, “and in part their own I have taken up the mantle of the once auspicious title of cashier! I deal with the flow of money here, I handle the bets and settle disputes, and other such methods of obtaining a tax free income.” he smiled as he pushed himself back off the table.

“I have my fees, but winning the pool will often put you well enough over than.” he smiled, nodding to Tui, “He was our last winner here in the hills. I guess the call of a few red paper bills is stronger than most think.” he said laughing. Tui nervously nodded along.

“No need to feign humility!” the cashier boasted, “Sit down, lay your money on the table and I'll add it to the pot.”

Tui complied silently. Digging into his pants to pull out a wad of messy bills. “How much is there?” the cashier asked as he threw down the stack of bills.

“Two hundred.” Tui said, “Half of my earning last time.”

The cashier grinned as he scribbled it down into a ledger, “That's a seven-hundred total now.” he said, closing the book he looked up at them, “Given the weather though, we're waiting. I hope you don't mind.”

“Oh...” Tui nervously said, “Oh, ok.”

The cashier smiled, “No need to be so high strung. Take a breather, have a drink maybe. When the rain lets up today we'll start the games. Coarse is the same.”

Nanning, Guangxi

A clear warm day dominated the southern capital. Clear skies ruled over head, and the Zuo River glowed with afternoon light. Boats criss-crossed across the river's emerald waters. The distant hills and mountains to the city's south rose to meet the sky with their green crowns. And above the honking of traffic the calls of birds sand in the open air.

Nanning was a sprawling city, but it's scale was much less than that of the administratively focused Beijing. The buildings kept low and sparse, the sky open. Green parks dotted the river city alongside the mighty bridges that swept over the Zuo river. Several sky-rises competed with old pagodas for domination of the skyline of the capital of Guangxi. Lower along the shore old men fishing, and children free of school swam in the cool waters of the gently flowing Zuo while the day was still warm.

High up the embankment of the river-side park stood a stage. At its head stood the minister Zhang Auyi. His white suit shown in the afternoon sun as he smiled for the cameras of the NPN. A gathering had formed around the stage as NPN reporters and people in the crowds shouted him questions. The minister, and Grand Secretary hopeful did his best to answer their questions.

“Auyi, as an acting Grand Secretary how do you propose we pursue the situation in Africa?” a woman in a long blue dress asked, “Some suggest conflict is inevitable, while others suggest we can keep out of it.”

“I feel that we as a nation have a commitment to our partners.” Auyi replied, “Inside and out of the Third International, as very few as there are.” he joked, smiling. The crowd laughed politely, and Auyi continued, “Ethiopia, as a trading partner does deserve interest from us as a people. And the aggression of the Spanish on a sovereign and respectable power as them does demand we take interest. But either committing to joining, or pulling out our interests from the continent are choices that need to be heavily considered, and at this stage the war in Africa is still too young to come to a formal conclusion.”

“You speak of the Comintern, would your decision on partaking in this conflict weigh in as to how the International reacts to Spanish aggression? Can you say as secretary of the International Politburo that there is a decision in the works?”

“There is possibly a call to discuss the ongoing conditions in Ethiopia, and some of my comrades have suggested inviting a delegation from Ethiopia to visit the Seven Nations Pond as guests and to given an account to the Politburo body for a decision.”

“You sit on the chair in the International,” a man from the back of the crowd called out, “do you expect to run both in tandem with each other?”

“Do you mean Grand Secretary and secretary of the international?” Auyi replied, smiling, “No, I do intend to retire the chair to a new candidate. Obviously as well as my seat as Minister of Agriculture and People's affairs.

“I think the Third International has been seen through well enough in its first year, and someone can fill in my vacancy. This'll be initiated on its own election when results from our own is finalized.”

“As for the crisis in Russia, what's the plan there?” a male reporter begged.

“As a neighboring state it is in both the good nature of ourselves and the Russian people to resolve conflict in the former Empire, and to restore the state under a single functional government to become whole again. Chinese involvement in Russia I intend to continue on the pretense of restoring a functional revolutionary government for the benefit of the people, and for the cleansing out of the criminal syndicate known as the Mafiya.

“As some of my running mates have suggested, it would be simply too dangerous to cease assistance to the Siberian people. I may not condone an expansion of the mission in Russia, but I do support the idea of continuing the fight in Russia, for Russians, and for our own honor. Every battle hard won is honor for us both, and one more goal achieved to redefining China as a world powerhouse again.”

?????

They were going South. Julio could see the sun's glare glowing through beneath the hatch separating the cockpit from the cargo bay, indicating that the plane was heading in a southerly direction. The bomber had been airborne for some time now; it had surely covered a great distance by now. Without any landmarks to see outside the windows - all painted over in thick gray paint - Julio could only guess the aircraft's heading and it's location. It had been maybe two hours? Three? Forty-five minutes? He had no concept of time anymore. That unknowable space of time he had spent in Arratzu's walls had ruined his mind's timekeeping ability.

He worried it had done more damage than that. The melange of drugs they injected directly into his brain, that horrible truth serum, very probably had a myriad of deleterious side effects that his interrogator had neglected to warn him of. And what of that antidote, the counter-drug they administered to keep Julio's mind from being destroyed too prematurely? What if that had been administered sloppily by his captors? Could it be possible that trace amounts of the truth serum remained in his very brain, left unchecked to slowly warp his mind until he was left an empty husk, a zombie? He had experienced frequent headaches, inexplicable twinges of stinging in his head, even random spasms of his digits and legs; all things he didn't remember experiencing before Arratzu. He wasn't sure if this was just hypochondria or if his fears of lingering truth serum were justified.

"You were in government." His neighbor, Joaquin, spoke up, giving Julio a friendly nudge to the elbow. "Got any ideas where this thing's going? There some sort of secret prison for political prisoners that I'm not aware of?" He asked in jest.

"South. Maybe West." Julio spoke up, galvanized out of his anxious thought. He nodded over to the yellow glow of sunlight shining into the fuselage from underneath the cockpit door. "We're flying into the sun. I imagine we're heading somewhere into the Mediterranean. Portugal, Italy, maybe Malta? Perhaps they've outsourced dedicated facilities for political prisoners to sympathetic countries?"

"Political prisoners?" Joaquin gasped in sarcastic, pretended surprise. "I thought we were all here because we had that virus!" Julio couldn't help but laugh; it was the first time he had laughed in as long as he could remember. Never before had Julio appreciated a sense of humor like Joaquin's, even under such bleak circumstances.

"I remember the voting for the authorization of funding the Ministry of Health's quarantine program. I see now that much of that went to financing the interrogation facilities we saw back at Arratzu. It makes you wonder what else we were bankrolling in the Senate under the guise of seemingly-innocuous legislation; just how many Arratzus we naively allowed to exist."

"Consider this, if it makes you feel any better. Look around, at all these people on this plane, get a sense of who they had to arrest and lock up back there. You have a few people like you, Senator. People wanting to rock the boat, that really threatened the way things were starting to work in Madrid. It was only natural that they'd come after you. But then you have the other, what, nintety-nine percent of people who are on this plane. People like me who didn't give a shit about the powers that be. People whose regular work and daily routines were such a threat to this delicate order that the powers that be have built up over the years."

"Our dear Prime Minister, Senor Sotelo, has made way too many enemies too quickly. Both at home and abroad, he's pissed off too many people and he's realized this. Arratzu is a way of disposing anything or anyone that can challenge him; but it's inefficient and sloppy as all Hell. Sooner than later, someone like you - someone who understands that things have to change and drastically at that - is going to catch wind of this. It's inevitable. Someone's going to figure out what Arratzu is, just what this quarantine is actually about, and there's going to be no amount of suppression that will keep the angry masses down. Arratzu is going to be death of that asshole Sotelo and I just wish we could live to see it."

"What did you actually do to get here?" Asked Julio. "What was it you did that was so threatening to the government?"

"I challenged the quarantine orders being procured by the Ministry of Health. You see, I was part of Madrid's Police Department before this whole situation. I discovered that the Ministry of Health was not only issuing quarantine orders, but actually taking these individuals suspected of being infected, all independent of any judge or input from the Ministry of Justice. Naturally, I came to the conclusion that these false arrests and had no legal merit. I spoke with the families and friends of those who were forcibly quarantined, and they couldn't understand why there would be any risk of them possessing that virus... it wasn't long before I was rounded up for quarantine myself."

Sooner than Joaquin was allowed to continue, the bomber banked sharply and without warning onto its side, jerking the prisoner's down to the Earth to the right side of the fuselage. Prisoners seated in the right half of the cargo bay slammed against the hull as the propellers groaned and protested against the sharp maneuver. Above the anxious whelps and cries of the other passengers, Julio heard an angry hissing from outside the plane building rapidly to crescendo, followed immediately by a jarring blast and the sound of an explosion to the left of the aircraft. The concussive force of the blast rattled the plane to the core, throttling each and every rivet holding the craft together and jostling Julio's insides. Warning beeps from instrumentation in the cockpit complained angrily from the damage the airplane had sustained. An angry, roiling blaze could be heard roaring just outside the left half of the airplane. The propellers choked and groaned against the fire consuming the left engine pods before they surrendered with a popping sputter. Julio's stomach lurched up as he felt the plane begin to lose altitude.

"They shot us down!" Joaquin exclaimed over the terrified shouts of the fellow prisoners. "They must have been trying to fly us to China!" This time, Julio didn't care much for Joaquin's sense of humor. White knuckled hands seized the arms of his seat as he felt the plane tumble lower and lower.

"Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! La Cabeza come in, we are going down!" He heard shouted from the cockpit.

Julio felt the plane lurch upward one last time, and then another jarring crash as the tail of the aircraft smashed into the ground. A raucous screech rang through the interior of the airplane as the tail dragged across the ground, bringing the plane's belly down with it. The two working propellers on the right wing rattled and screeched as they were halted and ground down upon contact with the Earth. Then the belly hit the Earth in earnest, and the screeching scream of scraping metal was replaced at once by a deep, thunderous, bellowing sound like water being forced out of the way of something moving at tremendous speed. A positively fatal sound - Julio was certain that it would be the last thing he would ever hear. He ducked down into his lap and braced against the sudden impact that would surely end his life.

That impact came with a sudden lurch upward, and threatened to tear Julio out of his seat, but it did not end his life. Instead, it tore the nose of the bomber off of its body, as if it were made from wet paper. Wires and tubing swung down into the fuselage as the cockpit was torn off and shunted under the wing of the plane, eliciting a fresh round of panic and screaming. Before the prisoner's eyes - at least those whose eyes weren't clamped shut in horror - the front of the plane tore open to the world beyond, flooding the dim fuselage with orange light. Many of the blacked-out windows shattered in the crash, flooding the interior with light and dust.

So much dust and sand had poured into the fuselage as the aircraft continued skidding across the land. Julio could feel the plane grinding down to an eventual halt. The plane was twisting around against the wings, but even so, Julio dared not open his eyes. With one final bounce and a slight roll to the port side of the plane, it had at last come to a stop. At last, he opened his eyes tentatively, scarcely able to believe he was still alive. As soon as his eyelids opened, they were filled with dust. The air was completely laden with gritty, yellow airborne dust. He rubbed his eyes to squeeze the errant particles out of his eyes. All around him, the survivors coughed and wheezed as the dust invaded their lungs.

"Look, Senator!" Julio felt a familiar jab against his shoulder. "We made it! We made it!" Julio opened his eyes once again, as instructed. Some of the dust had settled, and he could see through a hazy veil the world beyond the wreckage. Through the hole in the fuselage where the cockpit had once been, Julio saw a trackless sea of sand dune stretching far beyond to a hazy mountain range far in the distance.

"I don't know where the Hell we we are, but it's not Arratzu and it's not wherever it was they were trying to take us. All things considered, I'm pretty pleased."

Airspace over Port Said, Egypt

A deep, vibrating rumbling of the four propellers of a Gargola bomber whirling in tandem was all that could be heard in the cargo bay. By the faint light of the fuselage's overhead bulbs, five spectral beings, clad in close-fitting black jumpsuits, picked through a wide assortment of tools and weapons splayed out across the floor of the aircraft in silent diligence. Munitions cartridges, grenades, pliers, screwdrivers, waxy blocks of plastic explosive, detcord, knives of every shape and function, battle dressing, antiseptic, battery packs, and more; every item was thoroughly inspected and placed within a heavy duffelbag. A tool for every conceivable task that their mission might require, and there was a great deal that would be required of them. The Spanish endeavor in Africa could very well hinge on that their success or lack thereof.

It was therefore only natural that the Cazadores would be assigned such a pivotal function.

They were the finest soldiers in the Spanish Army; the most thoroughly-trained warfighters in all the world. Whenever the Spanish Ejercito required a powerful expenditure of force delivered by an exponentially-smaller task force, or when discretion or delicacy was needed, the Cazadores provided the muscle for the diciest, most daring military operations. The training required for each of these five men to take part in this mission was daunting to understate. Brutal tests of endurance, mental stamina, and willpower had to be overcome. A year-long training regimen in the Spanish Pyrenees decimated all but six percent of enlistees. For those that withstood the hazing, for another nine years they were the property of the Spanish military. In exchange for their service, upon the conclusion of their combat career, they were assured handsome pay for the rest of their days. Their immediate families would be compensated, and would never pay a single peseta in taxes for their entire lives. In return, the Cazadores needed only to survive.

Captain Oliviero Jaco had survived. For ten years, he had served in Spain's most esteemed special forces unit. He had seen combat in Puerto Rico, the Tyrrhenian Sea. He had fought socialists in Helsinki and abducted military personnel in the Canadian Yukon. Since 1970, he had been sent the world over to see the will of three Prime Ministers meted out. Jaco's tour of duty was coming to a close. Were the hostilities with Ethiopia a month and a half later in coming to a head, he would be free from ever holding a weapon again. But the War for Africa was underway now, and there was no man more qualified for overseeing this mission, the final mission of his military career.

"Let's wrap up, everyone." Captain Jaco ordered, standing up and wiggling the duffelbag slung over his chest into a comfortable position. He looked himself over, ensuring the plastic anti-ballistic padding strapped over his jumpsuit was snug. He had become so accustomed to this pre-mission ritual, it was strange knowing that it would be last of his career. His comrades finished their gear inspection and stood up to sling their bags over their chests as well.

"Pilots tell me we're closing on the drop point." Jaco began, looking about the Cazadores under his command, briefly checking them over to ensure all appeared ready. "It's a six kilometer drop into an active battle. We'll have the cover of night, and the Armada has leveled any anti-aircraft capacity of hostile forces. That's a good thing, because we've got a small target to land on: one ENS Aksum."

"How fucked are we if we happen to overshoot our landing?"

"Fairly fucked." Jaco stated plainly. "Good thing you won't miss."

"Understood."

"From there, we take the bridge and steam out of the canal and bail before the Armada reduces the ship to scrap metal. Any misunderstandings?"

"I hear you're something of a pirate, Captain. This is gonna be the second ship you've commandeered, no?" One of his companions chimed in.

"Right. I participated at the Battle of the Tyrrhenian Sea. We took the Netunno and landed a hit on a Loyalist destroyer."

"Sounds like this should be a cakewalk in comparison."

"Hopefully not. I think we'd be out of a job pretty fast if any of this were easy." Captain Jaco dismissed as he glanced back to the cockpit and saw the pilot give the signal to prepare to drop. "Pop the hatch!"

The Cazadores stepped back from the center of the plane as gears beneath their feet winched a retractable door in the belly of the bomber up into the interior. A howling wind invaded the aircraft through the opening in the hull, buffeting them as they stood ready to drop down to the surface. As the bomb bay opened before them, an aerial hellscape burned several miles below. Fires and muzzle flashes demarcated the extent of the land in the encroaching darkness. Islands of clouds glowing blue in the moonlight would occasionally pass between the plane and the ground beneath, making the task of seeking out their target on the surface that much more difficult.

"I can't see a fucking thing for these clouds." A Cazador huffed as a puffy blue mass passed squarely between the plane and the city.

"Parachutes ready." Jaco ordered, ignoring the complaint. "When we pass through the clouds, release the chute. We'll glide around to find the ship if we have to. Stick close. We're not going to miss the Aksum."

"With all due respect, Captain, I don't like the prospect of spending any more time in the air than we have to above an ongoing battle." Before the Captain could meet his response, the pilot turned in his seat and gave him a thumbs-up gesture. It was time.

"Safeties off!" Captain Jaco demanded. "Jump time!"

Without another word, the Cazadores flipped the safeties off their silencer-equipped carbines and stepped through the bomb bay into the swirling torrent of wind below. After the four others had gone before him, Captain Jaco pencil-dived through the bottom of the airplane and into the night. The howling gust immediately swallowed him and became a fierce buffeting setting every loose flap of his jumpsuit to flutter violently. He took a last glance up at the bomber rising farther and farther above him, watching for a second as the closing bomb bay doors shut out the warm glow of the aircraft's interior. With its strobes shut off, it banked hard and veered back westward toward Malta. They were on their own now.

The Captain redirected his attention back to his comrades, who he could see as faint, black silhouettes racing down into the moonlit cloud rising up to meet them. He locked his legs upright and held his arms against the firearm fighting against its strap to tumble in the wind, continuing his pencil dive and rocketing Earthward to form up with the rest of his squad. No sooner than he had formed up with his comrades, they pierced the upper surface of the cloud and tumbled through a hazy milkbottle for a few seconds. Droplets of moisture collected on his jumpsuit as he sank through the cloud, only to all wick off in the wind as they fell through the cloud's underside. As instructed, the others tore out the cord on their chute packs, instantly unfurling an elliptical gliding parachute. Jaco did the same and felt the familiar, reassuring tug on his back as his own chute deployed. He tugged on a pair of cables that descended from the parachute he dangled from, allowing him to guide his descent and bank to and fro.

Looking down, Jaco saw that they didn't have much more descent to work with. Muzzle flashes flashed in and out of the night less than a thousand feet beneath his legs. He heard mortars whistle through the air and saw the resultant explosions manifest amongst the ruins. His comrade was right to be worried about this stage of the descent. A single stray bullet or mortar shell now would spell disaster for the operation, perhaps the war itself. They needed to get their boots on the Aksum before a lucky Ethiopian bullet found them.

Beneath the Captain's feet, a storm of muzzle flares scattered the night. Their flashes sparkled against the water of the canal, allowing him to orient himself. He banked over to the water's edge and rode the parachute's descend Southward down the canal's extent. There, straddling the canal like an iron colossus, was the Aksum. Spotlights from her fore castle scanned the broken cityscape around it for any sign of Spanish assault. He could see Ethiopians walking around on the deck, or standing guard down below on the edge of the canal. But in the forecastle, framed in the bridge's windows and illuminated by its lighting, were the ship's officers.

With one final tug down on the front of the cables, he guided his descent directly into the glass of the bridge's windows. He could see petrified shock on the face of the captain and his officers as the Cazador sailed out of the night toward them. He leveled his carbine and let loose a volley of bullets from his carbine into the bridge. With a dozen thwips form the silencer-tipped barrel, the bridge's windows fragmented into a series of spiderwebs which shattered effortlessly against his weight as he crashed through the window and tumbled into the bridge amidst a pile of glass shards and Ethiopian officers. The Aksum's captain, reeling from a bullet buried into his arm, reached with his good hand for a pistol holstered on his side. Before he could dispatch the Cazador, a black, gloved hand seized the African by the neck, his spent firearm dangling at his side. He pressed the Captain against the wall and pressed down against his throat with all his might. The Ethiopian fought viciously against his assailant until his windpipe collapsed under the Cazador's vicelike grip. Unceremoniously he allowed the Aksum's captain to tumble to the floor, his face now a dark shade of purple. The bridge was his to command now.

As he made his way to the myriad of consoles at the vessel's helm, he witnessed his comrades come down onto the deck of the Aksum amidst a volley of silent bullets. A hail of lead that was announced by no report, but fell upon the Ethiopian soldiers and clanged and sparked against the steel of the ship all the same. Under their withering fire, the remaining Cazadores touched down on the prow of the vessel. At once, they disconnected themselves from their chutes and took firing positions. Still unsure of what was going on, or even unaware that they were under attack, the Ethiopian soldiers on the bank of the canal came under a hail bullets coming down from the sides of their own warship. It was not long before unsilenced reports responded to the almost-inaudible thwip of the Cazadores' rounds. Even so, many Africans had fallen in the confusion. The first strike had been played out to its full extent, the Ethiopians would now fight fiercely to keep the Aksum or, failing that, scuttle it in the canal. Under the cover of suppressive fire, an entire regiment of Ethiopian soldiers could be seen fighting their way to the ship's gangplank to that end.

On the console beneath him, the Cazador saw the engine's throttle, a sliding lever pivoting about a semicircular base. Seizing the handle, he pushed the throttle as far forward as it could go. Immediately, the engine beneath him rumbled to life as its pistons were infused with diesel lifeblood. The Aksum lurched forward as its propellers cut the water behind it into an angry froth. The gangplank slid out from under the Ethiopians as the ship steamed forward at full speed, spilling them all into the canal below. The anchor bit down into the silty bottom the waterway, but ultimately gave way under the force of the fully-throttled engine. The Aksum charged forward through to the mouth of the canal, into the open maw of the Spanish Armada. With the boarding party put paid, his companions on the deck fanned out toward the superstructure and filed inside.

As the Ethiopian flagship advanced through the canal, it was jarred by a sharp bang ringing against the prow of the vessel, the aft point of the ship shot upward as the vessel literally screeched to a grinding halt. The ship had run aground on the debris planted by the Ethiopians. The Cazador captain pulled back on the throttle and threw the lever into reverse, hoping that the vessel would free itself from whatever obstruction was on the bottom of the canal, even if the propellers were far less powerful in reverse.

//Captain.// He heard one of his men call out over the radio headset on his ears. //We've run into a problem down here in the hold.//

"I saw. We've run aground on some debris. It's probable the whole canal has been littered with obstructions. It's going to take some time to reverse off of it. In the meantime, we'll need to hold our position and keep hostile forces from attempting to sink this ship, which they will attempt to do now that they have lost control of it."

//No, it's not that. I'm afraid we have another problem.//

"And that is?..."

//That the ship is rigged to blow.//

Vancouver

“We will rebuild this country and set it on a path that will show the world that we are ready to become something more than an also-ran, and the next century to come shall be called the American Century.”

Arthur watched the man on the television screen speak to the crowd gathered thousands of miles away. This man, who was now the president of the country he now belonged to, a man he had never voted for would now lead the nation he had never agreed to join. Arthur was just one of a half dozen gathered outside the department store, watching the inaugural address on a bank of black and white televisions. The people running the store had piped the audio out to the street so those without television could watch the historic event.

The applause in Washington started to die down and Norman, the man who invaded Arthur’s country and taken his government away by force, smiled before turning stern.

“For the first time in nearly a hundred years, a vast expanse of territory has been gained by the United States. These tracts of land in the northwest, this former North West Coalition, were the site of much suffering in the war. The horrors of war and genocide still hang heavily over the territory and the state of Washington. The people behind the attack in Seattle have been punished for their crimes, those that would attack our country in the most cowardly ways have been put on notice that the events of Seattle must be forgiven, but they must never be forgotten. One of the first acts of this new administration will deal with the former NWC, and I urge Congress to begin deliberation on a resolution that will see the Cascade Territory granted proper statehood. It is my goal to welcome her into the Union before the end of my term in office.“

While the crowd in DC let out continued applause, the reaction in front of the Vancouver department store was much different. A few of the people booed, one man spat on the glass window separating the crowd from the televisions. The general went on with more lofty plans for the country but Arthur was no longer listening. He shoved his hands into his pockets and shuffled down the street with the rest of the people going about their day. A semi-truck with a canvas top slowly rolled down the artillery scarred street, careful to avoid the holes in the road. Arthur caught a glimpse of the dozen or so US troops sitting in the back of the truck with their rifles before the vehicle disappeared around a corner. That was just one of the many reminders that the NWC, Arthur refused to call it Cascade, was under military occupation.

There were the pockmarked roads, the buildings damaged by the intense fighting that took place, and of course the queues. There were queues at the stores, queues that ended up with people getting their box of weekly rations before they trudged on home. The NWC had been one of the strongest economic powers in the Americas and now their wealth had been absorbed by the US upon annexation and distributed to the federal government, the NWC’s budget surplus used to prop up the country’s many impoverished states. Arthur’s nation hadn’t lasted long, but it had existed and it was a strong one. Now that country was a thing of the past and it was destined to go down in history as a footnote like the failed Southern secession attempts and the New England Republic.

Washington DC

All eyes were on President Norman and the First Lady as they had the first dance of the Inaugural Ball. The president wore a tuxedo while his wife of over thirty years wore a cream colored strapless ballgown that was subtle and effective without being too over the top. They glided around the dance floor hand in hand, dancing slowly and lost in the moment. Others began to file out on the dance floor to join the First Couple in the night’s festivities. Russell was not one of those people, and neither was Senator William Robert Dixon. The two old bulls sat together near the back of the ballroom, talking amongst themselves over drinks. Russell held a hand up and waved at his wife as she danced with their son-in-law.

“So, Russ,” Dixon said in his Okie drawl. “I heard an interesting rumor while you were on the campaign trail this summer. It concerned you and those sumbitches that think they run things down in Texas.”

“Well I don’t know what you heard, but all I did was teach them a lesson on where real power lies.”

“Power is where power goes?” Dixon asked with an arched eyebrow. He chuckled when Russell nodded. “And where is power going now, Russ? What kind of power can you possibly hope to mine out of the most powerless job in DC?”

“Look around you, Bill. All eyes are where? Front and center on the president just where I want them. He gets to be the face, I get to be the one who operates in the shadows to get the job done.”

“Power behind the throne,” Dixon’s amused smirk stayed on his face. “Or more like presidential hatchet man? Regardless, that job lasts as long as you stay in Norman’s good graces.”

Russell laughed and took a sip of water. Devil’s advocate was Bill Dixon’s specialty. The two men had operated on opposite sides of the Senate aisle for ten years; Russell was majority leader at the time that the Democrats had a two vote majority in the Senate and Dixon held a large bloc of conservative voters in his pocket. They had worked together and clashed over dozens of issues in the past, but they were both pragmatic when they needed to be.

“Speaking of promotions, I’m surprised you didn’t get the Leader post.”

General Norman’s national appeal had led to a democratic landslide in the presidential race, but the Senate seats up for reelection went in the Republican’s favor and they now had a three seat majority in the Senate. The fact that he would have lost the Leadership was further proof to Russell that he had made the right decision to take the Vice-Presidency.

“It’s just a title. I still have my caucus, more now that we picked up a few seats up in the Northeast. Power is where power goes? Well, I’m staying right where I am and so is my power. I’ll let Kelly play at trying to run the Senate, but I’m gonna make damn sure my people vote the way we need to.”

The question left unsaid between them was how long would Dixon stay where he was. It was only 1980, but 1988wasn’t that far away. Russell knew he was too cautious to run against an incumbent like Norman, especially if Norman was successful in his first term. Running against Norman’s Vice President however could be far easier.

"Within the next few days, the president is going to want to meet with the leaders of Congress about the agenda he wants to set for the upcoming congressional session. Cascade statehood, among other things, will be brought up. Annexation was your baby, Bill, what do you think about statehood?”

“Too soon,” Dixon grunted. “We still got armed forces there occupying the old NWC states. We gotta wait a generation or two before we try to think about statehood, let the wounds heal up some. They’re already pissed at us for annexing them.”

“I bet. Also doesn’t help feelings that NWC United was dissolved by the US and Dixon Oil swooped in to take its place.”

“Yes,” Dixon said impassively. “But at least Dixon Oil is working hard to jumpstart the economy there with jobs and new projects.”

“Indeed,” Russell nodded, “Corporate altruism at its finest.”

Russell stood and held out his hand for Dixon. The two men shook hands quickly and looked each other in the eye.

“Congratulations once again, Mr. Vice President, and best of luck making something relevant out of your office. You’re gonna need it.”

Simon Fraser University
Vancouver

“Blame Canada.”

A murmur of approval went through the small room. The man behind the lectern was bald with a three day stubble and thick glasses with black plastic frames. The glasses made is blue eyes appear three times larger than they actually were. He tapped the surface of the lectern as he spoke.

“It was their aggressive nature that forced the US’s hand. Blame the NWC, it was our own government’s greed that led to entering the war in the name of grabbing more territory. Blame the upper class; it was their desire to take over the country that led to the genocide in Seattle. One can only sympathize with the US as they invaded us and annexed us as revenge… but that was a different country that annexed us. Where has the Socialism in the United Socialists States gone? Today’s inauguration was proof that the country that now controls our fate is leaving its Socialistic ties behind.”

The professor continued to rail on the values of socialism and why it had worked for the US. Arthur kept his right hand on his chin to keep his head from nodding. He had started out on a good path, but it had gone another way. Arthur cared very little for socialism; the NWC’s government hadn’t been Socialists, they had a government similar to the old US government back before the wars. The professor’s political tract winded on to the point to where Arthur had to leave. He left the lecture hall with his notebook in hand.

“Couldn’t stand it either?” a voice asked from behind.

He turned and saw a man roughly his age wearing a faded olive field jacket and smoking a cigarette. He had a rough beard and a long, curly black hair. He gave Arthur a grin and blew smoke from his mouth while he talked.

“All that socialist bullshit is for the birds.”

“Yeah, I thought he was onto something… but…”

“Say, what do you think about all this shit, the American occupation, annexation?”

“Shit is the right word,” Arthur said with a shrug. “Rans fucked up royally getting involved in the war, and the thing in Seattle was bad… but annexation? For what exactly did we lose our country for? For oil and all that other economic bullshit, that’s what.”

The man nodded and flicked his cigarette against the wall of the hall. He motioned for Arthur to follow him and they walked down the corridor talking.

“I’m Alex, by the way. I’m a third year Pol-Sci major.”

“Arthur. I’m second year engineering.”

“Engineering?” Alex asked with a cocked eyebrow. “Like mechanical?”

“Electronic.”

“Really? That’s cool.”

Alex stopped once they were outside. He bundled his jacket against himself and looked at Arthur.

“I gotta get going. You know, Arthur, I’m part of a group that meets once a week, we talk politics and shoot the shit and all that stuff. You seem like you’ve got some interesting ideas, would you like to come to the next meeting?”

“Yeah,” Arthur said, trying his best not to seem too excited. He hadn’t really made friends since he started at school, preferring to keep to himself even when he was part of groups. Almost everyone didn’t have his interests, and to be part of a group that seemed to care about the things he cared about was something he had been trying to find for a long time.

“Cool. Meet me outside here the day after tomorrow about seven and I’ll take you to where we meet.”

“I’ll be there with bells on.”

Ta'if, Ethiopian Hejaz

The organic structure of the brain is best described using the likewise organic nature of society itself.
Specialized, yet tentative, the neural cell is an amazing achievement of biology in its own right, but
its accomplishments mean nothing if not deposited within the context of the cerebral structure as a whole.
Likewise is man, an amazing feat, but without purpose or form outside of his society. This is to say, the
society of life as a whole, not just those habitats of our own making that we call "Artificial" because we
falsely believe ourselves to exist outside of nature. All of our decisions, our thoughts and attitudes, and
those practices or assumptions we hold sacred to ourselves, are effects of the outer world. As a neuron
flashes only when the chemical bed in which it sits compels it to do so, we too only act in in response to
outside forces who compel us in the direction that we call "self interest." Truly, the only doubtless sign of
self awareness is when a being acts consciously against its own interests. This is something
which no single cell can do.

Dr. Sisi looked up from his notebook and rubbed his eyes. Writing in the darkness of the artificial cavern made them sore. He sat on a rocky ledge, on a canvas chair with a small wooden folding table for a desk. The rest of the cave stretched in front of him. The darkness obscured its size, with the only light pouring from the speckle of lanterns that covered the cave floor like starlight. He knew the dimensions in his head - roughly seven kilometers wide and long, in the rounded shape of a loaf of bread. Its purpose was a complete mystery. Sisi suspected it was little more than whimsy on the part of Ras Hassan for ordering it. A way to occupy their prisoners. The enigma of the thing amused Sisi. Every since their peculiar alliance began in the jungles of the Congo six years earlier, Hassan's mind had been a source of fascination for him. The Ras was moving pieces while giving the appearance of political disinterest. Even with his suspicions, Sisi couldn't be sure what sort of project this growing underground necropolis was.

He turned back to his writing.

It may be the proscription of future science to discover what methodology is necessary to fuse severed
nerve tissue so that they may resume carrying signals. It is a discovery with frightening potential. One could
see the future scientist promising near-immortality to minds of merit, so long as a replacement body can
be found. Of course, such a thing may require the sacrifice of another life, but arguments could be made
for the debraining of the mentally ill, the criminally violent, or the uselessly dependent, so that a worthy
mind may gain more years in a new body. This is conjecture, naturally. One has to account for the issue
of organically occurring dementia, which would render a mind doomed regardless of body. Having yet to find a
method for such and experiment to occur, we also have to consider the possibility that some form of traumatic
mental anguish could plague the cerebrum of a person who survives such an extraction. Double would be the
concern in such a case where the new body is of another sex.

That was a thought. How strange it would be, to fall asleep a man and wake up a women. How would the mind cope?

In the corner of his eye, he saw the elevator begin its descent. At several hundred feet above the cavern floor, it moved like a blinking planet, descending slowly against absolute darkness. Sisi frowned. Another agent of his Ethiopian employers, come to organize the frantic shut-down of this place now that it was clear Spain would take the Red Sea. They were moving prisoners and equipment out, but it was not possible for them to complete the task. He was curious about what they planned to do, and annoyed that the war was cutting into his work. He would have to return to his old base of operations in the Congo

He took a deep breath, and brushed the dust off of his six-thousand franc, blue-black suit. Sometimes, he wondered if it was worth it to wear his best clothes in this hellish environment. The heat of the cave caused him to sweat, and rock-dust was unavoidable in an environment where hundreds of prisoners chipped away at the stone that surrounded them. His experiments, and his poking and prodding inside of their skulls, has caused many to lose some motor control. They created more of a mess than could be managed. It was a nuisance, but one he had to accept. To dress out of rank, however, would be intolerable.

His leg spasmed. Old bones. He stood up and stretched, feeling a surge of energy tingle through his muscles. For a brief moment, he went light headed. Had he been sitting down that long? It was easy to forget time when he was preoccupied with his thoughts. He was certain that what he was discovering here would make a name for him, more so than his drug trials ever did. There were things that got in the way. Things that had thrown a wall between him and his goals. Aside from the Spanish, the mysterious electrical language of the brain still alluded him. And there was no way he could find to recreate broken nervous tissue.

It was a problem that would have to wait for another time. Perhaps, it saddened him to consider, it was a problem for another generation entirely.

He grabbed his cane, propped up against the makeshift desk, and grasped its golden tip firmly in his hands. He could feel its cold polish through his sheer white gloves, and its familiarity comforted him.

Below his ledge, he could see the world Hassan had lent him. Hundreds of bodies toiling in the dark, guided by lantern-light and dozens of overseers armed with shotguns and pistols. Where Hassan had found these watching devils for his hell Sisi could not tell. Some seemed to be Arab, but most were African. He must of payed them well. Sisi was certain that the Emperor had no concept of this place or its existence. How peculiar, for Hassan to be hiding so much from his sovereign.

Sisi heard the subtle roar of the open-top staff car that delivered people from the elevator. He didn't look. Better their officer find him aloof and disinterested, so that they understood early how this conversation was going to play out.

"Dr. Sisi" he heard a familar voice. Here, now? He turned around and found that he was right.

Ras Hassan was a thick figure - one could say fat, if they were being honest. He was a colossal figure in African politics, and his reputation was made all that more imposing by the way he carried himself. Confident. Absolutely sure of his own righteousness. His nut-brown complexion and pointed Arab features made him stand out amongst the other Africans, like a figure pulled from some other place to lead them.

"Ras Hassan." Sisi smiled coyly. He gave the ground two quick taps with his cane before tossing into his left hand. "I am to understand this is my final eviction notice?"

Hassan smiled. He was a cold man who knew how to seem warm. "We have to evacuate Hejaz entirely. The Arabs have already retaken Medina. They know we can't defend this place. I am certain that Hejaz will be independent within a month."

"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's" Sisi mouthed. He looked over the hellscape, the vague orange glow of to few lanterns coloring their perch. "I learned more here than I ever could in the Congo."

"We are moving some of these prisoners." Hassan assured. "The good ones. Your assistants are helping my own. We can't take them all, but we can save enough for your work to continue."

"What are you doing with the rest, may I ask?" Sisi inquired.

Hassan took a deep breath and looked out across the cavern of his making. He looked regretful. To Sisi, that seemed a surprise. "We talked about blowing the roof. That would create more questions, lead our enemies to investigate what they shouldn't be investigating. No. This place is too remote. We are going to seal the top hatch with rock. It will be years before somebody chances to discover it."

"Mmmm." Sisi hummed. He understood the subtext. "Seal it, with the remaining prisoners inside."

"Yes." Hassan answered bluntly. "We can't do anything else with them. Our options limit our mercy."

There was a brief moment of silence, where they both stared out across the darkness. It could be mesmerizing - certainly a sight that few people could ever claim to have seen. It could have been new wonder of the world, if the unrestrained flow of world politics hadn't chose to touch them in the way that it had. He wondered if Hassan would ever attempt the same thing again? Surely that would be impossible. Whatever his project had been, it ended here. Sisi had been one of the few men fortuitous enough to see it in comfort before it's abandonment.

"I will withdraw tomorrow." Sisi assured.

"I know." Hassan agreed. "I came here to make sure of entire national departure from this land."

Sisi nodded.

"And to thank you." Hassan smiled again. "For what services you have given our country. I have your assurances that your other experiments have worked?"

Sisi smiled. It was strange, to think of what they had done. Treason. There was no doubts there. Sisi wondered if he had somehow been tricked into being Hassan's own loyal henchman.

"You will not have to worry about it." he said. "What you have purchased through your patronage has been payed back already."

Hassan clapped Sisi on the shoulder. "You and I are friends." he said. "I have to go and begin the evacuation. We will have your old lab prepared for you." They shook hands, equal to equal, and Sisi watched as Hassan climbed back into his car. What would happen to that man? Sisi was uncertain about this conflict. War was good for business in many ways, but he had enjoyed a steady patronage under the Ethiopian government. Would the Spaniards give him the same opportunities? Doubtful. He would be able to count himself lucky if they allowed him to serve them food in a cafeteria. His position was made worse by his service to those that the Spanish so inappropriately called 'Socialist'. He would have to allow Hassan and his Ethiopia to hold a monopoly on his current work, as flimsy as that chance was. Of course, he had already done things that would soon earn him the internal gratitude of the Ras.

Sisi turned back to his desk and started writing.

The mind is surprisingly malleable. The right combination of conditioning, suggestion, and chemical preparation, can
train even an intelligent man to commit acts that would typically be against their will. Conditioning is the more
powerful component in this preparation. We know and completely accept the ways in which we condition animals,
or small children so that they will follow rules of etiquette they do not necessarily understand. We don't see the
same forces in adulthood as being a form of conditioning, as pride, and even arrogance, causes us to assume our
own supreme intelligence. We are animals, in most senses, acting entirely within our own decided drives, for reasons
we gauge as self-interest. But what is self-interest? If man were driven by a well-informed self-interest, would not all
but the especially privileged be rabid socialists? Surely, it is all too easy to sell a man his own poison if the salesman
is clever and understands the tactics in which one man can control another. Kings and priests have known this since
prehistory. What they did not have, however, is something we have. Chemical drugs, which can bury conditioning in
the subconscious, so that the planted compulsions and lies remain hidden until they are necessary. And when the time
comes, they can be unmasked without prior warning. This will be the way of spies and assassins in the coming centuries

Port Said, Suez Canal

Her vision returned quicker than her hearing. Her ears rang persistently as she stood up and gained her bearings. Fire burned bright hot all around her, exploding in seemingly random blasts. She saw bodies all around her, running and fighting and choking and dying. Instinctively, she pulled out her service weapon - a Changu .52, the sort sold to the Walinzi by the Chinese government. She had been more comfortable with her old German Walther, but the government had insisted.

With her ears still whining, she leveled her gun on a white man. He was covered in soot - face, clothes, and weapon - and he was locked in hateful melee with an African soldier wearing a turban. One shot turned the white man's shoulder into a bloody mangle. He fell down, his scream sending a piercing pain through Leyla's damaged ears, until the turbaned African leaned down, stole the mans knife, and slit his throat with it. As her hearing stabilized, the first thing she completely perceived were the Spaniard's bloody dying gurgles.

Smack

At first she thought she had been punched in the side. She doubled over, her innards inflamed, and picked up the shattered cement rock that had been sent jabbing into her by the Spanish Navy's pounding barrage into the nearby Ethiopian defenses. Their counter attack had came quicker than she suspected.

She saw a man - an ash-smudged Spaniard - pull his weapon. She reacted quickly, but he shot first, and she felt the bullet whiz past her neck. Her shot did not miss. She hit him in the pelvis, and watched as his blackened uniform began to soak red. That was one man, and the war was on top of her. She started to stand up, but her side rebelled. It felt like her liver had been twisted and drained by hand, leaving a burning pit near her belly. On the ground, she could only see the war as a helpless victim of it.

Spasms of gunfire ripped through the air in all directions, so much that she could hardly tell where any sound was coming from anymore. There were screams and cries, and shouts of violent anger, hidden behind the swallowing sound of constant Spanish naval barrage. It looked like the Ethiopians were losing. She realized that, even if she didn't die, she would most likely be taken prisoner. When they discovered her sex... capture was as horrifying as death.

A eruption of energy came from her left. Two Walinzi agents emptied their revolvers as they advanced into the fight, followed by a small number of Ethiopian soldiers. A counterattack for the counterattack. She wanted to harness that energy for her own, to use the surge of adrenaline to bring herself back up, but it did not help. Instead, she attempted to add her own scream to the cacophony, and it reminded her of how much pain she was in.

A shell hit amongst the ruined buildings, and she heard its crumbling collapse. She held tightly to her weapon, watching the battle with a desperation kept in check by her struggle to focus on the fast-pace of what was happening. She glanced at the Aksum, catching the flicker of a distant firefight. The battle had poured onto the ship. What were they going to do?

She realized that Elias had disappeared. She felt a her chest slump. If her partner had died, that would hurt worse than any wound she had suffered in battle. They had served next to each other since Armenia. He was the closest friend she had.

"I am going to help you." she heard. She felt herself hoisted into the air and put on her feet. Her side stung horribly, but she maintained her balance. She swung around and found her savior to be a giant.

Surrey
Cascadia Territory

Inspector Mark Echols stood with his coat up against the light drizzle, a smoldering butt of a cigarette in his mouth. The first traces of dawn were beginning to show on the far horizon. Very soon the sun would be rising and they could get rid of the harsh halogen lights that made the lot look washed out. There were six lights in all that were erected in a circle around the primary crime scene. Police scientists working under Echols combed the small radius for any sign of clues. He stood a dozen yards away, watching as a flashbulb popped from inside the circle. Echols figured it would take a few minutes for the strong scent of the bulb’s zirconium to waft to his location.

Echols squinted through the dim light and read his wristwatch. It was just after one in the morning when he’d gotten the call from the local precinct out here, a couple parked in a back alley lot to find a spot to neck and instead found a dead body. Echols was just one hour into his shift as watch commander for the CTPF’s homicide division when he left for the scene. The duties of watch commander entailed being the first of two detectives on duty during the graveyard shift of midnight to eight. One of the techs waved him over. Echols stubbed his cigarette butt on the heel of his shoe and shoved it into his coat pocket before limping over.

The limp was his keepsake from the war. Echols was an MP during the war with the US, he worked behind the front lines and interrogated the few POWs the NWC army managed to snag. Then came the NWC’s own civil war that tore the army apart. Echols’ own MP unit was ripped apart and he saw some rough fighting not far from here. He came out the war one kneecap shy of a pair, but the snazzy cane helped compensate for that.

“What have we got?” he asked the tech.

“Nothing at all,” the overweight man said with a shrug. “No fibers, no bruising or lacerations around his hands or wrists. No scars or tattoos and obviously no identification on him.”

Echols looked down at the dead body. It was the naked corpse of a man who appeared to be in his mid to late 30’s. He was on the fat side and had dark hair with a dark, scraggly beard. He had a neat little bullet hole in the back of his head.

“What about his dick?” Echols asked, referring to the erection the dead man sported hours after his death.

“He had a hard-on when he died, that’s for sure. I don’t know if it was part of the fight or flight response or if he was aroused when he was shot. The human body, man, it’s a mysterious thing. Medical examiner will be able to give you a better answer if he does an autopsy, though.”

Echols nodded and crouched down to look. Even with the dim lighting and hair covering the wound Mark could make out the stippling around the hole, a dead giveaway that the shooter had been in close. Execution style, Echols thought to himself. He stood up and turned to look across the river at the skyline of Vancouver. It was close enough to dump a body, just 26 kil-… miles, sixteen some odd miles away. He had to start thinking of distances in miles and feet now. This was the third murder of the year for the whole territory. Cascadia had settled down once the militant rebels had been swept from the board, but this murder was a reminder to Echols that something dark and violent seemed to lurk beneath the surface of this place.

“Okay,” he finally said to the tech and his team. “Run his prints by R&I and see if they get a match. I’ll run through the recent missing persons reports and see if our guy comes up. If you find anything else interesting, give me a call.”

The tech gave Echols a half-hearted nod as the inspector started to hobble across the lot towards his unmarked car. He drove back into Vancouver with the radio scanner off, lost in his thoughts. He thought about the new case he had on his hands, crossed referenced it in his mind with any old murders he’d worked in the past and couldn’t find anything close to this.

Dawn was steady approaching by the time he got back to CTPF headquarters. It was a six-story building downtown with the CTPF’s logo above the entrance. The Cascadia Territory Police Force acted as successor to the NWC’s own federal police. It was still a relatively new agency that had the task of enforcing the territory’s laws as well as any US laws that the Feds didn’t investigate. In effect they were state police. Echols had been a detective in Vancouver PD before the war, but the VPD was reluctant to bring him back after his injury. The CTPF had no qualms and brought him in to work murders. A lot of his old friends at VPD no longer spoke to him because he took the job. In their eyes he was a traitor for allying with the same people they went to war with. Echols didn’t give a damn about flags and territory. All he wanted to do was catch bad guys.

“How was the night watch?” Echols asked Braun as he shuffled through the door.

“I got to catch up on my reading,” Sergeant Sam Braun said with a chuckle. He looked up at Echols over his reading glasses, a paperback in his lap. “Have fun with the stiff in Surrey? Hey, that sounds like a great title for a detective novel. The Stiff in Surrey: An Inspector Echols Mystery.”

Echols rolled his eyes and made the jerk-off motion. To say the homicide division’s offices were cramped would be an understatement. Six detectives shared the small office space on the fifth floor, three desks between each of them. The shifts worked so that at any given time there would only be two detectives on duty, but a redball situation might require more people and that would make things very claustrophobic very quickly. Echols sat down at his desk and put a fresh sheet of paper into the typerwriter. He started to clack out his preliminary report in a slow and deliberate manner, searching and pecking on the keys one by one. Halfway through he leaned back and looked over at Braun who was back reading his book.

“Speaking of stiff, Sam, you ever encountered a dead body with a stiffy?”

“Once,” said Braun, “but that was a sex strangling thing. You know, a guy gets off on choking himself fucks up and ends up killing himself. That kind of thing, but never a murder where the vic was at attention.”

Echols picked up a pencil on the desk and chewed it pensively while he thought. He gave up after a minute and tossed the pencil down before he started back on the report. He could mull over the circumstances of the murder when he was done with his report. Echols attached a supplemental request to Ava, the homicide unit’s secretary, for her to forward a request for more information and the physical description of the victim to the CTPF’s missing persons unit, as well as every detective bureau in the territory and to the state agencies in Washington and Idaho in the south.

“Early relief,” James Rolston of the day shift announced as he sauntered through the door. “Rise and shine, assholes. Look alive, sadsacks. Time to head home.”

Echols grunted and handed Rolston the two reports he had just finished typing.

“Here you go. Read those and put the reports in Ava’s inbox. Anything about the case comes in, you know where to reach me.”

Rolston gave Echols a little salute and walked past him as Echols grabbed his cane and made his way out of the office. He’d probably go home, sleep, and then be back to the office before five that evening to work follow ups. The case was shaping up to be a loser, a stone whodunnit with very little chance of getting solved. All the other detectives in the unit would softball it and wait for a juicer one to fall into their lap, but Echols couldn’t let it go. He wanted to catch bad guys, and now he had a chance.

Washington, D.C.

Clay Fulke walked through the corridors of the West Wing with his escort leading the way. Today marked the new president’s first meeting with congressional leaders, his first such meeting since becoming Speaker. Clay toiled for sixteen years in the House, acting first as Whip when Vice President Reed was Speaker and then as Majority Leader before Reed’s successor retired after thirty years in the House.

President Norman’s congressional goals were still something of a mystery in DC. His campaign and inaugural speeches had all been filled with vague promises to make the country better, to change the tide of the 20th century and turn the next hundred years into a century of American prosperity. Easier said than done, Clay thought. The only thing that he had heard Norman wanted to do this session was make headway on civil rights in the South and get some kind of timetable on statehood for the Cascadia Territory. Both would be tough challenges with a solid majority of southern power in both the House and Senate, but if Norman could pull it off it may end up being a good sign that he wasn’t just talk.

The young White House staffer led Clay to the conference room just off from the Oval Office. The majority leader, Harris Hayden, was already there along with Senate minority leader Clark Peters. Clay and the majority and minority leaders made up the top three Democrats in the House and Senate. They took their places around the table and waited for the president and vice-president.

“Gentlemen,” Russell Reed said with a large smile as he came through the door. He glad-handed the men and welcomed them in. They were just sitting down when President Norman entered, not through the same door as the others, but through the door that led straight to the Oval Office. He held a hand out to stop everyone from standing back up.

“No need for that,” he said as he sat. “Thank you all for meeting with me. I just wanted to have this meeting as a preliminary discussions before I meet with the Republican congressional leaders, map our strategy out before we test the waters. Like any good military man, I want to scout the battlefield in advance.”

A slight chuckle went out. Clay saw the slight look the president and vice-president shared before Reed leaned forward to speak.

“One suggestion the administration has been kicking around is in the area of national defense. That was one of the president’s campaign cornerstones, and the Republicans are always for that so we could start out with a softball piece of legislation before we get into the tougher stuff.”

“What did you have in mind?” Clay asked with a raised eyebrow.

“New England Weapon Industries has been struggling to keep its head above water for years, and since the New England Republic was absolved back into the US it’s on the verge of bankruptcy.”

“We want to nationalize it,” the president said, picking up the train of thought from Reed. “Kickstart it with federal government investment, use incentives to attract quality weapons designers to work there. I’m tired of relying on other nation's weapons to protect our troops, I have been for a long time. I think it’s a first step in the right direction if we can turn NEWI into the US armed force’s personal armory. Thoughts?”

“I like it,” Hayden replied. “National defense is something everyone wants to vote for, all the voters are for it.”

“Shouldn’t have a problem going through the House,” said Clay. “We can get it through in record time. The Senate is where I’d be concerned. The Republicans have been fighting back hard on anything that still smells like socialism, and nationalizing a company falls within that purview.”

“This theoretical bill would provide just compensation for NEWI’s owners and shareholders,” said the vice-president. “I think that little caveat would appease the Republican’s ideological need to be difficult. What do you think, Clark?”

“It’d be close,” Peters said after a moment’s pause. “Very close.”

“Off the top of my head,” Reed said quickly. “I could see the bill passing the Senate… 75-21, that’s give or take a vote or two. The new senators haven’t had time to create a voting record.”

“Nobody can count votes like the vice-president,” the president said with a laugh. “But let’s just assume it’ll be close that way we can’t rest on our laurels on this one. This will be this administration's first big challenge and I want to see we come out of it on the right side of it.”

Suez Canal, Egypt

The Aksum shuddered and quivered again. A sharp, raucous screeching pierced the ears of the Cazadores as their stolen ship raced up the canal, another piece of debris had struck the commandeered Ethiopian flagship against her steel belly. In a short time, the Africans had managed to thoroughly trash the floor of the canal. It would not be fit for the Spanish Armada to traverse it for some time, but the task of clearing out the rubble would be possible now with the Aksum steaming for dear life out into the Mediterranean.

With the assumption that the Aksum survived the race out of the canal, that is.

The Ethiopians, at this time, knew that they had lost the canal. Even from the vessel's bridge, the Cazadores could see the muzzle flashes of the Ejercito in the darkness to the North; a sweeping curtain of lightning falling over the collapsing African line. Ethiopia was in full retreat, but even if they could not deny Spain the canal, they were intent on denying them the Aksum. Any mortars that continued to fire were being focused on their own flagship.

Minarets of pulverized water shot skyward all around the canal, as if the ship were caught in a storm tremendous raindrops. Others fell upon the ground on either side, erupting in mushrooms of fire and peppering the vessel's hull in shrapnel. Others still found their mark on the ship itself, leaving smoldering craters in the metal sheeting where the shells hit. The Africans were putting all their effort into this one last endeavor to render the canal utterly impassible, they knew full well that a lucky shot could detonate the explosives in the Aksum's hull and buy Ethiopia weeks of precious time.

The Cazadores stood within the bridge and watched as the hellscape of battle rolled past them. Explosions and muzzle flashes sparked everywhere on their flanks, and there they stood watching idly as the start of the war raged all around them. For such men of action, to do nothing while the battle was being won without them was deeply unsatisfying. Their mission, though, was tantamount. They would see this ship out of the canal even if it did feel like retreating.

It was a retreat under fire. An Ethiopian mortar team with a clear shot at the passing Aksum had simply leveled its barrel and launched a mortar directly at the ship. The Africans were rewarded with a direct hit on the superstructure of the Ethiopian warship right underneath her smokestack. The diffuse diesel exhaust wafting from the stack was suddenly blown away by a roaring fire and thick black smoke that belched forth deep within the wounded vessel. Beneath the feet of the Cazadores, the engine could be felt seizing and jerking beneath their feet. The mouth of the canal was now only a little over a kilometer away and closing, but it seemed now that the Aksum might not even make it that far.

"There's no reason for any of you to remain onboard." Captain Oliviero Jaco said to his subordinates, staring intently out the broken pane of glass from whence he had boarded the ship. "I'll guide the ship out of the canal from here, I want you to bail and make ready for extraction."

"The mission parameters are straightforward, Captain. We'll stay here until this ship is clear of the Armada's right-of-way."

"Nor will we miss the end of the last mission of your career!" Another added, giving their commander a slap on the shoulder. Captain Jaco gave a warm grin to his steadfast compatriots before returning to his cool, steely gaze out into the canal ahead.

The mortar barrage had suddenly slowed, likely for the advancing Spanish infantry scattering what remained of the Ethiopian forces. Despite the waning fire, another two shells found their mark on the deck of the battered Aksum in succession, sending shrapnel tearing through the air that shattered the remaining bridge windows. The engine shuddered and rattled below, threatening to fail and die at any second. It just had to last another few seconds, and the vessel's momentum could carry it out of the harbor. The mouth was approaching fast; the ship was almost there.

Without warning, a thunderous blast jarred the right-side of the ship, sending the Cazadores tumbling to their feet. A vast pillar of water rose up over the starboard side of the Aksum and spilled over the deck and washed into the bridge. The ship had stuck an Ethiopian mine with devastating results; the engine had halted completely and the hull itself could be heard buckling and warping under the strain. To complicate the mission further, the roaring fire spewing from the smokestack was now spilling over to envelop the rest of the superstructure. Under this much stress, the explosives that lined the vessel's hold could detonate at any moment.

"Get off of this ship now." Captain Jaco commanded of his Cazadores. "This time that's an order."

"It's been a pleasure to serve beside you, Captain. Congratulations on a successful and complete tour of duty." One of the Cazadores said in farewell.

"It was a pleasure to work with you all as well. Now bail already."

With that, the four subordinates under Captain Jaco briskly made their way out of the bridge, making haste off of the [i[Aksum[/i] per the final order of their commander. The Cazador captain was alone now on the bridge, the flicker of the growing blaze swallowing the ship glimmered in the spiderweb of cracks in the bridge's windows. The roar of the blaze and the groaning of stressed metal was all that he could hear as the sounds of battle faded behind him. The ship had coasted out of the canal by this point; the sea walls and jetties flanking the bridge opened up into the open blackness of the Mediterranean Sea and the Spanish fleet biding their time on the inky horizon. Captain Jaco spun the wheel hard to the left, pulling the burning warship hard to the East out of the path of the Armada. The vessel need only coast another hundred meters further out of the way. The success of the mission was assured. And as the dying Aksum rolled out into the Mediterranean, listing onto its starboard side as the hull took on water, Captain Oliviero Jaco took the bridge's onboard radio mouthpiece into his hand and flipped the instrumentation on, hoping that the fire had not yet rendered the radio masts totally inoperable.

"Admiral Santin, come in. I repeat: Come in, Admiral Santin." Loud pops and hisses could be heard as the Aksum's fuel burned in her lines. The bridge was warming rapidly as the fires intensified. "This is the ENS Aksum."

//Admiral Santiago Santin speaking from La Ira de Dios. I read you with some difficulty. I see I was right to trust the Cazadores with this thing. I can see her burning from here; recommend that you bail at once.//

"I'm afraid it's too late for that, Admiral." Captain Jaco relayed, his eyes following the dripping of burning, molten plastic falling down past the bridge windows. "The Ethiopians loaded the hold full of explosive. Any second now, the fleet's going to be in for quite the firework display. I had the rest of my squad bail out already, but you know as well as I do that the captain goes down with the ship."

//I regret that it had to be this way.// Santin's voice crackled in solemnly.

"I knew what I was signing up for." The bridge was beginning to reek of thick, acrid smoke as the fires swallowed the superstructure and worked into the innards of the ship, forcing from the Cazador a bout of coughing. "You know what? It's funny, Admiral. This was the last mission of my tour of duty. Mission accomplished, so I suppose I'm a free man now. This wasn't how I was planning on spending my retirement, you know?"

//You're cutting out... Sir, what is you name?//

"Oliviero Jaco. Captain Oliviero Jaco."

//Understand me, Captain Jaco. I'm going to see that you're not forgotten for this. The world is going to remember what you did here tonight.//

"That'd be nice..."

At that moment, the night became day. A brilliant white flash illuminated Ports Said and Fuad; a radiant light shone across the water and the deserts beyond the cities, and a clap of chest-pounding thunder rocked the battlefield. Rising into the sky from the sea was a great orange fireball, riding upward on a column of steam and smoke where the Aksum once was. The swirling cloud of fire rose up over the city like a second sun, swirling with angry tongues of yellow and orange, and then a dim red before fading into the night. The canal was wide open; the War for Africa had begun in earnest.

"We're not going to forget you, you brave bastard."

Sahara, Spanish Morocco

"Is everyone alright?" Joaquin asked, shifting to his feet with a lean against the handcuffs anchoring him to his seat as the dust within the fuselage settled. The attention of all those trapped on the grounded bomber gravitated toward Joaquin, all seemingly receptive to someone stepping up to take command of the situation. "Is there anyone seriously hurt?"

"My leg's fucked." One of the captive passengers spoke up somewhere in the front.

"I think my shoulder is dislocated." An older prisoner groaned from a few rows behind. No one else reported any other injuries.

"So, we all made it? How about that!" Now that Joaquin mentioned it, it was a minor miracle that anyone had made it through the crash; to say nothing of the survival of every single passenger. For their part the pilots had done an admirable job landing the plane in a controlled fashion. But for all their skill, the pilots themselves were likely killed when the cockpit separated from the rest of the craft. Julio felt little pity for them, even if they had saved their lives.

"Now then," Joaquin continued, "is there anyone who is free from their cuffs or can free themselves?" This time there was no verbal response. Manacles and chain links clattered together as everyone struggled against their binds. Julio too tugged against the pair of handcuffs affixing his right wrist to arm of his seat, but it held fast as did the bolts anchoring the seat to the dust-strewn corrugated flooring below. It was clear that he was going nowhere. Nor was anyone else.

"We're stuck!" Someone exclaimed. "We're stuck in this thing!" His panic was contagious, even as Joaquin tried to hush the anxious murmurs rising up amongst the captives. "Settle down, please!" Joaquin commanded. "We're going to get out of these seats and find help! I'll cut my hand off to do it if I have to!"

Julio kept his own pessimistic thinking to himself, but he could not help but doubt the optimism of his new friend. Joaquin had been a police officer; his training demanded he be reassuring in the face of crises to stave off panic. His impeccable optimism affirmed Julio’s worst fears. Joaquin knew as well as anyone else that they were all going to die here; he simply wanted them all to die in peaceful optimism rather than hysteric fits. Even if they could remove these cuffs, what then? The 'help' of which Joaquin spoke was illusory, like a mirage of the desert beyond the yawning opening in the airplane's fuselage.

""Help? Where exactly were we go to find help?" That most vocal and pessimistic of the passengers demanded. "Do you even know where we are?"

They had crashed deep in the Sahara - the heart of Spain's African empire. Julio knew it could be nowhere else. The plane may as well have landed out a thousand miles at sea, or onto the barren glaciers of Greenland. No one lived in this desolate and hellish place. If the prisoners could escape their downed plane, they would be doomed to walk aimlessly to the mountains in the distance. Without water, the midsummer's heat would kill them all inside of three days. Investigators seeking out the crash site would find a gaggle of mummies half-buried in the among the debris field. There was no escape from this fate. Julio and his fellow captives had only traded one prison for another.

"Don't talk like that!" Joaquin commanded of the naysayer. "We will find someone!"

But it was someone else that found them.

A single gunshot rang through the air, silencing the plane. Another followed several seconds thereafter. Two shots, one for each pilot. The blast that had shook the plane before it fell from the sky immediately returned to Julio's mind. The plane had to be shot out of the air. But this was the Sahara, Spanish Africa. To think this plane was shot down within its own airspace…

Footsteps were heard beyond the hull crunching against the sand. Shadow-veiled silhouettes flitted past the cracked and broken windows. Their attackers were approaching the plane; briskly working toward the front, moving stealthily and quickly as they hung just behind the jagged opening at the fore of the bomber. The prisoners held perfectly still and quiet, out of fear or desire not to startle the assailants.

On either side of the gaping wound in the plane, they came into view against the backdrop of orange desert. They were clad head-to-toe in black and blue robes, scarves and turbans wrapped around their heads so tightly that their eyes were scarcely visible. Cold black eyes scanned the inside of the plane, each pair set beside a ruddy-colored nosebridge just poking up from within the scarves. In their hands, straight-bladed steel swords glinted with yellow light. Some among them carried more modern arms such as hand-me-down rifles. The assailants almost seemed to be ancient warriors transplanted into the times of firearms and airplanes. A surreal sight indeed; Julio thoroughly expected it to be his last.

"Please don't hurt us!" Someone blurted, breaking the silence. "We're prisoners, not soldiers! Don't kill us!"

The antiquated warriors, seemingly confused, turned to themselves and spoke in their native tongue. Julio recognized it immediately as Arabic. It was a language he was well-accustomed to in his exile in the Middle East. It was a throaty, punctuated exchange intermixed with gestures and glances to the passengers and it ended abruptly with one of the robe-clad fighters stepping out of the aircraft as if to fetch something. The other speaker holstered a blocky Mauser pistol onto his belt and faced the prisoners.

"Do not be afraid, we can help you." He reported in perfect Spanish. His accent struck Julio as it bore little similarity to any Arab or North African who had learned to speak Castillian. It was a soft, yet regal and dignified means of enunciation. It reminded him of the way Samel and his friends spoke. "But we must move quickly. Are there any among you who cannot walk?"

"My leg... it's hurt." The same prisoner who had spoken up before reported. The warrior who had left the plane returned at this time with a pair of boltcutters in his arms. With a feverish pace, he began snipping the chains of each set of manacles and freeing the passengers

"Then you will ride with me. Everyone else will have to follow us on foot. We will take you to safety, but you cannot slow us down. The Spanish will be upon us very soon and we must not be here when they arrive."

The cloaked man soon arrived at Julio's row and unceremoniously clipped the link holding the cuff attached to the seat's arm and leaving a manacle with free-hanging chain around his wrist. Joaquin too was freed moments after. Without a moment's hesitation, the two filed out with the other prisoners and bounded off the plane into the desert.

Poti, Georgia

The Georgian summers could be unbearable. For the Armenians, used to the highlands and the chills of altitude, the marshes of Poti could be suffocating. Humidity long ago had ruined anyone's chances of appearing at work with an unsoiled uniform: sweat pooled in the armpits and the backs of the staff at Headquarters, Joint Base Poti. The windows of the recently-constructed, white-plastered building were propped open to let in any semblance of a breeze on the still days. The armed guards' faces - blank with a mixture of contempt for the climate and for the country in general - glistened with sweat outside the tall wooden door. Staff officers often gazed upon them as they entered the headquarters, wondering how they'd ever manage to survive eight hour shifts wearing a flak jacket all day. There was no respite from the Georgian coast's summer. And certainly not for the operations department that resided in the basement: the relief of hot air rising out of the low basement was no major relief when all it ever did was circulate back in a neverending cycle. What was actually an ordinary brief turned oddly cinematic as officers congregated in a windowless concrete room under blazing hot lamps, waiting for a Lieutenant to present the weekly report. Except this time, the report was more than just a usual recap of the week's events. Today, Mikael Gregovyen would be joining the regimental staff to present on his latest findings.

The special operative wore his lizard-patterned battledress with the sleeves rolled up and a bandolier slung diagonally against his frame in the manner of a Sam Browne belt. In his brown leather holster was a Chechen revolver, the infamously rugged Grozny-Type manufactured by skilled gunsmiths in the eponymous city. This was a prized possession amongst Armenian troopers in Georgia: those who went out on patrol, killed a bandit, and were lucky enough to find the revolver took it and replaced their own sidearm. It was a symbol of the veteran. Chechen raiders were regarded to be some of the most hardcore fighters in the region. To kill one was to prove their own prowess. To take their weapon from them was the ultimate assurance of victory. Soldiers who wore the Grozny-Type on their belts were never berated or corrected by anyone but the most junior of officers. Even they learned to see it as a symbol of authority, albeit unconventional. Even the senior commanders were beginning to realize that the Grozny-Type was a source of pride amongst veteran Armenian expeditionary soldiers. They rarely contested the usage of the piece. Seeing as Lieutenant Gregovyen had just burned a Chechen encampment to the ground, there was no conflict from anyone. Gregovyen knew this, and used his opportunity to his advantage. As if his ranking as an NSS SAU operative wasn't enough, his Grozny-Type was sure to keep the officers' attention.

An intelligence officer stood beside Gregovyen, next to a board with several maps. He held a wired remote for a projector in his hand, and a technician in the rear stood ready to put up the slides. Gregovyen looked at his watch and then at the officer, nodding. The technician took note of the cue and started the projector. A flickering noise not unlike a film camera's echoed throughout the concrete chamber as the officers sat back in their seats. Gregovyen took the stage to begin his briefing. His pale skin seemed ghastly in the projector's sepia light. Dark hair, matted by grease and sweat, formed little curls that seemed to be magnified in shadow against the projected slide behind him. He cleared his throat rather conspicuously.

"Good evening, sirs," he introduced. "I am Lieutenant Mikhael Gregovyen, as you may know. I am part of the NSS playing its role Georgia at the moment and I do indeed have some very important news for you."

The officers squinted their eyes at the cowboy on the stage, while the intelligence officer stood behind in the shadows. The slide clicked over to the standard "CONFIDENTIAL" title slide, and the intelligence officer duly spoke up in his monotonous, professional tone: "I do not need to remind anyone that, until further notice and declassification from the National Security Service, this information is rated confidential and shall be seen by your eyes only. No reproductions of this material will be allowed, as we are dealing with rather sensitive material dealing with our plans for the security and reconstruction of post-Ottoman Georgia. Should this information be leaked before it is deemed appropriately declassified by the National Security Service, full legal prosecution will occur. The Army Intelligence Service has no authority over this matter, as it is jointly relevant."

"So with that said," effortlessly continued Gregovyen as he paced about, "we are trying to protect the identity of a specific section of guys we have a newfound interest in. They're small at the moment, only about eighty fulltime members, but we believe that their ideas have potential once they prove themselves worthy in the environment around here. Until then, they are small fish in a big pond. But if they can take down the ruling party in their city then they may gain some traction."

A slide clicked into place showing a photograph of Batumi with several markings on it from a scout. Buildings were circled in marker alongside written captions identifying buildings as Georgian Guard headquarters and the strongholds of the local tyrant: General Polat.

"This is Batumi," Gregovyen stated. He pointed to the west docks in particular, crowded with rusted and scuttled commercial vessels. "Close to the Armenian border but still controlled by violent Georgian warlords who like to assert their dominance through fear. They have unlimited power there, and recently have been doing all sorts of things like raising taxes and restricting food in an attempt to punish their enemies. Our guys there are called the Georgian Guard, and they fancy themselves to be a reconstructive influence. They've been seeking to end the anarchy, first at home. Their name - and from what we've gleamed talking to the undertrodden citizens - suggests that they want to expand that to all of Georgia. So far, they're apolitical. They want Georgia for the Georgians, but we might be able to change that. With a few silver tongues in play, we could convince senior leadership to accept a generous offer of assistance. For us, this works out well. Poti gets a reliable supply line in the short term and the long term might come to see a stable Georgia. But it's going to get worse before it gets better. The Dagestani warlord that we just recently took out in the east, for example, has a dozen different guys on the lower rings of the pedestal jockeying to replace him after our supposed allies in the region took our aid money and ran instead of moving in themselves. Unless some unstoppable force moves in immediately to fill the power vacuum - a reformed Georgian Guard, perhaps - there is no way we can maintain stability.

Our pitch to the Guard comes mostly in the form of: 'Us Armenians will help you and you will be well on your way to victory in Georgia.' If need be, we can always bring out the 'no better friend, no worse enemy' card and just wipe them off the map if they're insistent with a no. But I'm no grand strategist and that's up to the Georgian theater commanders to decide. Knowing their desire for longterm stability, my professional opinion is to assure them of a continued stable alliance. Some sort of military pact against the broken-up post-Ottoman bandit states and the scheming Turks bent on revenge. We could try to expand existing agreements with Poland and Persia to funnel some of their aid into Georgia to ensure continued stability. We don't want it slipping back into failed state territory after the Guard finishes its march across the land and begins to relax. We need that stable northern border for anything. Mostly the bandits and the Mafiya's continued encroachment onto the Armenian sphere. If we establish a Georgian state with these guys, we'll be able to alleviate our problems by shifting them onto them. We'd continue to support them, but it wouldn't be our border towns getting shot at through a porous Georgian anarchic wasteland. It'd be theirs. And we'd make our mark on the region as a new leader in reconstruction efforts: Armenia was the example of the revolution and should continue to be an example beyond it. The way we're shaping up could net us regional power status in a few years if we're optimistic."

The regimental commander in Poti, a Colonel, sat up in his seat. The folding metal chair creaked under his relatively large frame. He crossed his arms and spoke up: "With the mess of warlords in this goddamned country, what are they trying to do?"

Gregovyen smiled and switched to the next slide, showing a photograph of the town square in Poti. A statue of Sultan Suleiman stood tall on a pedestal, surrounded by Ottoman flags. No guards were seen, but a note on the photograph stated that the picture was taken from a hotel window and that armed guards routinely patrolled the area. Gregovyen admired his scouts' audacity. "They are planning a march on General Polat's main headquarters, or at least that's what the word on the streets is."

"General Polat?" the Colonel asked, squinting his eyes at Gregovyen. "Is this the warlord in the area?"

"General Polat is a businessman," explained the Lieutenant. "He used to own the tea plantations around Batumi and the surrounding region when it was owned by the Ottomans. He received subsidies from the Turkish government as the Georgian frontier started getting destabilized. Eventually, a larger cut of his resources get routed to the Ottomans: they prop up a mercenary army of sorts for him to defend his gains against the insurrection that they think will be squashed in a matter of weeks. That was not the case. However, even after the Ottomans were gone, Polat retained his soldiers. This was to try and maintain the Georgian border, since Batumi was located closer to the Turkish side of the '77 DMZ. They are a bastion of old Ottoman control in the country, kept alive through an imposition of fear and tyranny. This makes him different from your average Chechen or Dagestani raider. If he can be deposed or assassinated, this is a powerful message. If the Guard succeeds, that puts them in a leadership position amongst the moderate reconstructionist forces in Georgia. They can take the lead and we'd be better off supporting them."

The officers turned amongst themselves and whispered to each other. Evidently the description of Polat had set off the gears inside of them. They all came to the conclusion that if Polat was a Turk and the Guard was fighting him, they would fight the Turks. Circumspect curiosity turned to conscious action. The Guard suddenly became another ally in the war, at least in theory. The Colonel confided with his aide before turning back to Gregovyen on the stage. The aide - a Captain barely older than Gregovyen with a boyish face - nodded and his eyes flickered to Gregovyen. The Colonel sweaty face shone underneath the light above him as he chewed on a stick of gum. "Lieutenant, if the Guard is an active anti-Turkic force, you have my permission to contact them. I will write up the formal orders and tell the Army Headquarters in Yerevan."

"Yes, sir," Gregovyen responded. "I have had a full dossier written and sent to your desks. That should elaborate more on what we think about these guys. But I'll ready my men and we can head down by tomorrow."

The projector shut off, casting darkness back upon the room. The officers debated amongst themselves as they stood, their metal chairs screeching across the concrete floor. Gregovyen looked down at his boots, then at his blouse. He unconsciously smoothed out his thighs and turned to the intelligence officer, still standing in the shadows where the ceiling lights did not illuminate. There was a reason why they were called spooks after all. The officer nodded at Gregovyen and held up a manilla folder. "I have everything I need to brief the NSS," he said. Without so much as a farewell, the officer saluted. When Gregovyen returned it, he wordlessly disappeared into the shadows. The covertness of the act was not lost upon Gregovyen, who took a moment to ponder what was happening. Soon enough there would be no need for secrecy. Soon enough, Armenian troops would be marching to Tbilisi to restore order. Soon enough, they would be showing the world that the post-Ottoman state was no pushover. Where the Ottoman military was stiff, rigid, yet rotten at the core, the Georgian insurgency was the opposite. The spry, flexible fighters were dangerous. More so than the easily outmaneuvered Ottomans. But if they could win, if they could stabilize their northern neighbor, the prestige of the Armenian state would be elevated. They would show the world.

Kyrenia, Cyprus

The sailors of the Breadwinner of Rize manned the rails in the mild wind, looking towards their first port visit. Clad in blue coveralls, they looked out over the shimmering waters. Cypriot fishermen, sailing out for their daily trips, waved. The Armenians waved back, of course, as the Breadwinner motored slowly into the port of Kyrenia. Captain Vartanesian looked out onto the deck of his vessel from the bridge. Containers with goods were raised and ready to be sold on the docks. It was a goodwill visit: the cargo was mostly Armenian cultural items, and they would be receiving Cypriot goods in exchange. As the Breadwinner circumnavigated the globe, they hoped to do the same at various other ports. But for now, the crew would get to enjoy Cyprus. Captain Vartanesian had a few friends there, and he planned to spend his evening at the taverns. The rest of the crew was free to enjoy liberty under the close supervision of the ship's officers: they didn't want them too rowdy. The last thing that Armenia needed was its sailors exploring the world for the first time and getting into drunken fistfights in exotic ports. As such, Vartanesian decided to shorten the leash. They would have fun, but not too much. It was the best option for everyone. Cyprus was a test run of sorts, since an Armenian military presence at Nicosia would have the safety netting of Armenian MPs. It was best to have that option for the first port landing, just in case. Not that Captain Vartanesian particularly wanted anything to happen. He knew that his crew were good men, but when there was alcohol involved the dynamic could change quite quickly.

"Don't do any stupid shit," remarked the personnel officer in a characteristically crude safety speech the evening before. "No fucking underage girls, no getting wasted, and no fighting the goddamn locals."

The ship was guided to the shore by Cypriot tugboats staffed by older sailors - the younger men were in the Navy themselves and were thus unable to perform civilian duties. They looked up at the Armenian sailors manning the rails, younger versions of themselves ready to adventure across the seas. The Breadwinner stalled its engines to allow the tugboats to push the ship towards the far dock. Weapons were now ordered to be stowed onboard: the crew gathered burlap sacks to cover the menacing machine guns and autocannons while magazines were unloaded and moved to storage. The threat of interception of the vessel had passed. The Merchant Marine commanders were worried about Turkish forces seeking revenge independent of the armistice and still ordered ships in the Black Sea and Mediterranean to be armed. The Breadwinner faced a special danger from the south, as they could unwarily wander into Spain's naval flotillas currently bombarding Ethiopia's Egyptian possessions. With tensions as high as they were, nobody wanted to sail a merchant ship into a conflict zone and drag Armenia into yet another war. They had just finished with Turkey. It was best not to tangle with Spain. Captain Vartanesian commanded the ship into port - the only sizable pier in the neglected harbor - and dropped anchor at noon. The ramps were brought to the ready, and they disembarked.

A crowd of onlookers had massed at the docks with a contingent of Cypriot policemen and Armenian MPs driving in from Nicosia Airbase. The sailors, having changed from their coveralls to a more ceremonial uniform, strode with swagger onto the pier whilst led by Captain Vartanesian. Clutching seabags in one hand, they waved to the children ready to come see the men who had toppled the Ottoman Empire. The sailors threw candy to the kids and cigarettes to the men and women: they were liberators today, ready to reap the rewards that came with it. Many of them would later be trying to score free deals from prostitutes out in town, claiming their service as reason enough. The harbormaster - a burly, bearded Mediterranean man who looked more like a pugilist than a sailor - had come to greet the Armenian merchant sailors and their skipper. Captain Vartanesian stopped to shake his hand in front of the newly-formed parade, flash bulbs from the Cypriot reporters' cameras dazzling them. "Good to see you, Captain!" the harbormaster boomed. He smiled and gripped Vartanesian's hand firmly, with confidence and friendliness.

"How have you been since we last spoke, Mister Kasoudis?" the Armenian beamed.

"I've been just fine, just fine indeed!" Kasoudis said cheerily. He looked over his shoulder at the Armenian sailors and grinned again. "Thank you so much for coming here. I feel like this visit will help the both of us."

There were rumbles of resentment within the Cypriots about the Armenian airbase at Nicosia. The Air Force squadron in Nicosia had only been mostly on recon sorties throughout the coast, searching for troop shipments that were never there. The locals thought that this would make them a target. However, there had been few reprisal bombings on Cyprus ever since the Cypriot National Army had brutally driven out the Turks early in the war. Their Coast Guard defeated any additional attempts at a sea invasion, and so Cyprus remained a fortress in the Mediterranean. Antiaircraft guns, left behind by retreating Turks, deterred Ottoman aggression by the air. It was secure, but it wanted its peace and quiet. Their banking sector wanted to be left alone and healthy, growing from Armenian businessmen and their investments in the relatively low-tax sector. Their shipping and commerce industry desired to be hidden from Turkish sea raiders and the damages they inflicted on shipping lanes to Greece. They reasoned that if the Armenians left, the Turkish would have less of a problem with them. After all, it was the Armenian state that the Turks had most of their conflict with.

The governments, however, sought to increase their tensions into "an unshakable alliance spanning the Eastern Mediterranean, deterring further colonial aggression." This meant, mostly, a deterrent against the Turkish. It also bore the subtext of protection against European invasion, like if the British decided to struggle with the Cypriots for control over the territory. It was a far stretch, but still a protection nonetheless. Vartanesian knew that his countrymen were amiable to an idea of a bloc formed with the other post-Ottoman states, and considered himself a supporter as well. Cyprus was a good a place to start as any. With a solid foundation of trust and friendship formed between the Armenians and Cypriots, a political and military alliance would build itself naturally. The Air Force and Navy were both making their cases to the civilian political leadership of Armenia and Cyprus in order to further establish power projection points into the Mediterranean. The strategic location was not lost on them. They could strike Turkey if need be, and stand ready to support allied governments in Greece, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Ethiopian Egypt. It would further secure trade out of the Bosporus and Dardanelles, just like what the Breadwinner was already doing. The Greeks in particular had also voiced support of Nicosia turning into a joint base: they would be able to have another angle of approach into Turkey if their coastal Anatolian possessions came into danger.

"Well, Mister Kasoudis, I suppose we should commence this visit in good spirits," said Vartanesian with a wave of his hand to the parade of sailors. "My men will take to your hospitality. Don't worry, I have made sure that they will behave!"

Both of the seamen shared a hearty laugh, looking over at the men half their age prancing into taxis and streetcars on the nearby road. The onlookers had dispersed, driven back by the approach of Cypriot stevedores in pickups and work trucks. They went back to their stores and their homes, many to open up shop to the port visit. Kasoudis, twirling the end of his mustache, smirked. "They're sailors, not saints!" he reminded the Armenian.

Captain Vartanesian removed his cap to tuck it under his arm and cracked a crooked grin. He smoothed out his white dress uniform's blouse and looked back at the tanned Mediterranean man. "I believe our respective agencies have worked out the finances and trading of this deal. We'll let the dockworkers do the rest."

"They know what they're doing, they'll get it done."

Vartanesian nodded and ran a hand through his thick, curly hair. "Oh, and make sure they don't break my ship," he joked, pointing to the dent where Trabzon's dockworkers had smashed a cargo container into the hull during military resupply operations after the battle.

The harbormaster looked up at where Vartanesian had pointed and let out a hearty chuckle. "Worry not, comrade. You are safe in Cyprus."

Shenzhen countryside, Pearl River Delta

The rain let up, but so didn't the clouds. The countryside after the rain glistened as the last drops slid down the glass window panes. With the cessation of the tapping of rainwater on the roof an air of excitement came over the men in the country-side gambling house. Chairs shuffled across the unfinished wood floor and gathered at the windows. Their foot falls heavy as they moved about, shouting at laughing at each other. And behind his closed doors The Cashier was weighing the pot.

There was a general air of excitement that moved through. Like a warm breeze it swept through, picking up men like leafs of paper. The swept about the room and through the doors. Outside the muddy parking lot was beginning to rumble with the sound of engines.

“Tui, are you really sure about this?” Cong protested, hands stuffed deeply into his pockets. His head sunk down, ware-fully watching the much larger gamblers that bustled about the cramped house. His face was pale, and he strained his words around his anxiety, “You can back out now, if you want?”

Tui laughed dismissively, wrapping a large arm around the meek and diminutive boy. Cong flinches at his touch, his face shooting to the side where a heavy hand affirmatively squeezed his shoulder. “Don't worry!” Tui boasted, “I've done this more than once. And besides: if I back out now I can say goodbye to my money.

“And my parents will kill me if I loose my week's allowance.”

“But what if you lose anyways!?” Cong protested in a hushed voice. He watched with wide eyes the muscle bound bouncer walk by the two in the narrow entrance hall, a cigarette hung limp in his bulbous sausage lips.

“Not happening!” Tui beamed confidently. “I haven't lost a race to date!” he boasted, holding out his chest.

“You've only been in one!” Cong scoffed.

“And I won it.” the mechanically-minded youth smiled, beating his fist into his chest.

“That still doesn't mean anything.”

“Of course it does.”

“Please, come on. Let's get Feng and go back home.” Cong argued back. Feng herself was in the corner of the living room. Legs crossed sitting on the battered wooden radio teasing the odd gambler. On account of her preference there was little chance she was serious in any of her flirts. “I thought this was just some road trip. Fuck, something to do before the last quarter.”

“And it is!” Pui Tui beamed, “You're going to love it, I promise. I'll let you have window seats too. Let you hold onto the door.”

“I'm going to have no choice on this am I?” sighed Cong, his stomach nodded with dread, “You're dead set on this?”

“Of course I am.” his friend nodded, “And besides, I don't think you're going to want to be around the spectators for anything but five minutes. Not the way your face looks.” he pointed out to the gathering on the front porch where stood a motley crew of dirty and twitchy men with bottles of cheap booze in their hands.

“What about Feng then, is she coming?”

“If she wants.” Pui Tui answered, “But if she doesn't then I'm not concerned. Remember what she and Mei did at that one club however many months back?”

“Didn't it involve a bottle?”

“Yea, some American kwai lo tried to reach for them. They put a fucking glass bottle into his face. I'm sure Feng can hold up to these guys if she wanted.” laughed Tui, “You on the other hand, I never know about you.”

“Shit, you're like a bad brother.” Yan Cong grumbled to Tui's amusement.

“Brothers!” a voice boomed out. The sharp suddenness forcing Cong to jump back into the wall like a frog. His face going an even more ghostly pale as he pressed himself back. Illiciting smart laughter from The Cashier as he passed them by, “Race is set to begin!” the mixed race man beckoned as he stepped through the door, holding out his arms. The two city kids followed him, Cong more apprehensive than he could have been.

“I have the winner's pot from the racers. I'll be taking bets from anyone not.” he said loud and thunderously. His ripping deep voice cut even above the engines that had been started early, “The road warriors can get to their cars now.”

“Come on!” Tui urged, tugging Cong's sleeve. “You coming Feng!?” he shouted, looking behind him.

Feng smiled, brushing aside a stray lock of her oil-black hair and shook her head, “I'm fine here.” she said. Cong couldn't help but feel she knew she could freely avoid a ride in Pui Tui's beast. Cong wasn't given any chance to protest as he swept across the muddy ground by the meat of his shoulder. His friend pulling him along at a racer's pace. It was hardly a blink of the eye that he was again on the fake leather seating of the modifier pick up with the Tei Gui engine seated in the back. He could feel his heart beginning to flutter early and his stomach anxiously searching for something to evict. But the pork buns he had that morning were too far gone to be regurgitated.

For Pui Tui it was a moment of excitement. Birds flew madly in his stomach as he flew the ignition. His head swam in a sea of excitement as he heard the engine's roar behind him, another successful ignition. The steering wheel vibrated madly in his hands. The bed rocked and rumbled.

With a roar the air filled with black smoke and he gave a cheer as he backed up through the wet sticky mud. Already the other competitors were beginning to line up. In the mirrors he could see them. And in the same mirrors he could see the spectators waving them off. Amid the thunder of the engines as they lined up The Cashier rose his voice to give the rules, a mere formality.

Racers to line up in columns of two on the road. First to make it back around the hill wins. Avoid running the others off the road, deaths are too much of an insurance threat to clean up. He didn't need to hear it. The thrumming of adrenaline in his ears was too much. Cong whimpered like a worried dog as he fastened himself in with the safety belt and braced his knees against the dashboard.

As he filled in his place he flipped on the radio, scrambling through the stations, passed the talk news. Hoping to find something akin to music. Sharp twangs burst from the radio as he found just that. Low, bluesy, and almost certainly pulled from America he found the guitarwork of one of the few imports from the US left to live in China. Harvey Edwards, backed by Chen Yiaoliang with his more traditional strings. Old and new, a juxtaposition the two shared and had a basis for their own intertwined careers.

He didn't care. Now the clouds were thinning the station was more there than not. It was music, if spaced between moments of static irregularity. It'd be his sound track to victory. Cong shut his eyes tight in expectation for what was to begin.

Tense moments passed the racers by as they idled. Their motors revving and dying with an anxious restrained fury. Like dogs at the cage ready to charge. The short back of another lightly modified Quilin, similar to that as Tui's stood between he and the open road. Although with a back free it was a lighter built vehicle. Alongside him a sedan of so many mismatched parts and jagged paint jobs lay crouched against the rocky broken road.

The racers all seemed to wait. Whether a signal or an action. But to the side across the muddy front lawn The Cashier and his company stood at wait without motion, or suggestion at motion. Smiling at each other over bottles of cheap alcohol and smokey cigarettes.

Finally the tension broke with a squeal of tires and a fountain of thick heavy mud. The Quilin truck ahead of Tui lit up its wheels and spun them in the sticky muck, tossing it thick into Tui's windshield before speeding off for the road, in quick succession the rest gave chase, rocketing thick fans of deep blackened mud high into the air and across the bodies of all cars that dared pass to close. Cong recoiled back against the windows as the soaked dirt smashed against the glass in heavy frothy thuds.

Pui Tui acted as fast as he could, whipping on the windshield whippers and not sprinting from the start. Delicately coaxing the accelerator he set off for the road, avoiding the slippery earth in much a way the rest of his competition did not. As they spun onto the wet tarmac he pulled out, merging into the thinning lines before he slammed the gas.

The accelerator roared to life behind them. Crying in rage and in pain. The pistons slamming as the motor turned with a vicious roar. More than it had before. It wasn't a constant loud hum, it was a roar that muted all sounds. Dullening the radio and masking it, the song becoming distant and nonexistence to the fierce diesel explosion that propelled them forward.

Despite the violent tossing of the vehicles the sharp acceleration of the truck threw Cong for once back into the seat. He sat hands pressed against the back of his seat and the door, starring wide-eye out the front window. The world blurred before him. The trees getting lost in the haze of speed.

Within inches the car of another racer nearly brushed to a grinding demise alongside Tui. Pressed between he and the steep hillside off the side. The two competed neck and neck, driving themselves to the greatest of their vehicle's extent. Looking out at it, Cong could not help but feel nausea. His chest fluttering with sharp biting fear he stuffed his head between his knees, fighting to keep jagged breaths steadily.

Cantina Madrid, Kowloon, Hong Kong

“So he told me as we sat by the river that the secret to global peace isn't Communism, nor democracy!” the creature proclaimed. His voice was sweet as the color red and ran as heavenly as the rain. In much the same way his face shifted in awe. “But that in reality, the ultimate society is that lacking in materialism.” the now-horse man proclaimed confidently. His eyes somewhere between an insect and a fish. Or maybe it was a fern.

Mei lounged across red pillows, like several others gathered. Their faces melted and froze in fractal patterns. Disobeying space and time as they sat simply drinking the man's words from the cool glass of his mouth as they swam high on the acid.

“He said that it's really material greed that imprisons us the conflict.” the man continued. He sounded simultaneously lost and found. But the same could be asked of everyone else in the maroon landscape. From off in some distant corner a strange melancholic music played. It was like the soft playful flow of a waterfall. Mei could feel it wash over her as she lay against the cushions. Ebbing waves of azure and teal bands snaked across her body. She couldn't just see the notes of the song as they were, but felt them. Both hot and cold. They wrapped through her very fiber the way the air-conditioning of the underground bar did.

It was a surreal sensation. It wasn't terrifying. It felt like a blessing. Like what it was to be truly alive. No matter the strange way the world changed. At times figures looks dimly resembling of newspaper photo clippings. Some stretched and warped. A few times she couldn't help but stare curiously at the host or the other guests as they took on shapes that resembled her friends. It reminded her, if only for a moment, that she should try to invite them.

But then maybe she'll forget.

The thought made her giggle madly. “Happiness comes with freedom!” the hippo exclaimed, pausing from his speech to praise Mei Hsui Mei, “That's a truth, sister. A deeper color, I tell you.”

The attention he gave her made her laugh more. She ran her fingers through her long silken black hair as she smiled back. Her hair felt like pearls between her fingers. Running fine and cool between her fingers like water fresh out of the tap. She toyed with the banana tucked between her breasts. She didn't know why it was there, it just was. No one could explain it, and it was doubted anyone would want to. They were too deep into the trip.

“Then what does the Man in black have to say about things are they are then?” chirped a buzzard, prying into the situation. He sounded just as lost as they are in the fantasy he was in, but no doubt beginning to climb out of it, “Of China now. Where it is headed. The material world coming in.”

The ostrich rose a finger, bleeting. “It's a test.” he said, “I think. I don't know. I don't remember that far.” he said giving himself an excuse. One which made the group laugh.

“But I would imagine it is not good in the long run, but not as evil as that of Spain or the United States, who must drown themselves in materialism. It's really something of a shame, I think.

“Would you say?” the man asked, leaning towards Mei, brushing a gentle finger across her cheek. She not only felt it on the surface of her skin but deep inside. Like being stroked there on a hundred different levels in a hundred different universes. She would have given him an answer but the pleasure she felt ensured that he was again shifting to something reflective of it. And at best he looked like an angel from the next dimension. It stunned her to silence. Or wild giggling.

Bathed in red lights the Cantina Madrid was for the better part of a day a warping fantasyscape hidden underneath some grimy restaurant in Hong Kong. It was an escape for those who knew about it. The Ethiopians, the Chinese rebel, or the odd Russian that had stumbled into the hidden world this far south. It was where the outside could be forgotten for twenty-four hours, and no one would come to look for you.

The presiding masters of this inter-dimensional pocket ruled over with benevolence. For a few Yen they footed the tiny inconspicuous drops upon their visitors. Sugar pills wrapped in a film of paper that melted on the mouth, adorned with the anonymous image of some strange African with a fine dress suit and thick afro.

It was this unknown character that also hung from a far wall, and was for all curiosities the one thing that didn't change in the entire trip. The Cantina could turn into a forest, and its visitors having left existence or become fantastic animals. And there stapled to the trunk of a tree was the Cantina's blown up painting of the man on the pills.

He was strange. Inviting. But dressed nice, almost as if to mourn or to kill someone. Dressed to opress, as some said. But his hands held out with a polite smile. The words that were his slogan printed over at least a half dozen times. “Try me.” he said.

“Try me.” always.

Mei's hands crept back up to the banana pocketed between her small, tight tits. Her gown and bra doing the extra work to hold it against her chest. It was warm and leathery. And soon she would need to unwrap it and eat. The trip would wear out soon, and the real world would come back and she'd be hungry. The proprietors would give her an apple and a glass of water before sending her off back. No one got to trip twice. And then it'd be weeks or months before she came back.

But for now it was time to enjoy it. Wavering, what little of the present was allowed to leak away. The chattering of their courier becoming a soft wind in a surreal landscape of night skies. She allowed herself to pass into different worlds and different locations for the final leg of her trip.

Omsk, Russia

It had been awkward being back at the controls again. For being back from negligent driving, it felt too soon. Back on familiar group he would have been ordered to stay out of a tank for several months and forced to clean and polish the armor of the entire battalion. But not just more than a day after his infraction he was back. And now he peered out through the dirtied and scratched glass of his view ports at the war zone of Omsk.

The tank itself yielded ever more to the side than it used to. A struggle he kept up with on a constant basis as he drove the Teigui ahead into the thick. Since their temporary setback Chinese forces had made headway into the city alongside their Siberian allies. But given the sounds of mortars had not died away, or were even muffled out by the sound of the clanging engine of their own vehicle it was not a victory. Nor was the battle at any state to be decided. But it had for sure decided Omsk itself.

The city had not been turned as inside out as at happened to their homeland against the Japanese, or the newscasts and photos from abroad in other conflicts. But the wounds were there, open to the cool Russian spring air and wet with recent rains. Imploded on themselves entire blocks of offices stood empty with deep gashes having torn out their sides. The layout of their floors and walls opened to the day time air, resembling the butchered flesh of an animal; the skin removed the bones and the meat shown.

Piles of rubble littered the roads, making moving difficult and long. He did not know how many times he was ordered to turn back, or to move left or right as they avoided clearing crews digging through the effect of artillery and bombing. Sun Song stood through the turret hatch. He swayed as the tank yawed scanning the roadways for obstructions and delivering orders on that. Somewhere on the front - when they found it - would be their unit.

There was something else that Li Tsung could not ignore, even through the murky windows of his viewing. That despite the intensity of the violence that brooded over the city like a cold blanket, and the soldiers of several insignias present that life tried to persist. Whether incapable, slow, or stubborn to evacuate civilians wandered the streets. Their backs bent and skin pale as they looked both skyward for bombs and forwards for bullets they shuffled along the side of the streets, passed the lone rolling tank as it cut its way through the city of Omsk.

These people who should have left or been killed still remained. And though short still the battle was evident on their expressions. Sunken, darkened, and bruised. The quick mercies of being caught in a bomb or at the end of a sniper's scope were not a concern. It was merely abating the slow demise of other means. And at least among the occupiers they could try to cling to whatever illusion of safety from the front as they could. This far behind the Chinese line they were far from the sway and whipping flow of combat.

A metal pounding echoed through the tank. Sun Song knocking on the hull. “Stop here!” he called out.

Tsung obliged the order. The brakes groaned and the tank was brought to a ambling pause in the street. With a hard snap he locked the brakes on and looked out on the streets. On the far side of the murky glass plates Tsung watched a soldier walk off the sidewalk to them. He reached out to the driver's hatch and threw it open, pulling himself out as the man walked up to alongside their vehicle.

“Good afternoon, comrade.” the man said, rifle slung unceremoniously at his shoulder. He was definitely Chinese, his face dirtied.

“We're on our way to the...” Song began, pausing as he pulled out a slip of paper from his coat pocket. His face strained as he concentrated on it, “Internatsionalnava.” he read.

The soldier smiled as he turned to look down the street. Piles of discarded garbage and more than a few collapsed homes lay out in the street. Over head street-car cables lay in nested piles atop stray colored bricks. “Then you were on the right path.” he laughed, “But they I guess blew the bridges down that way.” he pointed. “Before we could, uh, send in relief units to support the advancing armor they blew the Pytor bridge and the Karla Marksa.

“They tried to hit the big one over the Om, but they botched the demolition job. We can still cross it but only in single-file.”

Song nodded, he fought to keep a frown off of his face. “Where are we then?” he asked unsure.

“Pytor street, I think.” shrugged the soldier, “It gets hard when the street signs are missing.” he admitted with a strained laugh. “You can just keep driving straight forward until you hit the river,” he continued, pointing down the street. Rows of old imperial baroque and revivalist homes and offices marched down the pitted street. Their once brightly colored walls now faded from their once bright light-pinks, yellows, and oranges.

“Then, uh, I guess you can take a right there if Republican mortars haven't collapsed anything into the road yet.” he finished.

“Is that a problem?” Song asked

“Now and then.” the soldier shrugged, stepping aside as a tired old man pushed along a wooden cart. He watched him down the street with a cautious suspicious look, “They kept trying to target the rest of their bridge but gave up then. We've helicopters out looking for their mortar positions across the Irtysh.”

“Can we cross?”

“Not unless a Tei-Gui doubles as a boat I doubt we can.” the rifleman spat.

“Question, sir.” Tsun asked. The soldier looked down at the driver leaning out through his hatch.

“Yes?” he asked.

“Why are there civilians still here? Shouldn't they have fled a long time ago?”

“That is an enigma and a mystery all its own.” the rifleman shrugged, “They refuse to leave. Even with our occupation they try to ignore us.

“I'm fine with this. But we're not all sure. Some men have started talking about black ghosts with horse heads wandering the street at night. I haven't seen anything, but best to keep your wits about you. I heard rumors that an extra unit will be called in to simply help police things. This entire city stinks.”

Song nodded. “Tsung,” he shouted, banging on the hull of the turret with his knuckles, “Take us down to the end of the road.”

“Yes sir!” Tsung responded, dropping back into the port, shutting the hatch with a loud clang behind him.

“And comrade!” the rifleman called out to them as the tank began to lurch forward, “Watch your out there. Snipers are on the river!”

“Thanks for the warning.” Song thanked, sitting back inside the turret.

”Site 62-69”, Russia

The concrete walls muffled the sound of helicopters as they passed over the former prison complex. The glass panes in the office windows rattled as they flew over head, passing low and close as they made to land outside the fence of the Chinese-occupied prison. Operations were in full swing and over the past several weeks Quan Yun-qi had been ordering the execution of patrols and raids against Republican assets in the north. It was light business, and the capture of the prison seemed it had gone largely unnoticed. The capture of its walls and the troops that held it as a fort buried in Yekaterinburg and Moscow's heft list of mounting issues.

There was an uneasy sense of isolation with the outside world. Though regular flights were beginning to take root in this Siberian wilderness there was a feeling of anxiety that the Russians could retake their outpost. They were only some several thousand strong, and over the past few weeks the limited resources of the former prison were beginning to dwindle. Some even complained about a shortage in light bulbs and returning patrols and raids were affirming that there'd be no hold on use of medical supplies.

To be supplied by air never made matters any better. It was their main link to the friendly line. The tensity at the outpost wasn't made better when late shipments had caused concern when rumors started that the Russians had shot down that day's resupply mission. The helicopters had to cross a great deal of distance to reach their position, so it was logical they could. Even with fighters patrolling the area between them and the airbases.

Still, to some degree of stress Quan Yun-qi had stamped out any serious concern. He bidded their time and focused their energies away from their forward operating position. And as on orders, he was requested to perform raids. He did so without hesitation, and there was no one more volunteering than Tsien Huang.

Yun-qi scratched at the unshaven stubble beginning to grow on his broad rounded chin. Huang was a threatening sort of person, though fiercely loyal. But it was this marriage of traits that was frightening. On the taking of the position alone - when they had counted the bodies Russian and Chinese – it was suggested Huang could have facilitated to the immolation of over twenty-five persons, as well as the known incineration of a large quarter of the original compound; which had been dutifully leveled and opened as a temporary airfield.

Like he, Huang had been in the Philippines. Just in a different part of the islands at the time. He rarely discussed it, only discussing the role in the use of fire that he'd been thrust into. His introduction to the flame thrower. He'd come out as physically fine as any. But if he was hiding something deeper it couldn't be said. And that terrified Quan, who often times woke up with images of Mindanao fading in his vision.

He reached out for the cup of tea at his desk, alongside it was a map of the local region of Russia. He had marked their approximate location with red marker, and loosely plotted their ride likewise with the same marker. It was all done by notes taken the hard way. There was hardly anything of note in way of a landmark in this part of Siberia; nothing that'd show on a map at least. And half the roads known to the he and his men were not plotted.

The air was cold, and the hot tea helped soothe that as he raised it to his lips. The warm steam bathing his face, melting the numbness that had taken hold there. The compound itself had run scarce on fuel and all they could muster came from resupply. It was made worse that the Republic had obviously cut off their electricity and now the entire site was powered by generators that bit into the now rationed gas. So now while the lights were on there was no heat. What they could get in way of that was from older means of heating, such as the fires that burned in the courtyard of stoking stoves with charcoal. The method was getting attention from the regiment's cooks, who seemed to be trying to turn it into a game, which was fine with Yun-qi.

He put the glass of tea down and leaned over the map on the desk. Set off to the side was a book of coordinates he had been given from his communication's officer. He had been carefully plotting them over the half-hour. Many of which landed north of the small town in the far bottom-right corner: Surgut. He presumed they were oil wells they wanted him to hit.

There was a surreal lack of settlements even this far north. Site 62-69 was probably by far the first human-built anything they'd ever come across in northern Russia. From there south the marks of human progress would be found. But only scattered until they neared Kazakhstan. And everything else marked had such long bent names that he was sure he would never be able to remember them right.

The door to Yun-Qi's office groaned open, and he looked up from the map. The room was sparsely decorated, having seized it from the former warden, or commander. Whoever he was. Like he, the personal effects were packed away somewhere beyond his reach; he didn't know what'd happen to them or the former commander.

The door was reflective of the room. Or as much as it could. Simple, bare, industrial. Flat. Its hinges were poorly alligned and the metal cheap and corroding. And even for Tsien Huang it was by no means a stealthy way to enter.

The sergeant stepped into the room, turning to Yun-Qi. His broad caveman face held flat as he rose his hand to salute. “Commander, comrade.” he said.

“Huang.” Yun-qi greeted.

“I'm here to deliver my debriefing.” the man said, walking across the room. His armor hung loose under his uniform, half-way to being unhitched. A heavy brown scarf hung off the soldier's neck guard.

“Then debrief.”

“To make it short, nothing happened.” Tsien Huang began dismissively. Either it was the fact he was presenting another debriefing or that nothing had happened that dug at him. His words were layered with a ripe bitterness. “Xiàshì Huen saw a deer while we patrolled south. He bagged it with his gun and we loaded it on our personnel carriers. This was about eleven in the morning. Around twelve we navigated south-west for thirty minutes and came on an abandoned cottage. The roof may have collapsed in from the snow this past window. We searched the scene but didn't find anything of note. So we turned back north and came home.

“At approximately twelve-thirty Junshi An's personnel carrier ran across a ditch of unmelted snow and fell through, throwing him off. He recovered and is in good order but I ordered him to the infirmary to keep him checked out. He complained his shoulder hurt as we righted his vehicle, which took close to twenty minutes.

“We got back about two hours after that.”

Quan Yun-Qi was tempted to scold Huang for allowing his men to recklessly discharge his weapon. But over the past few weeks this had tempered when his unit began taking deer on patrol or anything they could recover in an effort to make up for what many complained to be poor rations. They were turned in for part of the cook's games with wood and charcoal.

He'd reported the matter to general Wen. He had no issue with the matter. Offering support in the form of reciting Sun Tzu. He publicly dropped all show of disagreement against his unit since.

“So was that all that happened?” Yun-qi asked.

“I wish not, but it is.” Huang sighed, “Somedays I wish the Republic would do something. We fight deep in the streets to the south, and here we are waving our dicks in the cold wind.”

“I wouldn't get too impatient.” the officer counseled, looking up from the map.

“You got orders for something?” Huang asked.

“Not sure, only coordinates.” Yun-qi replied.

Huang nodded, walking close to the desk. He carried a strong odor about him. He stopped short and looked down at the map, at the red marks.

“I see.” he said.

“Don't tell anyone.” Yun-qi scolded, “If I hear talk, I'll know. I'll tell the men in time.”

“Which is?”

“When the orders come in.” he grumbled, “You're dismissed by the way.”

“Yes comrade.” Huang bowed, “Have a good day.”

Perm, Russia

The cool night sung with the drips of water as long shadows cast by the streetlamps flooded the alleys with a thick black soup. Fresh from rain the fire escapes and gutters above leaked water onto the twisted cobblestone below. Trashcans sat thrown against the walls. And somewhere a feral dog barked madly. The sounds and darkness of night no hindrance to the laughing men who stumbled out of door, lighting the alley with a bright flare of yellow light. As sudden as it had opened it slammed closed, letting the sheep out into the night.

Cackling and laughing they staggered through the darkness. Cigarettes clenched in their teeth and a bottle of beer or vodka in their hands. They staggered drunken and stoned through the night, unaware of the predator after them.

“Cheers to Bogdan, who can no doubt drink the dead to under the table!” roared one of the men as he staggered to alongside a trash bin, raising his bottle of vodka over his head. He stared off emptily into the night, cheeks a rosy red. His head swam in a warm sea of inebriation.

“Aye, and to the health of the Czar!” laughed another.

“Not even the bar could handle.” cackled another.

Merry and warm the men staggered through the alley. Stepping out into the moonlight. Roaring and howling at the moon. “I'm flying so damn high right now.” said one amazed, stepping all over the sidewalk. His eyes dilated tight.

“If you had any more Vsevolod you would be catatonic.” jeered another, “Is good. You not going to pass out?”

Vsevolod staggered to a stop and swayed where he stood. His face scrunched into that of confusion. “What the fuck did you say?” he whipped out. He charged forward, but in a few steps it turned into a messy stuppor and he stopped short of who he was approaching.

“He can't even fight right!” one of them laughed, holding out his bottle.

“God damn it, you fucking say what?” spat Vsevolod, “I'll destroy you, swear on my mother.”

“I wouldn't promise that.” crooned another man. Taller, with a messy head of hair.

“Semyon, I'll come for you next.” sneered Vsevolod as he turned around. Throwing himself dizzy he nearly fell backwards. But by chance he threw his foot back and re caught what was left of his balance. To him his world was a swimming mix of shapes, dancing in the midst of a whirlpool. And he was watching himself be the fool, unable to stop himself before reason caught up.

“What was that shit anyways?” he burped, performing a sharp one-eighty.

“A magician never reveals his secret.” Semyon smiled, clapping his hands. He stepped forward, a little sloppy but more coherent than the rest.

“In any case, that was a killer present.” a large figure said, “I won't be coming down for weeks!”

Semyon smiled warmly. He would keep winning off of him until he fell over dead. “The pleasure is all mine to help a friend have fun!” he boasted.

“Well let's get home and have more. I'LL PAY!”

The proposal was met with wild roars of agreement and they shuffled back through the streets again. But it wasn't more than a few steps until the men stopped cold. Behind them something clattered against the cement of the pavement. “Who the fuck!?” Vsevold boomed.

“Calm down, it's probably just a cat.” Semyon comforted, walking up to the stoned individual. He held out a hand to turn him around, with a slap he smacked his hand away.

“No. Fuck it. I'm tired of this shit!” he shouted, “Fucking tired. I got to go cut some shit. Fucking pussies. I don't care. I'll cut it. Cut it. I'm hungry for its blood.”

Semyon threw his arms out from his side, letting the drunkard stagger to the disturbance. Somehow the unprovoking provocation had given him enough purpose to take control of his world as he staggered left to right through the streetlights.

“Vesevold, for fuck's sakes. Come back!” one of his friends yelled. But he didn't respond, and turning a corner he disappeared into the darkness.

“We got to go get him.” one of the other drunks suggested soberly, following after him with just as much success. The others followed suit, leaving Semyon alone. The dealer stared at them perplexed, and deeply confused. Junkies were hardly ever predictable. But it was one of those moments he second guessed his career choice. But he knew he had to follow them if he was going to get anything out of them.

Stuffing his hands in his pockets he followed after, grumbling under his breath.

He rounded the corner into the alley where they had just come. His feet gliding shallow over the stones. He barked angrily as he stepped into a warm puddle, recoiling back as he shook his foot. “God fucking dammit.” he cursed. Another drunk not too long ago must have let go of his entire bladder there. The growing anger was beginning to not mix well with his buzz, and very quickly the night was going south.

No sooner had he put his foot down it hit something else. Toes first he kicked into and stumbled over something large in his path. He came unhinged from the ground, and his arms flailed in the cool night air as he plummeted face-first to the ground. With a solid meaty “umph” he landed atop something. The shadows making it all but its lumpy shape clear.

“The fuck?” Semyon cursed, as he picked himself up. His hand dropping into a puddle of something warm and sticky. The realization hit him like a ton of bricks, and his face went frozen. His bowls released themselves into his pants, filling them with yet another uncomfortable sensation. His stomach felt weak, and his head cold.

He shuddered as he picked himself up. The entire world closing in on him as he reached out for what he hand landed on, feeling it over with his hands. Still warm. Dressed in clothing. The familiar feel of a face, and an open mouth as he fingers explored the dark and still face of one of the men he had just been with. All the sudden the bricks turned to a terrifying tide, and he wasted no time to throw himself off the ground.

Uncomfortable and uncoordinated he tossed himself up and to the side. His awareness failed, and he quickly fell back to the ground, clambering over the bodies and pools of blood as he struggled to get himself to his feet. His head spun and he felt weak. His world shrunk around him, narrowing out to only himself and the bodies.

Slipping across a pool of blood he managed to pull himself up. Stumbling against the cold wet stone of the wall. He climbed up, hugging the stone as he cried out in fear. “I- I- I-” he babbled, “No- No. I didn't do this. I- I need to get out of here.” he stammered. Turning for the road, heart beating like a machine gun in his chest. He wasn't a step out before something grabbed him and threw him against the wall.

“I didn't!” he screamed out, “Don't!”

“What if I do?” a voice said, low and cold. It carried a heavy oriental ring.

“B-because I'm not worth it.” Semyon cringed, “God damn it. Please don't.”

“I need information.” the man said.

“Then I don't have it.” Semyon moaned. He wormed off from the wall. Only for the man to grab hold of him again and slam him against the wall. He hissed as pain split through his skull as it recontacted with the rough brick work.

“Jesus!” he barked, “You fucking psycho, man. What do you want?”

“Information.”

“On what, my cache? Fucking tell me what!” Seymon demanded. His head was a rattle of broken glass, and the back throbbed with volcanic pain.

“I'm looking for someone.”

“Shit I see a lot of someones you fucking celestial!” Seymon spat, “Who?”

“Goes by the name Gabriel.” Jun sneered, leaning in close on the drug dealer. He rank of alcohol, fearful piss, and sweat.

“G-Gabriel?” Seymon stammered, “I- I don't know a Gabriel. And you wouldn't want to know! That man has some issues, and no one knows where he comes and goes.”

“And what of Wraith?” Jun demanded.

“Fuck you talking about? Those bastards following the guy with the horse head? Shit, I don't get into that you fucking chink. I just deal dope is all!”

“Then you'll know someone who knows.” Jun growls.

“No man, this isn't worth it.” Seymon grumbled, squirming and trying to find a way out. His daft attempt at escaping was brought to a pause as the long cold metal of a blade was brought to his neck. He could feel the still-warm trickle of blood. His breathing froze. What breath he could draw quivered weakly as he faintly drew back his neck from the sharp bite of the blade.

“I'll gut you you here as I did your comrades.” Jun demanded, pressing the sword to Seymon's throat. He whimpered at the closing nibble of the Chinese blade.

“Go ahead. I don't got nothing to say. Alive or dead.”

The maodao hovered at his throat. Jun contemplated slitting it there and ending it. He was lingering in the alley too long, and he wasn't sure when the door would open again. Fleeing or moving to kill the newcomers would just give his first known lead a chance to escape.

“Perhaps I won't.” sighed Jun, lowering the sword. Not from his neck, but to the groin of his pants.

“N-now there's no n-need for this!” Seymon laughed nervously. “I-I uh, I'm telling the truth. I don't know where they are. I know they're here. Those freaks with the horse heads have been in town and we've found a few men strapped dead to crosses, so Gabriel is in.

“T-the man who makes me crystal, he knows!” Seymon wailed pleading, “Just not there. I'll give you his name, apartment! Alexondronovich Basily. Motovilikhnisky Rayon. Imeni-Lenin road. Building 14, floor 6, room 016!”

“And he knows?”

“I'm sure he should man!” Seymon squeeled, “Or something. But for christ sakes, not the penis. I use that!”

Jun drew the sword from his crotch. He held the man's face in the cold air, looking him over. With a dismissive grumble he threw the man down against the ground. His body landing in a tumbling thump against the bodies of the drunkards and junkies. Whimpering he rolled among them in the night shadows of Perm.

Chake Bay, Pemba, Ethiopia

Drums echoed in the high afternoon light as drills went underway. The sound of marching boot steps accompanied the beat, accompanied by the shrill brassy rings of cymbols. Even more distantly the pops of rifle fire from the range wafted along the cool sea-side breeze. Beyond that the distance muffled the sound of a descending airplane, it being only evident on the horizon as a faint light-gray shape descending from the sky.

Cut off the routine drills, the back veranda of the officer's quarter was a world away from itself. It looked down on the bay the operational outpost was named for. Its crystal blue waters lapping languidly against the pearl-white sands of the shore. Flocks of gulls – long accustomed to the sounds of Chinese operation – flew between the rocks and the swaying palms below. Squabbling flocks darted along the sands, competing with several other birds for the hunt for crabs or a place to sun themselves while the afternoon was full of light. Often times Deizhi Cao would sit on the porch in the comfort of wicker chairs, sipping tea in meditation. Or drawing the birds as they came up to the porch railings. But now things had changed.

The thirty-eight year old officer sat against the back of the chair. His face sunken in with murky worry. A dark cloud loomed in the north. Far beyond his gaze and the formal extent of his informal kingdom. A Spanish behemoth went to war, swinging with the force of iron against the African lion. He could sit there and listen to the reports on the radio all day. But the circumstances never changed, and neither did his feelings on the matter. He was afraid. Deeply so. He was afraid of the Ottomans, and they were swept up; the Africans had made amazing ground against them.

But shouldn't that validate them? To some terrified degree it didn't. The Ottomans were of a dying breed, suffering from necrosis on the inside. Their body stretched far too thin over far too many peoples. They made too many enemies at home to ever expect to be as effective as Suleiman had hoped. So it was no surprise that for all the glitz and glamour and might the ancient Empire had postured itself as having that it was all a facade that too quickly burned. Though primitive, the Empire of the Ethiopia had its youth and its energy behind it.

Spain was rightly similar, in a sense. Though a character on the world stage for centuries it was the newest in the old powers to reclaim the title as a major world player. It had youth, but it also had experience. It could effectively mobilize its resources. Bureaucratically manage its hate. Where on the other hand Ethiopia was but a young teenager, fighting out with its strength but with no practice. It had flailed the Turks to death with its fists, but Spain would just wear it out. He didn't believe in the theories the Spaniards would just be drowned in the Ethiopian highlands. They'd work around. And then he – and more importantly: China – would be out of a playing card.

Cao might be a coward, but he wasn't a moron. He knew how important Ethiopia was in the long-run for China. It was an ally close to Europe, a check against their conservatism. If under more active foreign policies they would have turned it over to a barrier against European ambition, but Hou and the Congress failed to realize this. Cao had learned this during his time here.

His face turned up as he heard the door open. Stepping out onto the porch was Sen Zhou. She was shorter than most, but by no means a weak woman. Years younger than he, but acted many years more older. In a surreal way when not acting as a right-hand, she was a drill sergeant of sorts. The straight face of Cao. Where he showed cowardice, she showed bravery. He apprehension, she energetic bravado and an almost cruel necessity. He had not fought, she had fought hard. Her record was well worth the position.

On this afternoon though, she wore no face. She looked down at the commander. Her round feminine face not framed by the long hair of her contemporaries. She wore her feminine self almost the same way as men theirs. Her uniform open to the white top underneath. Firm breasts held up in her bra.

“I'm not going to like it, am I?” Cao asked, dropping his gaze to the ocean view.

“You're not.” his lieutenant replied, “May I have a seat?” she asked.

“Go ahead.” he invited, waving his hand. She bowed modestly. Pulling over a chair and sitting at the small wooden table kept there.

“Beijing's not withdrawing us.” she said plainly, breaking the silence before it could begin, “And they don't even want us on the island. As soon as the situation demands of us we're relocating to Addis to assist in securing the capital. The remnants of the 2nd Beijing Flight squadron are coming down as we speak, they'll arrive here, and presumably we'll redeploy from there.

“Chake Bay will most likely be turned over to the local Pemba garrison in our absence. They didn't say for how long that'll be.”

“We're going for the long run then.” Deizhi Cao wavered, “Do the men know?”

“They're no doubt aware of something.” Zhou laughed, “You can't hide the Spanish have invading, and even the shallow minded ones know we'll be forced to respond. Addis or Beijing won't bide us being here forever as something goes on. We'll either be withdrawn to save ourselves, or thrown in to protect their lovey-dovey relationship. Or its face.

“Cao, I do think you're going to have to take your first life soon.”

Dezhi had no response. He continued to look down at the birds of the beach, with a blank distant expression. Perhaps it was by not being a part of combat that for so long he'd remained youthful. But in the mornings since the news broke he started to notice the fine lines of stress ringing his eyes. And his round face became more haggard.

“What was it like for you?” he asked suddenly.

“Was what like?” Zhou asked, “Service? Sex? Killing? You know we're not at liberty to discuss one of the three.”

Cao cracked a strained smile. His voice stressed tight he replied: “Killing. What was your first kill like? Real kill.”

Zhou nodded. “I can't remember.” she said, biting her lip, “I mangled many in Mindanao during the war there. But to be honest, it was my knife to their balls or their hatchet or club to my face. Philippines – or Mindanao to a greater extent – has sort of blurred that sort of thing for me. I can't remember how I felt the first time I really shot someone, and I knew.

“But it was on Taiwan...” she started hesitantly, her voice shuddering, “Some young Japanese kid. I still wore my hair long then, or longer as far as regulation goes. But no one knew how to handle mixed combat brigades then, so there was no formality. But I can remember the look on his face before I shot him in the chest, had just pushed out over a blockade south of Taipei. Shit thought I was from some magazine or something, paused almost and face went red; like I was the first woman he saw in years.

“Then he was dead. I had to move on after, so I couldn't be sure who – or what – he was. I was under the command of Shaoqiang Wuzong then, and I happened to watch him have the Japanese administration and command in the city executed as soon as he found them. Some of which personally, himself. All I remember was feeling so damned cold, and complaining about how humid the air was. A storm I think was coming in that day.

“If you want some reconciliation, I really can not give it to you.” she frowned, adding.

“Right...” Cao mumbled.

“But listen,” she said, leaning back comfortably into the wicker chair, “either way you got to stop being such a fucking bitch. We'll get through this the same way as we did the Ottomans, and they basically had us locked down in that Arab shit hole.”

30,000 meters

The muffled hum of the jet engines pierced through the hull of the aircraft. Digging through the light-weight metal hull to become a constant tidal moan. Even under neath headphones the mechanical static of the engine noise was an intrusive constant. As much as the cold was, even through a thick full-body flight jump suit and face protection.

The fleight instruments hung somewhere in the green as they flew along. All sorts of baubles indicating air pressure and fuel read well. And even their angle to the horizon was respectable. But all this was an issue to the constant at which they flew. Straight ahead with no deviation. And the dark, open sky ahead displayed in the same lighted brilliance the pure emptiness of being above the clouds. The pilots had long lost their feelings for the nauseating vertigo of peering upwards and outwards to the blending bands of blue into black.

“Location confirmation?” a voice said over the radios, infused with crackling static.

“We passed over the Rub al' Khali fifteen minutes ago, I think.” another responded in the same manner, “I think the Red Sea is coming up below us.”

“Copy that.” replied the navigator. After a brief pause he spoke up again: “Comrades, we're entering into hot airspace.”

“Copy that.” the pilot said into the radio, “Get ready comrades, we don't know what will happen from here.”

He sat up from his seat, trying to peer out over the long pointed nose of the aircraft. A sort of morbid curiosity playing on him. But he could find nothing but the long gray nose of the GHH. He sat back down to a light tapping on his shoulder, from his co pilot.

He looked over to him. His face mask unfastened from his helmet, it hung to the side, held gently in one hand as he held it close to his mouth. Just enough for fresh warm air to come out. But not so much it'd come into interference with the radio. Clean comms. He mouth to his superior to do likewise, miming to move aside one speaker of his headphone.

“What is it!?” the pilot shouted. His ears filled with the loud roar of cold air sweeping over the body of the airplane, and the roar of its engines.

“I don't want to scare the others,” the copilot started, looking back to the navigator's station behind him, “But I want to ask, what happens if the Spanish find us out?”

This question struck the pilot back. Personally, he had thought very little of it. Through preparation he had fought to drown out the idea they'd even know, let alone respond. They just flew too high. But like a snake the hidden fears the Spanish could respond came back.

“We're outfitted if something happens.” the pilot responded.

“With what!?” the copilot said, shocked, “A glass dome modified for taking pictures out of? Do you expect our turret operator to photograph Spanish interceptors to death?

“I'm just wondering, you know. Because this isn't the fastest bird to fly. That's for sure.”

“We're thirty-thousand meters up!” the pilot reminded, “I- I'm sure we're fine. Most normal engines fail well before here. Inteligence says the Spanish probably do not have the means!”

“Yea, but what if they're wrong?” the copilot asked, face pale, “What if they can? We can't survive the fall. No one knows how the body even reacts if it falls from this high. S-shit, the sea could kill us the moment we make contact.

“Melons explode when they hit concrete. What do people do? Will we even exist.”

The pilot breathed heavily. He couldn't let the topic bug him. He needed to stay focused. “We'll see how this flight goes!” he ordered, “Put your mask back on, we'll talk about it when we land.”

Natchez, Mississippi

James Calhoun stood in front of the full-length mirror in his bedroom. He wore one of his best suits without a single hair or thread out of place. The suit was a muted brown and had a matching bowtie that complimented his dark brown skin. He had better suits he wore to church, but those were more colorful. Those suits could be seen as gaudy, to the people he would speak to they would see it as proof that he was “uppity.”For today’s task James needed to appear humble to the point of subservient. He was forty-two, born and raised in Mississippi. He knew how to act in front of white people.

“You’re a glutton for punishment, aren’t you?”

James turned from the mirror to look at Whitney. His wife of twenty years stared at him with a look that most people would mistake as impassivity. He could read the sadness and disappointment behind her aloof front.

“Baby, I gotta do it. I don’t care how many times they turn me away; they have to see that it won’t be enough.”

Whitney stepped forward and placed her hands on his chest. They were rough hands, hands that had scrubbed other people’s floors for over twenty years, hands that had changed the diapers of dozens of little white children over the years while her own three children were at home missing her. James placed his own callused hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. She was still that beautiful woman he had married after college just with a little more lines in her face. For his part, he was tubbier and much grayer than he had been back then.

She kissed him and wished him luck before he left the house and walked across the yard to his pickup truck. James looked out across the field to where his two sons were busy with their afternoon chores amidst the cotton plants that were slowly beginning to flower. Just a few more weeks before the snowy white cotton would break free of the buds. David, his youngest son, waved when he saw his father staring.

“Good luck!” he yelled across the field. “They say the sixth time’s the charm!”

James laughed before getting into his truck and leaving. A few miles down the road he pulled over and picked up a waiting hitchhiker. Will Johnson climbed into the truck dressed in an equally respectable suit. The two men exchanged pleasantries while James drove a few more miles and picked up a middle-aged black woman in a plumb dress.

“Mrs. Tillman,” James said with a nod as Will scooted over to let the old lady into the cab. “How are you this afternoon?”

“I’m very good, I prayed beforehand that we would be successful today. I believe He has heard me and will grant us victory today. God is good all the time.”

James and Will shared knowing looks. The two men were weekly church-goers at the local AME church, but nobody else they attended with was quite like Mrs. Tillman. The old widow would occasionally speak in tongues, something that had scared James’ children when they were little. They drove from the country into Natchez proper, a drive that took less than ten minutes. There was barely any traffic in the sleepy little town that afternoon. There was few and far between that worked in town, most of the jobs in the factories were outside of town or across the river in Louisiana. The parking lot beside the Adams County Courthouse was half full, but nearly all the Colored Only marked lots were full. James managed to pull his truck into one of the last free ones for them. From there they went up the backed entrance to the courthouse, up rickety steps that had to be climbed slowly due to Mrs. Tillman’s bad back. Finally they made their way to the registrar’s office.

Mack Taylor scowled when he saw the three black people enter his office. He sighed and rolled his eyes as James and the others approached the counter.

“Back again?” he asked harshly.

“Yes, sir,” James replied with a polite nod.

“Y’all may not have much brains, but you make up for it with stubbornness.”

James felt Will tighten up beside him. James just smiled and nodded again.

“Yes, sir, we figured wouldn’t hurt to try to get registered to vote just one more time.”

Taylor wordlessly took three large stacks of forms from behind the counter and laid them on the surface. There was one stack for James, one for Will, and one for Mrs. Tillman.

“Fill these out. In triplicate, that means three times.”

Mrs. Tillman snapped open her large, plumb colored handbag, and passed the two men pencils. They knew from past experience that Taylor wouldn’t provide them with pencils and neither would any of the county employees at the courthouse. They spent nearly a half-hour filling out all their personal information, despite the fact they had filled the same forms out every time they went to register.

“Now time for the literacy test,” Taylor said, laying three tests on the counter. He looked at the clock on the wall to his right, waiting until the little hand passed the twelve. “You have ten minutes to complete the sixteen question test. Failure to complete it in that time will result in failure. One wrong answer will constitute failure. Begin… now.”
James looked down at the test in front of him. It was different than the last test he’d taken, they were scared of them remembering the questions between tests, but he knew the general nature of most of the questions:

1. Draw a circle around the first first letter of the alphabet that appears in this line.
2. Draw a line around the last word in this line.
3. Spell backwards, forwards
….
10. Write right from the left to the right as you see it spelled here.
…
15. Multiply: 2x(2x-12)
16. Multiply: (7x+3)(2x+6)

James finished the test and looked up at the clock. He had just a minute to spare. Will and Mrs. Tillman still had a few more questions to go. It was easier for James than the other two since he had managed to get a fair education at Alcorn State. Will had never finished school, and he wasn’t sure if Mrs. Tillman had even gone to school. He’d been tutoring them for the weeks leading up to the test, but James was seeing that it hadn’t been enough.

“Time,” Taylor announced the moment the little hand finished its tenth lap. Will blew and shook his head at James. His test was two answers shy of being complete. Mrs. Tillman had finished, but James could see at least two wrong answers on her sheet.

“Fail,” Taylor said when he saw Will’s incomplete test.

“Fail,” he said after scanning Mrs. Tillman’s test.

He picked up James’ test and started to look over it. James saw Taylor’s eyes darting down to something behind the desk every so often before looking back up at the test. From the way Taylor’s eyes moved, James figured he went through it two or three times before looking at him.

“Fail. Y’all come back again.”

“Wait, how’d I fail?”

“You just did. Y’all come back in a month or two to take it again.”

“Tell me which one I failed,” James said. He could feel his agitation starting to bubble up. “I mean, specifically.”

“Alright…. Number… 16. The last one here, see?”

“Yes,” James said polite enough. “My answer is right, or at least I think it is. I used the FOIL method, Mr. Taylor. That’s what I’m supposed to do there, right? What’s the answer?”

Taylor looked at James like he had just insulted his mother.

“Your answer is wrong. End of story. Now, y’all need to leave right now.”

“Can you tell me the answer, Mr. Taylor?” James asked, again not raising his voice. “Or is that answer key you got behind that desk saying that my answer is right?”

“Can you do the FOIL method, Mr. Taylor?” Will asked this time, keeping his anger in check. “Do you know what algebra even is, sir?”

“Leave,” Taylor said softly. “Leave right now, boy, or I will call the sheriff’s office and we’ll see how much of a smart-ass you are when you’re spitting out teeth.”

*****

“Bullshit,” Will roared once they were back in the pick-up truck.

“Language,” James said, looking at Mrs. Tillman.

“It is bullshit,” said the elderly lady. “Fucking bullshit is what it was. You’re the smartest man I know, James, and you’re sure as hell smarter than any of those white men that run the county, and they still won’t let you vote. Lord forgive me, but it is a damn tragedy is what it is.”

James stayed silent while Will and Mrs. Tillman complained about their treatment at the registrar’s office. He focused on the road and thought about what he would say to Whitney and the boys, let alone look his youngest daughter Sarah in the eye. Sarah was taking classes at Alcorn State like he had, she spent many nights at his dinner table talking about social justice for negroes in the South. The boys and Whitney had let her be, but the way she spoke had motivated James into finally trying to register. To keep trying and keep failing… it just… there were no words.

He headed home after dropping Will and Mrs. Tillman off. His pickup was loud enough going down the driveway that the whole family was there to meet him. He got out of the truck and shook his head as he walked up on the porch.

“Daddy,” Sarah said softly. “I’m so sorry.”

She hugged him and he felt like he was going to cry.

“Don’t be sorry. Be mad, baby. I got everything right and they still wouldn’t register me.”

“Really?”

“Yes. They threw every trick they had at me and I beat them fair and square and they still told me to go home.”

Sarah bit her bottom lip and stared at her feet. James knew that look well because both his daughter and wife made the same look when they thought of something and was unsure to say it.

“What?”

“A couple of my friends from school… we’re going to Jackson tomorrow night to see this man speak. He’s been traveling around the South, they call him the Ethiopian. He’s been talking about Negro rights. I want you to come and tell all the people there what’s happening here.”

James found himself at a loss for words. He didn’t want to get up and speak in front of a bunch of folks. That wasn’t him, he wasn’t an agitator. He’d been keeping to himself for years, this foray into voting was not him… but he looked down at his daughter and he realized why he was doing it. He was doing it for her, for Matt, for David.

“Sure. I’ll go with you and I’ll speak.”

Vancouver

“Welcome to the Friends of Northwest Sovereignty.”

Arthur looked around the small room. The dimly lit basement had a half dozen folding chairs in it, only half of those had people in it. There was Alex, a large man with a scraggly beard, and a petite redhead who kept a permanent playful smirk on her face. From upstairs, the distant thump of music reminded Arthur of the party going on upstairs. He had been there just a few minutes earlier, standing awkwardly in a corner until Alex found him.

“What’s…”

“We’re a political action group,” Alex said with a wink. “Joanna, Chris, and I were all in the same political science class and we just sort of came together, had the same views on a lot of things.”

“And the name of the group? What’s that mean?”

“What do you think it means?” grumbled Chris. “We want to see the NWC back as its own country.”

“A few bad apples spoiled the bunch,” said Joanna. “Seattle was a tragedy, but it was also an excuse to further American imperialism. Our politicians and military erred by getting into the war but that does not mean we deserve to be forced into the United States.”

Alex stood up and walked around the basement while he spoke. Arthur found he could not keep his eyes off him as he spoke.

“We’ve tried to hold protest and boycotts on campus and around Vancouver, but nobody shows up and nobody cares. All they remember is the war and the collapse after the war. They don’t remember the good times, the strong times. They all prostrate themselves before the US in the name of getting government food and used television sets. ”

Arthur felt his excitement growing as Alex spoke. For years now, he had felt the same way about the whole mess with the war and annexation, but he was too afraid to even breathe a word to anyone he knew. Now here he was, with people who felt the same way he did. They were young and passionate and sympathetic.

“The time for us trying to do this our old way has passed,” Alex continued. “We need to get more dramatic.”

“How?” Arthur asked. “In what way?”

“Alex told us you’re an engineering student,” Joanna said. She leaned forward in her seat and brushed her long, red hair from her face. Arthur looked into her green eyes and felt a twinge somewhere. “We like you, Arthur… I like you. We want you to be part of our group… but we need help with something. We need you to build something.”

Port Said, Egypt

Francisco de le Cal Delgado crouched behind what remained of a low stonewall, his chest was heaving with every breath from the run across the small open space a few yards away. Two bodies lay crumpled in the open, one in Spanish uniform, the other in the now familiar garb of Ethiopia.

The fighting had stalled here. An initial rush to take the square had been halted by, and Delgado still wasn’t sure if he’d seen right, a woman. She had dropped two of his soldiers before a bullet dropped her and she was pulled to safety by another soldier. The surprise of the attack had quickly worn off and while the Brigada Internacional had successfully driven the Ethiopians back from the Canal, they were now having to fight house by house, street by street.

His breathing had slowed now though his left eye still twitched uncontrollably for some reason and he tried blinking hard to clear it with no luck. A quick check of his weapon ensured he still had a full clip in his weapon. Slowly, ever so slowly, he looked around the corner of the wall. Darkness had blanketed the land and the only light came from the remains of several burning buildings and trucks. He looked for movement.

For a moment nothing showed itself but then he saw something shift, a shadow deeper and darker than the shadow around it. He almost stopped breathing as he stared at the spot. The shadow moved again.

In one fluid motion he rolled onto his left knee, sighted and fired. A man screamed and the shadow vanished. Then the whole world lit up as a wall of steel appeared to his left. The Aksum, making its run for the sea. It seemed as though every mortar or small arm the Ethiopians possessed now opened fire on the big ship, completely careless if it gave away their position or not. It was an all or nothing moment and he everyone knew it.

Delgado leapt up, screaming to be heard over the din, and waving his men forward. Shadows all along the streets and in windows came alive as gunfire drowned out all other noise.

He was running, halting only to fire quick bursts into small groups of Ethiopian or Arab soldiers. Twice he came across mortar teams that had abandoned their positions to try and fire directly on Aksum as it raced past. In each case he shot the man loading and then killed the others as they reached for their personal weapons. In one case he fired just as the man dropped the round into the mortar and it fell sideways with him, the shell slamming into a nearby building and bringing it crashing down into the street.

Something buzzed past his ear and he spun with it, catching sight of a kneeling Ethiopian soldier who grimaced as he missed, worked the action of the rifle he was holding and took aim again. Where he had got the rifle from, Delgado would never know, maybe a dead Arab, it didn’t matter. He brought up his own weapon and sprayed a line of bullets towards the other man. Two hit him, one in the foot, the second in his arm and he was down.

The Ethiopians bullet also hit its target, slamming so hard into Delgados helmet that he dropped to the pavement, stunned. The shot probably saved his life as a group of Ethiopians burst from a nearby alley to counter attack, running past him in the darkness.

He opened his mouth to cry out when the world shook, a shockwave from huge explosion, driving the air from his lungs as it slammed through the city. For a moment there was silence, almost as if the explosion had reminded everyone of just how bad things could get.

Then a machine gun fired, a flare arced into the sky, and the Ethiopians were retreating. They had failed to block the Suez Canal and now, their shouts loud in the night, Spanish reinforcements stormed into the City.

The Ethiopians went back, the Spanish went forward, and Delgado, still breathless on the ground found that he could not see. He was blind.

Buenos Aires, Argentina

A world away from the blood and screams of Port Said the Republic of Argentina was bathed in the warm glow of late afternoon sunshine. As was typical with this time of year, it was hot, brutally hot so that tourists sweated away in their air conditioned hotels and locals made their way to small underground bars where the suns heat was negated by the cool stone walls.

Despite the heat the streets of Buenos Aires still buzzed with the sound of traffic. For many it had been another perfect day in the Republic. Few indeed had seen better days. The economy was stable and rising so for the first time in many generations everyone had a bit of spending money. It was a new feeling for many, especially those from the countryside who arrived in the city with eyes wide in wonder, more than a few would get hit by racing city drivers, but that was the price of progress.

In the countryside, further from the coast, men sweated under the sun as they laid out long lines of rail track and smoothed asphalt for new highways. New industries sprang up in regions that had only ever known poverty and for the Delgado family the new wealth of an emerging middle class had been a boon.

For a hundred years they had worked a small vineyard near the foot Aconcagua, the tallest of all mountains in the Western hemisphere. As the economy grew and the wealthy elite had looked for the finer things in life they had found the small vineyard and discovered in it and excellent red wine. One man even bought the vineyards entire supply for a year. That money alone had allowed the Delgados to expand their operations and now, as their son fought and killed in a foreign land, they had taken ownership of the largest vineyards in Mendoza Province.

Their story was not unusual in this new age of prosperity. People flush with money they had not had before were spending more on luxury goods from around South America and seeing themselves in a new century, Argentina’s Century they called it.

News of the war in Africa had of course been long in coming and local newsmen had jumped at the chance to report on the Brigada Internacional and the young farm boy who had led the beach attack on Port Said. Details were slow in coming and sketchy at best but it did not matter, the imagination of a nation was being captured by this young man who had no idea what effect his actions would have on the course of Argentine history.

The reports had also caught the attention of men in uniform, men of high rank who had been watching the conflict with great interest. All knew that Argentina had a burning national pride but only those in power knew truly how far they would go to achieve greatness.

It was on that hot afternoon, his face to the setting sun, that the President-General wrote several idle musings on the corner of his napkin as he enjoyed a cold beer. Condor Legion. For now it was but words a dream, in the months to come it would become a reality and it would lay the groundwork for Argentina’s rise on the world stage.

Washington, DC

Secretary of State Lillian Mather read the latest diplomatic dispatches while her limo sped down Pennsylvania Avenue towards the White House. The Asian and Middle Eastern messages were the most important; they encompassed updates on the wars raging in those respective theaters. The US diplomatic and intelligence presence abroad wasn’t much, but her people did their job well and kept her constantly updated on the ever-shifting geopolitical landscape.

She wanted the State Department running at its best because she wanted to prove her detractors wrong. Lillian was the first female cabinet secretary and that drew a lot of ire from the beltway insiders. People were all for a woman running the Department of the Interior or Education, low-level posts that didn’t require much responsibility, but to have a woman as Secretary of State, the nation’s chief diplomat? That was unthinkable. What if some fit of womanly emotion overcame her during an important summit meeting? She could make the country look weak or worse start a war because she didn’t have the intelligence of composure of a man. In her best diplomatic language, Lillian thought those people could go fuck themselves.

This year marked her twentieth year in the diplomatic field. From political science professor, to State Department policy wonk, to diplomat, she had done just about every type of job State had to offer. Before getting tabbed to be Secretary of State her crowning moment had been the negotiations of the peace treaty with Canada that ended the second North American War. If anybody looked at their record and still had reservations about a woman running State then they were a misogynist of the highest order.
Lillian tucked the documents under her arm and exited the limo once it came to a stop. She followed behind a White House staffer and a Secret Service agent, her own bodyguard matching her gait stride for stride.

“Madam Secretary,” Vice President Russell Reed said as soon as Lillian entered the Oval Office. “Have a seat; he’ll be here in just a minute.”
Reed smiled as he stood from the couch facing the president’s desk. They shook hands quickly before sitting back down. Lillian took a seat beside him. The vice president stretched out and smiled at her.

“We haven’t spoken since your confirmation hearing, so I owe you belated congratulations.”

“I’m just glad you weren’t chairing the committee still. I have no doubt you would have put me through the paces.”

They shared a polite laugh. The two Washington insiders knew each other very well in a professional sense. In all Lillian’s years working in foreign relations Reed had been there right alongside her, first in the House and then in the Senate. He was perhaps the only person in the administration who knew as much about foreign affairs as she did. Both long-time serving Washingtonians joining the neophyte President Norman’s cabinet was seen as a boon for the general. The thing Lillian still couldn’t wrap her head around was the vice president’s decision to leave the Senate to be Norman’s running mate. The tongue wagging inside the Beltway was furious. The obvious answer was that the vice presidency was to be a launching pad for a White House run in eighty-eight. But could Reed afford four years in the president’s shadow, eight if Norman was reelected. He had a stellar record as Senate Majority Leader… but by the time he ran that would be old news. The only way he could avoid fading into obscurity was doing what he appeared to be doing now and act as a close and prominent adviser to the president, but that lasted as long as Norman allowed it. One slip and he could be forced into the cold. Whatever game Reed was playing, Lillian was certain it was a risky one with a razor-thin margin of error.

“Congratulations to you as well, Mr. Vice President. I saw where the bill to nationalize NEWI went through the House without a hitch. Your protégée seems to be picking up where you left off when it comes to running the House.”

“Clay doesn’t mess around when it comes to legislation, especially White House backed legislation. The House was the easy part, now comes the Senate. Getting those mules to pass anything is a tall order.”

“But I know who can get it done,” a voice said from the doorway. President Norman entered with a smirk on his face. “If there’s anyone who knows all the senator’s dirty little secrets, it’s the vice president.”

“I only know where some of the bodies are buried, Mr. President,” Reed said as he and Lillian stood.

“Just the ones you buried yourself, right?” Norman asked with a chuckle.

“I’ll never tell, sir.”

The President shook Lillian’s hand and urged both her and Reed to take a seat while he read the diplomatic dispatches she had couriered over. They remained silent while Norman read the papers with a pair of reading glasses on his face.

“The fighting in the Suez is worse than I imagined,” he finally said, putting the papers down and removing his reading glasses. “CIA is reporting the same things all across Africa. It brings up a reason why I wanted this meeting. You speak French don’t you, Madam Secretary?”

“Oui.”

“Détente,” said Reed. “What’s that French for?”

“Relaxation. What does it mean besides that?”

“I want détente to be this administration’s foreign affairs policy,” said the President. “The world is still not happy about the annexation of the NWC. We need to move past that and get back on good terms with the powers. Where would you start, Madam Secretary?”

“China. They’re the largest superpower right now, and with Spain and Ethiopia at each other’s throats they’re the only ones we can strengthen ties with and not get dragged into a war.”

“They’re at war, too,” Reed said in a lazy tone. “Let’s not forget that.”

“It’s not a war that we need to concern ourselves with,” Lillian said matter-of-factly. “They don’t need our help.”

President Norman stood from his chair and walked to the front of his desk, leaning against it to talk to his two advisers. “Lillian, what I want to do is reach out to China and appeal to their pragmatism.”

Reed ticked points off with his fingers. “We’re two of the largest land powers in the world; they’re the biggest economical power in Asia while our annexations of the NWC and the NER have turned us into the top economic power in the hemisphere. True, we have distanced ourselves from socialism, but we need to move past ideologies and look at the fact that a US-China partnership benefits both sides immensely.”

“I think it’s easier for us to call for pragmatic thinking when we’re the weaker party. China can afford to stay on the ideological high ground because we need their support if we want to step up on the world stage. But I think those ideas are at least good enough to get some kind of dialogue going with them. How do you want to handle this, Mr. President?”

“Strictly backchannel for the moment,” Norman said. “Quietly get in touch with Ambassador Dorn in Beijing, see if he can get the Chinese to at least agree to a meeting with an envoy from the administration.”

Lillian slowly nodded before she finally spoke.

“Okay. It’s a start. I’ll see what I can do.”

Jackson, Mississippi

The First AME Church of Jackson had standing room only that night. James Calhoun stood near the back of the church with his daughter Sarah and a group of her friends. They made the drive up from Natchez in James’ truck, four people wedged into the cab while three others rode on the back. He was twenty years older than everyone on the trip, and as such felt like the group’s designated grownup. Even now in the church, he was one of the older people here. Many of them were kids not much older than Sarah and his sons, but there were a few who appeared to be in high school.

A still overcame the crowd and James could see movement down the center aisle. He stood on his tiptoes and saw a lone figure moving among the people heading towards the pulpit. A young black man who appeared to be in his mid-twenties stood behind the podium and gazed out at the crowd with a calm demeanor on his face. He wore an immaculate black suit, a crisp white shirt, and a black tie. He was what people around here would call light-skinned with a dotting of freckles around his eyes.

“My name is Isaiah Wolde,” he spoke in a rich baritone voice that carried through the church. “I am an Ethiopian. I was an American, born in South Carolina with the name Jason McCray. I left this country as part of the Ethiopian Airlift. I have spent almost ten years in Africa, I changed my name and I converted to Islam.”

A bristle went up in the crowd at the mention of Islam. Wolde let it pass before continuing.

“I rejected this country and its way of life because I saw the truth overseas. I lived in an Empire, not a nation or a country, but an Empire created by Africans for Africans. I was no second-class citizen there, there were no ‘whites only’ or ‘colored only’ signs in the city I called home, there was no one to call Negroes ‘uppity’ for wishing to better themselves. Ethiopia frightens the people of the South, they see an empire ran by non-whites and they run for cover. I have received Allah’s blessing, and He has called me back home, to this country of my birth with a specific mission. It has been almost one hundred and forty years since the slave was freed here in the United States, but still the Negro struggles for freedom, struggles for basic things that should have been given to him years ago. I am here to tell you that the time for asking is over, it is now the time for demanding. The time for politeness is over. They keep us down because they are afraid of us… well, perhaps we should give them something to really be afraid of.”
Wolde took a moment to take a sip from the glass of water on the podium while the crowd applauded.

“I am told we have a James Calhoun in the crowd who had a recent problem. Mister Calhoun, could you please come forward.”
James looked at Sarah with wide eyes while she beamed. With the help of her friends, she pushed James forward into the crowd and got him walking towards the pulpit. His feet felt like lead as he climbed up beside Wolde, his hand was limp as they shook hands.

“Please, Mister Calhoun, share your story to the people here.”

“My…, my name is James—“

“Louder!” someone shouted. “Can’t hear you in the back!”

“My name is James Calhoun,” he said again. “I… I am a farmer from Natchez. For… for the past three months, me and two of my neighbors have been trying to register to vote…”

He relayed his stories to the group, from being denied pencils to fill out their forms, to the complicated and confusing questions on the literacy test, to the day before when James had passed the test but was still denied his right by a white man who couldn’t even pass the test. The more he spoke, the more comfortable he felt. The crowd helped to egg him on by reacting to his story with indignation towards the white people of Adams County and sympathy towards James and his friends. When he finished, he looked towards Wolde who smiled and nodded before stepping back up to take James’ place at the podium.

“Thank you for sharing your story. Mister Calhoun’s story is one of many Negroes across the country. Here in the South it is the worst, but every day the Negro faces an uphill battle. The President talks big about an American Dream and an American Century, but whose dream and century is he talking about? Not our dream, not our century. The Negro American Dream is apparently to sit down, shut up, and know your place; The Negro American Century will be us quietly standing to the side and smiling while the white folks make the decisions. We must show them that we have been pushed to our breaking point. This is why I am calling for a general boycott and protests in Adams County, Mississippi. The place that has seen fit to rob our Negro brothers of their dignity and right to vote will be the first battle in the war of civil rights, the final emancipation of the slave.”

The crowd broke out into a fit of cheers, applause, and wolf whistles while Wolde calmly nodded. Off to his side, James watched the crowd uneasily. These people could talk about coming to Natchez and starting protests and boycotts and a war… but none of them lived there. A sense of dread settled into his stomach as he watched Wolde fire the crowd up even further.

Highlands outside of Adrigrat, Ethiopia

Ras Rais watched from horseback, feeling the unfiltered mountain sun warm the neatly starched fabric of his uniform. A cavalry saber hung in its scabbard, resting on the side of his horse so that he felt its pommel pressing against his belly. A mounted aide was at his side, lazily holding a staff displaying a forked banner in the Ethiopian colors: green, yellow, and red. He had always respected the aspects of military life that established discipline and stern professionalism in soldiers. He liked the aesthetic of the thing too - the kempt uniforms, the sight of a unit on the march, people identified by unit number. It was an organizing force, and that organization kept him at ease.

He could not help to feel out of place here, as he watched villagers dressed in homespun white loiter along the road, watching, praying, and shouting. Several of the men labored to help his soldiers push an aging howitzer out of a rut. They had brought draft horses to pull the weapon, but they had become a hindrance here. Women and children fed the unlimbered horses. Some admired the howitzer, rubbing their fingers to feel the rough brown-green paint, and the cold steel beneath. A couple of the women slid leather-strung kitabs and crosses over the barrel - symbols of their superstitions, and their fear. Seeing their religious trinkets reminded how different he, a Muslim Somali, was from these people.

Rais was unsure about their plans here. The highlands held most of old Abyssinia's population, but the most potent industrial city was Addis Ababa. To the south-east, the deserts of the Afar Depression posed and obstacle for invaders, where dry flatlands stretched for miles and temperatures rarely dropped below 100 °F. Historically, this had created a barrier against invaders, but the modern stretch of paved roads had changed that.

Damn the roads.

It hadn't taken him long to understand that their modernized system of roads gave the Spanish an advantage. They were more mechanized, and undoubtedly more prepared for the modern styles of warfare that took cities and solid transportation networks to a level of paramount importance rarely seen in African tradition. Hassan had recognized this, and he had ordered their defenses concentrated in the highlands.

There were advantages to fighting in the mountains, Rais could not argue that. Here, where most of the people lived, Spain would have a hard time finding support. Guerrilla warfare could be waged here with the help of the locals. Also, the road-network which kept the major industrial cities connected efficiently to coastal ports was less effective in the mountains. Here, pave roads wound and took sharp turns. Many roads were dirt, like the one he was on now. Others were cow-paths, where only off-road vehicles could travel.

But he worried whether or not the military could supply itself if the capital fell. Without the industry of the cities, or the steady supply of overseas trade, how would they arm themselves? Guns needed ammo, and that was something that simple villagers or tribesmen couldn't supply. They had succeeded before, in some ways, when they fought the Germans in the Civil War six years ago, but that was a different enemy, and a very different war. The Spaniards would control both fronts, and they were more prepared to do so.

His soldiers continued to trudge up hill, slowly, and carrying on their backs more than just their personnel kit. They carried equipment to prepare their defenses - tents, coils of wire and rope, boxes, metal panels, electrical equipment, and artillery shells. Their march had taken them across the rough terrain for miles in the dry highland heat, and they were tired. Rais watched them drag past, one by one, paying little attention to the gun stuck in the road. For Rais, it bothered him to see this sort of disarray. There was not enough regulation. They marched casually, only worried with their load and their sore feet beneath them. Men did not always wear the same uniform, and they rarely kept their uniforms completely on. Men marched with beards, or mustaches, or bushy hair. They slouched, and looked at their surroundings with contempt instead of diligence. Even their weapons were hardly ever the same, requiring their units to carry middling numbers of several types of ammo rather than plenty of one or two types. He knew they would use some of it to hunt - a waste they could not afford, and one he would have a hard time curtailing.

Some of these problems he would work on in the field. Uniformity would not be a realistic goal, but discipline would have to be. Both should have been enforced before, but their government was a poor one. Money had been spent on quantity, not quality. Rais despaired the unignorable reality that their Spanish foes would be better than them. They had the equipment, and the training. It would be up to the Generals to see the enemies mistakes, and to know how to exploit them.

There was another thing on their side. A thing that included the poor state of the highland roads.

From atop this ridge, he could see for miles. Thiswas Ethiopia's mountainous homeland, where most of its people lived. It was red stone-faced mountains, and thick rocky ridges. There were short, green plains dotted with brushy forests. There were meandering creeks and rivers, crossed only by small bridges and tentative fords where, when the wet season commenced, flooding would wash out most of the crossings. Across the plateaus and hillocks, hiding in every valley between every mountain, were thousands of small villages, and they would be ready to oppose any invasion of white skinned Europeans. They would be farmers, and goat herders, and priests. They would hide soldiers, and guerrillas, and under-cover Walinzi agents capable of more than simple sabotage. And this place was not unique. This war would also reach the thick jungles that hugged the Congo river, and deserts of the Sahara where rumors of Spanish atrocity across their border were already known. These places were the heart of the continent, large enough to drown most of Europe and so wild that Ethiopia held most of it only in title. This was the Fortress Africa, and it would be the greatest obstacle to the Spanish.

Rocks crunched and shifted. Rais watched as the howitzer pulled out of its trap. The horses regained a momentum. He listened as the villagers celebrated, hooping and smiling for a brief moment. Dangling from the howitzer's thick, steel neck, its new trinkets jingled.

"Ras" he heard a familiar voice, and watched as the aide of his Quartermaster General, called out. "Ras, Quartermaster Daud begs your audience. He says he had information you would like to know."

Raid took a deep, cleansing breath. The fresh air smelled like dirt and dry plants. "Yes. Where is Daud?"

"He is in the house of one of the village elders" the aide said. "I will take you to him, if you wish."

Raid nodded, and dismounted.

The village was small. Most of the buildings were simple homes; round, cobbled-stone walls with thatched roofs so thorough that they looked like they had been made by bees. There were lean-to's made of sticks, and smaller huts made out of mud, but most were the same multicolored stone. Between them, there were roughly built pens for goats and cows. On the opposite end of the village was a church. Though it had the same type of thatched roof, and was built from the same sort of stone as the other buildings, its arched doorways and simple cobbled columns gave it a peculiar, roughly Roman look.

People buzzed around the village, fascinated by the soldiers their their commander. Children stood silent, wearing traditional wrapping clothes in white and cream and beige. Some dodged around, hiding behind their elders. Others stood in place. To a few, this was a temporary distraction, and they continued playing as if nothing were any different in their lives.

The Elder's enclosure was larger than most. His house was surrounded by a stick fence, where a goat grazed in the presence of several clucking chickens. The animal smell was strong - a scent defined by piss, herbivorous shit, and a mustiness still harder to explain. Off to the side, within another fence, was a small personal garden. Rais followed the aide inside.

There was the distinct smell of candle smoke, some of it stale from gathering on the rugs that covered the dirt floor. Spices hung along strings across the walls, and added to the smell. On the furthest wall, there was a tapestry depicting Saint George slaying a serpent with a polestaff. The image had none of the complexities of western realism. It was simple, one dimensional, and wholly native.

The elder was not so old - in his fifties, maybe, though had had chose to grow a storm-grey beard. He was wrapped in a deep blue cloak, and sat at a simple wooden table with his son by his side. The son was a young man. He held a round-shield in one hand, and a Great War era German rifle in the other. Across the table from them was the Quartermaster - and Arabic man, balding, small, and wearing a uniform covered in dust. A map was splayed across the table.

Rais took off his hat, and ducked so that he missed a gourd-pot hanging from the ceiling as he walked toward them. The Quartermaster noticed him and nodded a salute. "Ras, this man has information we can't find on the map." he beckoned Rais over. "Come here, see this." When they were all around the same table, the elder pointed.

"This place here, in the valley below. There is a well here." the elder explained. "It is old, and my people prefer the one closer to us, but I do know that this well will provide." he explained. "In the time of my grandfather's grandfather, our village was further up the ridge, near here." he pointed to a place near the pinnacle of the ridge. "It was a rough place, but we had enemies because there was no unity in the country. It was easier to defend. When the rough days were gone, we moved down here."

"How do you know?" Rais asked bluntly. "Have you used it?"

"I used it when I hunted several years ago. It was not long ago, because the Emperor was still royal Yaqob. The water from that well was good. It had been many years since a drought had hit us here, and I know the water is still good."

"He showed me something else." Daud said, excited. "The topography is hard to read on this map. This area is so rough, it isn't surveyed as well as it could be. He has told me, though, that this road follows the route his people had immigrated on, but it isn't the quickest way down to the main road." he drew a line along the map, curving near where the new well was. "Erosion has made this path. We will have to look at it, but I think it might simplify our supply problem. He says there is a footpath there that we can follow. Of course, we should probably mark it."

Rais nodded. "Good. Do that." he could see how useful that would be. It could shorten supply runs by nearly half a day, and it would be harder to detect for Spaniards on the ground. Even a few hours of confusion could be enough to take dozens of enemy lives with the guns they were placing in the heights."

"We will need to take more measures to deal with enemy aircraft." he pointed out. "Do you think we could bring some smaller flak guns?"

The quartermaster grasped his chin in thought. "Maybe... those paths won't support trucks, put if we take the guns apart..."

"We are already doing that in some of the rougher locations." Rais affirmed. "It can be done."

"So we will do it." the Quartermaster replied.

Western Desert, Egypt

Leyla had spent a long time painfully suspended in and out of consciousness. Her torso revolted in pain, from the burning place in her side where she had been wounded. In her head, she heard explosions, large explosions with the force of thousands of pounds of TNT, echoing in her head. It was, after a while, like a storm thundering in her skull. She felt as if she knew where it had came from. The Aksum. She didn't remember seeing ship explode, or hearing about it. It was something she knew in the pit of her stomach. She didn't question her knowledge until she woke up.

Her body was sore. The sun was rising in the east and washed the sky in glowing stripes of color. Red, then blue, then purple. She felt the unprotected chill of the desert that surrounded her. There were no sounds of weapons discharge, nor were their signs of corpses or burning war-fires. All she sensed was the sound of trickling water, the hiss of the wind, and silence stretching as far as she knew. The silence was the best part. Even though she didn't know where she was, she was not afraid for the first time in days.

Surrounding her were a dozen or so people, all sleeping on the sand. A few were covered in blankets, or wrapped up in sleeping roles, but most slept unprotected on ground. She could tell immediately that they were Ethiopian soldiers.

She sat comfortably for a while, wrapped up in a bedroll and covered with a blanket. Her back rested against a pillar of rock. She noticed a statue overlooking them, its crumbling base forcing it against a rock. Wind and time had worn at the face, but the work was undoubtedly Egyptian. It wore a long crown, and held its hands out in a welcoming gesture. She wondered why it was here, in the middle of nowhere. A guardian for the nearby spring? She knew very little about the ancient Egyptians, but she knew they took some pride in their monuments. It was surprising to see one decaying out here.

Her thoughts wandered to the more recent past. What had happened at the close of the Battle of the Suez? She knew in her gut that the Aksum had exploded, but she couldn't remember how she knew. There was a sense of an explosion, but no memories. It bothered her. It should have went off in the canal, but the counter attack - the last thing she remembered - left her with doubts. She felt that they had failed, but she needed more than that.

And what had happened to her partner? Elias had disappeared in the fighting. She did not see his face here with the soldiers.

The battle haunted her. She could still see the wounded, there mangled bodies burned into her brain. She had killed before, and she had seen people die in the field, but the fiery violence that dominated pitched battle was more brutal than anything she had witnessed before. It was bodies shredded into red mush, and the sick smell of burning flesh. She knew that she would see it again, and she accepted this. It was part of her job, an experience she would have to grow callous to. She dwelled on it, intellectualizing her experiences. This was life. Every soldier in history had went through a similar education. She remembered the religion of her youth, and how the ancient Israelites spent several days in the desert cleansing themselves after battle. There was a hint of something beyond religion there; the story of every warrior coming to terms with their war.

It bothered her to think that he partner had possibly met the same fate. She couldn't get past that so easily. Was that man a crater now? The thought disturbed her. For strangers to be desecrated in battle, that was something she could rationalize, but for somebody she knew so well... She had knew his thoughts. He had a personality, and a youth, that was worth more than a Spanish artillery shell. Worth more than a canal.

"Woman." a voice called out from nearby. She had fallen into a trance, forgetting about what was in front of her until then. The voice startled her. She gasped, and felt her ribs sting from the exertion.

"I'm sorry." the voice responded. She saw him in his sack, awake and staring at her with tired yellow eyes. He was big, and she knew that he was the man who had carried her away from the fight. Her breathing calmed. He looked concerned, like he was struggling to think. His hair was a knotted bush of neglected dreadlocks, and a patchy beard covered his face. His voice was deep, but it was not harsh. He sounded empathetic, if not worried. "Agent." he said, correcting himself. "I am sorry."

"Sorry?" she asked. Why was he sorry? He had saved her.

"Your head..." he replied. "When the... the ship..." he looked down, and she could tell that he was sincere about being sorry. "I dropped you." he said.

"Dropped?" she replied. "On my head..."

"You wouldn't wake up for a long time." he replied. "Two days. We were afraid you might die."

Two days. Had she lost that much time?

The other men started to wake up, slowly and one at a time. They looked used, and tired. She was certain that they hadn't had any sleep. The battle had taken a toll on them. And, she realized, they were retreating. When they seen that she was awake, they focused on her. She could see expectation in their eyes, as if they were waiting for her to answer their problems. What had happened in the time she was out?

"The ship..." she remembered, "Did it..."

"No." one of the men said, wistfully. "They stole it and took it out to sea."

That was it. They had failed. The Spanish would not slow down, and there was no way for her to get home before the enemy landed there. Another realization slowly dawned on her. Everything she had witnessed, everything she had suffered or lost... it was all in vain. They had not sacrificed their lives - a sacrifice suggests something was gained from their sufferings, or their death. There was no sacrifice here, just loss.

Elias...

"Did you see another agent?" she asked. She watched her companions hopefully, looking for any sign that they might know.

"I do not know." the larger man said. She could see him thinking, the wheels in his head spinning slowly just behind his eyes. "Many retreated, but we have all been scattered. Are you looking for somebody?"

"A partner." one of the soldiers interrupted. "You Walinzi come in pairs." he paused for a second, like a dog waiting for a reward. "No, I have not seen any more of your kind. If he got away, he may have went south. We went west."

If he got away. IfShe felt her chest drop when she heard those words. "West." she asked. "To Cairo?"

"West because it is away from the canal." the larger soldier replied. "We do no know where we are going. Or where we are. We thought you might know."

"Know..." They hadn't planned for a route. "We have to go south, to meet up with our people."

As dawn turned to day, they prepared to leave. Leyla had to struggle to stand. Any pressure she put on her torso caused her side to convulse in fresh pain. When she did get on her feet, she lifted her shirt to see what the damage was. Her side was bruised from her waist to the middle of her ribs - a sickly colored mix of purple, red, and yellow. Her skin was sensitive to the touch, but there was no sign of blood, or any open wound.

The big man lifted her things for her. He looked at her sadly, and it made her feel uncomfortable. Did he know something she didn't? He looked different than the other soldiers - older, maybe in his forties. He wore his uniform unbuttoned, revealing a bony chest, and he had a Chinese rifle slung over his shoulder.

"I am Barentu" he introduced.

She smiled. "I'm Leyla."

"I am sorry about your partner, Leyla." he said sincerely.

"Elias..." she replied. "He can take care of himself. Right now, we need to worry about us. How near are we to Cairo?"

"Halfway, I think." he said uncertainly.

"We cannot go there." she said. "Egypt is in anarchy. We don't know what is safe. I heard the Turks rule some of it, but I also read that the Turks say that we rule in Egypt, and that isn't true."

"It is unsafe." Barentu thought. "Where do we go?"

"We have to find another road south. Avoid any large towns, avoid stealing, pay for everything. We can't afford to fight our way home."

Barentu nodded. "I will tell the others that this is our plan."

She took one last look at the statue, its detail more apparent now that the sun had risen into the sky. It looked content - almost smiling. Weather had worn down most of its features, but what remained was an image that was remarkably peaceful. If she ever retired, she wanted to have a house in a place that felt like this. She walked away, and followed the other men toward the road, where two military land-rovers stood waiting. She looked them over, seeing the bullet holes left in their sides, and a smear of blood running down the fender of the first one. She shuddered.

------Siracuse(Syracuse), Sicily.-------

It was a warm day, a mild breeze sweeping through the streets and docks of the prestigious city. Mostly untouched by the Ottoman Invasion and suffering very minor conflicts during the Civil War, mostly due to the city being a major naval center for the Regia Marina's Malta straight patrol fleet.

It was very peaceful in this area of the world, despite the Civil War still fresh in people's minds, the war raging in Africa, and the conflicts in the former Ottoman Empire.

Yet for Nazario Cardosi, it was a wonderful day to be in Italy. The Kingdom, despite owing great debts to the Spanish, have managed to remain neutral so far in the war torn era. A well deserved peace, he would say to himself as he nodded at a couple off-duty sailors fishing near the docks.

"Any luck with the fish yet? You two have been here for the better half of the day!" He smirked as he walked over next to them. The two men let out a grumbled as they turned to him, but a small smile still held on one of their faces.

"Niente! Not a bite. Here I was hopping that with all the ships docked and not turning up the water, a fish would actually try to swim here! Ma no, bastardi. Not a single one." Said the other man, "Ilardi" is what his uniform said. "Adamo here thinks god has cursed us because I forgot to bring home a few tomatoes last night. How was I supposed to know we were out? I was at my brothers!"

"Taking a siesta at that, I bet." Adamo would chip in, his gregarious nature showing as usual. "Nazario, why are you still walking around the docks today? The women have gone home to cook or handle children, you can't find any here at this hour!"

Nazario would chuckle, "I'm not here for the women, I was here to check on you two one last time. You're back on duty in three hours, no? I wanted to stop by one last time to wish my two favorite cousins a good bye!"

"Bah, we're only your favorites because we cook good food when we stop by to visit." Ilardi would chip in as he set down his fishing pole against the railing, his other hand roughly rubbing the back as his neck as he turned to the other two.

Nazario let out a deep chuckle. "Well, I'm not the lying time so you have me there. Anyway, when do you two believe you'll be back?"

Both cousins tensed up, however it would not be very noticable to someone not used to their body language. Nazario was however, and his eyebrow raised slightly.

"Well..." Ilardi would start to say, before getting cut off by his shorter cousin. "We don't have a solid date this time, Cugino. The Regia Marina has been on elevated alert for a while now, nothing serious though. Just extra time at sea."

"That sounds understandable, maybe there will be fish when you get back!" Nazario let out cheerfully, trying to lift his two cousins' mood a bit. "When you two get back, I'll make sure I'll have a beautiful women next to me and some wonderful food for you to eat instead of me!"

----------Palazzo del Quirinale, Rome.-----------

"Your majesty, your coffee is ready. Are you sure you do not wish for me to send some servants to bring you some?" Came through from the other side of the door, as King Florenstano leaned back in his chair. His hair and face starting to show the signs of age and stress and he set down another sheet of paper.

"No." He said, just loud enough so the people on the other side of the door could hear. "They have other matters to attend to, I shall get it myself."

There was several long moments of silence, and Florenstano sighed as he pushed himself up, letting out several groans. "I need a new back - or a new body all together."

He grabbed his cane that was leaning against his desk, tapping it a few times before walking to the door and opening the large Mahogany doors and nearly walking straight into a man with a very well decorated uniform.

"Ah, Maresciallo d'Italia Carlo. You are early, I see. You were not to arrive for another half hour."

Carlo bowed his head in respect, before smiling. "Is that how you welcome home an old friend? It has been months!" Carlo said joyfully, shaking Florenstano's hand as the King slowly returned the smile.

"You may be my friend, but I am still the King. Still no salute? No bows? My friend, I am offended by your lack of respect for someone of superior stature and rank!" He replied, sarcasm seeping from his voice as he reached and patted Carlo on the back. "I assume you have done as I requested?"

"Yes my King, with Spain engaging in conflicts with Ethiopia, I have begun the starting phases of heightened alert and mobilization of the army. Grand' Ammiraglio Fabro has shortened all shore leaves and increased the basic patrols. Should Spain wish for us to be involved, we are now in a position for both possible answers.

"Good, I pray to God that the Parlamento says no should that question come. I do not want our people to suffer through another war, even if that means damaging the relations between our ally. We are no military power anymore. The Great War has long passed, and the Ottoman Empire and Ballista showed us how outdated we are. It is best for us to sit and be the neutral part in the conflict."

"Now tell that to the Eagles in the Parlamento. I've seen then, your Majesty. They want nothing more then to throw young boys off into muddy trenches and sand dunes to show the world our 'power.' Madness, I say." Carlo said, his smile turning into a small frown as he walked down the long hallway with his King.

Many thoughts were racing through both of their minds - International tensions are rising faster every second, the Suez Canal is going to be unusable for a very long time due to probable conflicts in the Red Sea and the canal proper. It seems that no matter where Italy gos, it will lose something in the end. There just is no clear path.

Florenstano slowly came to a stop, his cane making a very audible clang as it hit the wall to his right. "Go downstairs and contact the Prime Minister, and have him contact the Grand' Ammiraglio as well as the Maresciallo dell'Aria. I think it is time for a meeting."

Carlo let out what one would assume would be a grunt, but Florenstano knew him. It was the fastest way he could say yes.

Carlo saluted, did an about face and moved quickly to the stairs.

"These wars will drag the world to hell."

((The following is a collaborative post between RisenDeadand myself.))

Port Said, Egypt

The fires were slowly dying as the sun rose over the smouldering heap that used to be Port Said. What had once been a city was now a mass of shattered stone and concrete, the streets littered with bodies and shattered vehicles.

Delgado sat alone on the edge of the Canal, the sun on his face. Never before had he been so happy to see a sunrise in all his life. The explosion that had blinded him had been close, the same wall that he sheltered behind moments earlier had probably saved his life. One of its stones had come loose and hit him in the head, the instant gushing of blood had blinded him completely.

For one terrifying moment he had thought he was blind forever until his desperate pawing managed to get the blood from his face. He could see enough to pull a bandage from his battle harness and push it to his forehead. A splash of water from the Canal later, the salt stinging his eyes and wound, he could see again. He had sighed a breath of relief.

Not far from where he sat, his compatriots had already rounded together a cleanup detail. A tow truck that had evaded destruction the night before had been requisitioned for the task of clearing the Suez of debris. With a sputtering, diesely roar, the truck’s winch spun about and pulled against some submerged mass. The truck’s wheel sank into the mud, resisting and gently sliding about in the silty muck on which it parked. But the machine proved triumphant after some struggle as a rusting, twisted I-beam crawled up out of the canal and onto the shore like a beached whale. A team of “divers” - a pair of Egyptian men dressed in naught but their underwear - emerged from the canal to assist the Spanish infantry remove the clamps from the steel cable. Even as a foreign volunteer to Spain himself, Delgado was puzzled by their motivation in assisting the very soldiers that had utterly destroyed their city.

The sound of a helicopter pulled him out his reverie and he glanced up just in time to see a massive Barracuda gunship sweep overhead, the down draft buffeting the men who stood along the side of the Canal. Everyone paused to look up at the aircraft as it circled once, looking for a landing area. The only space available was what remained of a plaza some 100 yards away. Delgado watched as the aircraft hovered down behind the damaged buildings before turning back to the Canal and slinging his rifle and hurrying towards the men with the tow truck to lend a hand.

As Delgado approached the tow truck, a body of soldiers could be seen moving down the path. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed one amongst them that stood out from his peer in terms of dress. Surrounded by a cadre of khaki tan uniforms was a man clad in a jacket - that alone was enough to give Delgado pause in this arid land. Forest green, lapelled, and festooned with golden epaulets. His knowledge of the Spanish Ejercito’s structure was limited, but Delgado could only assume that this was a man of substantial import. He halted on the spot and snapped in salute.

The newly arrived soldiers marched alongside the officer in a dignified manner as an entourage or unit of guards with weapons snugly cradled in their arms. They approached the tow vehicle and halted before him, taking position amongst the rubble as their superior approached. His arrival prompted the regular infantry to salute as well as Delgado had already.

“I am looking for one Francisco del Cal Delgado of the International Brigade.” The stoic-faced officer announced to no one in particular once he had the undivided attention of the regular infantry. Delgado’s heart seized upon hearing his own name from the mouth of this imposing figure. “I am told he may be found here.”

“I am him.” He uttered, captivating the commander’s attention. The man in the lapelled jacket pivoted and approached. The officer came in close - closer than Delgado appreciated - and scanned the Argentine up and down. Stern, cold eyes swept over him, noting every scrape and wound earned the night before.

“Do you know who I am?”

“Sir… no, sir.” Delgado admitted, still locked in salute.

“I would be your General - Victor Ponferrada.”

“Good morning, General. You honour us with your visit.” Said Delgado as he dropped his arm and shifted slightly, strangely aware of how disheveled and battle stained he was compared to the men who had come with the General.

“Likewise, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Francisco - Sergeant Delgado… You know that this is a rare thing in our army? I can name on one hand enlisted men that have climbed in rank with such speed.”

“Sergeant Delgado, I understand that you are no Spaniard. Tell me, “the General pressed closer in, “were is it that you call home?”

“The Mendoza region of Argentina, sir. My father owns a small vineyard there.”

“A vinero?” Ponferrada asked incredulously, almost seeming amused. “That is what you are? Are you certain?”

“Well...” Said Delgado after a small pause. “Truth be told, it seems I have a talent for this sort of work.” He gestured about him. “Though I am not certain it is something I would chose to brag about. Though I make a rather terrible farmer.”

“A talent?” Ponferrada shook his head. “My understanding is that you took the life of no fewer than thirty men last night. A man with no military training that took the life of thirty men? I have never heard of such a thing - in all my service to this Ejercito. This is no talent, Sergeant. You are born for this.”

“You may be right sir, though I think my initial success came from being too foolish and ill-trained to know when to run the opposite direction, but now…” He glanced down at his hands, his arms were soaked to the elbows in the blood of a man whose throat he had slit in the fighting. “I suspect you may be right.”

“I know this much. I am a man who recognizes merit; I see a wealth of it in you, Sergeant. I see a potential in you that would be wasted in the Brigada Internacional. I have greater things imagined for you.”

“Once we have cleaned… this mess,” General Ponferrada gesticulated briefly to the canal and those working to clear it of debris. “our Armada will make for the Horn of Africa. The enemy expects a landing - even now they fortify their coasts in anticipation of our attack. It will require hard men to storm those beaches, men like you.”

“I give this offer for you to make, Sergeant Delgado: remain here with the International Brigade here in Egypt. Or you will leave this force and join with the regular Ejercito and fight to clear the coast in preparation for our landings with the understanding that you will be see rapid promotion. But there is no shame if you wish to remain here with the International Brigade in Egypt. There is much work to be done with this canal in the coming years, and the International Brigade will have no small part in seeing that realized.”

“I’d like to fight with the regulars, sir.” Delgado decided without hesitation. Ponferrada seemed nothing short of delighted.

“I am pleased to hear that, truly. You won’t be alone in this, I have selected a handful of others from the Brigade to move into the regular forces, though none show nearly as much promise as you. Your advancement will reflect that.”

“Which reminds me, Sergeant Delgado. By any chance, are you familiar with the Cazadores?”

US Capitol Building
Washington, DC

Russell slowly walked down the aisles of the Senate chamber. He placed his hand on the polished wooden surface of a senator's desk, these desks from whihc statesmen and scallywags alike sat behind. The dim lighting cast shadows across the empty room. Nigh on six in the morning and Russell was one of only a handful of people in the Capitol at this hour. Early mornings were a matter of routine for Russell when he was Majority Leader. He arrived at six on the dot and worked twelve and fourteen hour days.

This chamber was intimate; its little desks stretched in a semi-circle around the dais were a far cry from the huddled masses that packed the House on benches. His tenure as Speaker of the House was a success, but managing that body was akin to having a tiger by the tail. There was constant division between the parties and the various factions within those parties on nearly every single issue. On top of that, members came and went every two years at such a steady pace it became hard to keep track of who was who and where they stood on issues. That wasn’t the case in the Senate. Here ninety-six men were elected and stayed here for at least six years. A senator could be elected at the tail end of one presidency, serve through a full four year term of another presidency, and then a potential third president's first two years. Presidents came and went, but senators stayed. For Russell, those six years were plenty of time. He could get to know a man, learn his heart's desires, and learn to read him like a book.

For ten years Russell had dominated this chamber and bent the will of the ninety-five other men he had served with. He knew all the carrots and sticks to use to get the legislation he wanted passed. For a decade he had done legislative battle in this chamber and won far more often than he had lost. At one time he had been the most powerful Democrat in the country. And now? Now…

“Missing it already,” the voice from behind asked.

Senator Dixon walked into the chamber with his hands in his pockets. The Secret Service agent shadowing Russell looked towards him before he was waved off. Russell and Dixon shook hands before the senator walked towards his desk on the right side of the aisle. Russell followed and leaned against the desk next to Dixon’s while they spoke.

“I know Kelly is an early-riser," said Russell."I wanted to scare him by being in his office when he gets here. I got distracted and ended up going down memory lane.”

“Sentimentality is unlike you, Russ. Pining for your old job?”

“Missing it,” Russell said softly. “I got promoted off the battlefield. I miss negotiating in the cloakroom, getting down to the nut-cutting with the opposition, counting votes in that last flurry before we know for certain how the vote’s gonna go. Most of all I miss the winning.”

“Well you and your boy in the White House are gonna have a win soon,” said Dixon. “I assume you’re here to harangue our fearless Leader about putting the NEWI bill on the legislative calendar.”

“Among other things.”

“Everyone wants to look good when it comes to national defense. President Fernandez’s military improvements were a great success, and Norman was a general. He wants to keep pushing further to get us stronger, as we all do. It’s a win-win for every one of us, no way it’ll fail in the Senate.”

“It’s not partisanship that concerns me. Tell me, Bill, what are the southerners saying about the president?”

Dixon raised an eyebrow at the vice president.

“I thought those bulldogs were firmly in your pocket. Thicker than thieves, y’all were.”

Russell shrugged, “Were. Since I became vice president they act differently. I think part of it is because I’m working with the President and they fiercely guard the Senate’s autonomy from the Executive Branch… but I think they’re also afraid of what I’m going to ask of them.”

“There’s a term that I’ve been hearing through the cloakrooms and offices, really more like mutterings. Civil rights, Russ. Everyone wants to know where President Norman stands on that issue, and you yourself known what lengths the South will go to block civil rights legislation.”

He knew very well the old southern tactic. For the last hundred years the South had dominated the Senate thanks to the seniority system that governed the body’s rules and procedures. Once a southern senator was voted into office, he would be returned back to Washington six year term after six year term. Southerners liked voting the incumbent so much that only death could truly remove a southerner from the Senate. These old bulls accumulated more power with each passing year, every key piece of legislation the Senate voted on passed through southern hands either on the committee level or on the floor during debate.

The legislative Fabian strategy involved using every modicum of that power to kill potential civil rights bills, not by meeting them head on, but by grinding the gears of government to a halt. A president would talk big about civil rights bills and try to introduce legislation; plenty of it would pass the House only to die a slow and ignoble death in the Senate thanks to the southern power inside. They would delay and filibuster and drag their feet on every other important bill that the White House wanted to see passed, they would hold the government hostage until finally the president and his allies had no choice but to rescind any civil rights bill from the floor so things like spending bills and tax reform could get passed. Russell himself had used the tactic twice when he was Leader, at the pressing of the old bulls of course. Despite his own mixed views on segregation, he owed his standing in the Senate to the old bulls. He had to do plenty of things against his nature to keep the old men who loved him happy.

“Where do the Republicans stand on civil rights?” Russell asked.

“Indifferent at best. All the Republicans from the Northeast and the Midwest don’t really have enough Negroes in their state to really matter politically. Oklahoma has segregation, but we got more Indians than we do blacks. I probably couldn’t get away with voting for anything like that, but plenty of them could with the right incentives and promises from Norman.”

Russell’s brain went to work with lightning speed, running down every senator, his political inclinations, and allies he caucused with.

“Plenty of wiggle room,” he said after nearly five seconds of silence. “It could go either way if someone managed to get it out of committee and on the floor. But any talk about that bill is hypothetical at the moment. Right now I’m worried about them hijacking the NEWI bill, extorting the administration for a definite deal on no civil rights bills. I’ve told the president and everyone else at the White House they need to pass everything important to them before they even try to introduce a bill like that.”

“So the president is interested in passing something?”

Russell threw his hands up. “It’s about time, Bill. You’ve seen the news from Mississippi the past few days, Nantchez or Natchez or however the hell you pronounce it. It’s nineteen eighty, nearly a hundred and twenty years since they were freed and we have to give them something.”

“You sound like a damn idealists,” Dixon said with a chuckle. “The Russell Reed I used to know valued pragmatism over everything.”

“Well…," he said with a creeping grin. "A Norman desegregation and voter rights act means a solid Negro vote for him going into ’84… or his successor in ’88.”

“That’s more like it.”

Russell laughed and leaned back on the desk with a smile on his face while he looked around the chamber.
“Before you got here I was thinking... Remember three years ago, when Fernandez had that bill abolishing oil depletion allowance tax.”

A smile broke out on Dixon’s face as he remembered.

“I swear to God I have never seen a man’s face get that red in all my life. It turned the same color as his tie when he found out his bill was going down in flames.”

“Democrats and Republican working together to give the White House the middle finger.”

“When we were kings, Russ.”

When I was a king, Russell thought to himself. Now he was on the outside looking in and hoping he could keep his promises to the president.

****

Cascadia Territorial Police Force Headquarters
Vancouver

“Sergeant Brian Shea,” Mark Echols said to himself.

He looked at the photo of the US Army soldier and compared it with the morgue photos of his John Doe. The personnel photo was from a few years ago, but it was a solid match to the dead body Echols was responsible for. Brian Shea, according to the thin report Mark had, was a technical sergeant based out of Fort Dixon. Dixon was one of five military bases the US Army installed after the war to house the US’s occupying force.

Fort Dixon put out an AWOL alert on Sergeant Shea a week before his body was found in that field in Surrey and he left his post at the base a week before that. Mark placed the picture down and leaned back in his char to think. Two weeks in the wild for Sergeant Shea that ended up in that field, naked with a bullet in the back of his head.
Echols picked up his files hobbled across his office, leaning on his cane with one hand while the other hand worked on placing files on his corkboard. The corkboard had tacked to it every scrap of information on the murder. Shea’s photo went at the center of the board, wedged between the crime scene and morgue photos. Near the edge of the board were the autopsy and crime scene reports, both he kept coming back to over the past few days.

The only detail worth mentioning in the medical examiner’s report was concerning Shea’s aroused state. Fluid samples indicated that he was in the middle of intercourse when he was killed. Coupled with that nugget was the additional findings from the crime scene techs that indicated Shea was shot elsewhere and dumped in that field. The slug pulled from the back of his head was a .38 round in some kind of weird-ass wide wadcutter variety. The slug would be easy to run evidence against if he could find a murder weapon. At this point, there were a lot of ifs before he could even get to that point.

Mark checked his watch. It was a little after five in the morning. He had called Fort Dixon and left a message with a major on night duty, concerning Shea’s disappearance. The major gave his assurances he would run it up to the colonel when he arrived that morning at six. Fort Dixon was situated outside of town, a good twenty minute drive. Mark hobbled out the office and decided to eat breakfast before calling on the good people at Fort Dixon that morning.

*****

North Vancouver

Arthur looked at the device in his hands before placing it on the workbench beside the plastique. His heart pounded so hard he could hear the pulse in his ears. He spent a week on it, wiring it together and soldering between classes and hanging out with Alex and the rest of the Friends. Chris was gruff, but he was starting to come around to him and he wasn’t sure but he felt like Joanna liked him. What Alex was planning was… stark and Arthur was unsure if he could do it, but it was a necessary task to set up their future. The Friends were just that to Arthur, something he hadn’t had in a long time. Not since before the war.

“Still working?”

Joanna stood at the top of the steps leading down to the basement. The apartment the three, now four, of them lived in was furnished by Alex. He was cool about letting Arthur move his tools and equipment down to the basement and using it as a work room.

“Just doing some last minute soldering before I call it a night. I want to make sure it’s ready to go before tomorrow night.”

She walked down the steps while Arthur wiped his hands off on a rag. He was preparing to stand up when he felt her arms wrap themselves around his neck and her warm breath on his neck.

“Are you ready for tomorrow,” she breathed into his ear, her lips caressing his earlobe. “Are you ready to do what needs to be done for the cause?”

Alex stood and looked down at her. He wasn’t sure if it was genuine love, infatuation, or just plain lust, but he felt his heart, and something else, swell at the sight of Joanna. She leaned in and they shared a brief, passionate kiss.

“I’ll do what I need to do,” Arthur said steadfastly.

“Good. Come on, it’s time for bed.”

Arthur looked back at the mess of wire, electronics, and plastic explosives before turning off the workbench lamp and heading upstairs, hand in hand with Joanna.

Perm, Russia

The twisted remains of furniture decorated the side of the hallway, like the corpses of the casted away and the defeated. Pieces of wood, like bones, laid out scattered. From somewhere the acrid burning smell of a fire blew along the cold evening breeze funneled through the hallway. It brought no warm familiarity. Only a sense of being alien. And how long some had fallen.

Jun walked quietly along the long narrow hallway of some mid-level floor of apartments. His hand stroked the broken and twisted legs of discarded chairs. His boots crackled against the carpet, rubbing into the thread-bare rug bottles, or needles. He couldn't tell which, in the dim light they shone the same.

In the distance a sad waltz played on someone's gramophone. Muffled shouting drummed through the walls as distant couples fought. A dark barked. Someone laughed. Not healthily. Sickly and twisted, like a drunk or someone on the edge of their sanity. Compared to the rest of Perm, this was a dim nightmare. The face the city wanted to hide, the cancer it fought. The ills that had wrung Russia dry. How many centuries was it since the nation suffered such disarray?

Still, credit could be given. There was electricity, clear as the setting day-time sun. Fixtures glowed with fresh incandescent oranges and yellows, giving a sickly warm glow to the straight and narrow hall with the towering ceiling. Jun marched down the lighted corridors. Eyeing the doors as he passed. Counting the numbers. The dealer had said the man that produced lived here.

It was a far shot, but it would have to work. Worse came to worse, the man gave him directions to another nobody without any credibility. It was a prospect he hated to get. But the expectant dull anger that ground in him could be suppressed for now.

Jun turned a corner. The building seemed to be getting quieter. The old familiar noises that it had introduced him too growing duller and quieter. He could feel the air thickened as he breathed softer. Fighting harder to tune into those old sounds. A feeling of distant caution followed his footsteps as he walked deeper. The faint note of some distant violin would spring to life, but it was no more than a pin being dropped on the tiles. There was a steady beating, near and far as he strode. All the sudden, he felt as if he were being stalked.

Like an animal.

He turned around, his hand dropping limply to his side as the packed garbage along the side gave way to emptiness. There was no soul behind him. Nothing moved in the sterile emptiness of the gray-paper walls, with the beaten browning carpet.

He aired on the side of caution. Jun could feel his breath rattle as he reached into his coat, gently unlatching the button that strapped his pistol to his breast. He only had so many rounds left, but he only had so much room himself to swing. It would be more sure to fire a gun. His number fingers pinched at the nickel steel, and pulled it, releasing the leather strap with a soft click.

Jun turned, resuming his patrol.

On the distance, the sharp staccato rattle of a bell rung down the hall. A faint flat tone that rang sharp then fell flat. It came to dominate the silence of the apartment. Jun followed the shrill jingling, passed the marching doors to the apartments long the side.

Jun gave pause outside the room that was his marked. Hanging on the scratched darkened wood tarnished brass numbers hung by a rusting nail. 016. It was the room the dealer's producer was said to be in. And it was the room that the telephone ringing was loudest.

He leaned close against the wood of the door. Fingers wrapping around the cold handle. His heart beat slow. His breathing held steady as he took readying breaths. He channeled himself for the job as the handle turned, and the door opened with a dry groan.

Stepping inside the air of the apartment hit him like a heavy musky hammer. The intertwining smells of sweat, blood, and dried semen filled the air with a rank putrid saltiness. But above that Jun noticed was a stomach turning chemical smell. Implacable, but bitter and harsh. Even numb, he could feel his lungs struggling at the bleached, sulfuric stench of the producer's living quarters.

It dripped and wafted through the empty apartment, without a soul but Jun to disturb. He rolled off from the stained green furniture, littered with bottles of beer and vodka, and a dozen too many full cigarette trays. In the far corner sat the phone. It shivered and shook on its receiver as it chimed endlessly. The agent scanned the room, cautious and shocked. And he wondered: how long had the phone been ringing?

He scanned the room, pressing himself against the wall as he moved along the edge of the small studio. Peering into a door to the side he found where the repulsive chemical stench was coming from. At the far end of a yellowing bathroom full of grime a stained white bathtub sat, filled to the brim with a foul liquid, vinyl and plastic tubes ran submerged into the gurgling broth, running out from cans of cleaner and a dozen other chemicals and acids. He was for sure trying to make a cut of the predict, somehow.

Grimmacing, disgusted, he reached over, and closed the door behind him as he crept. But found nothing more than the refuse of a very untidy man. He grew tense and nervous. Had he been lied to? Tricked? He felt angry, boiled. He looked to the still-ringing phone. A damnable curiosity and demand rising in his gut.

Jun spat as he looked over the room once more. Tripping over a grimy mattress buried under a sea of blankets and discarded garbage. He grumbled madly, kicking off a stiff rag that stuck to his foot. With a satisfied spit he kicked off the rag and stood next to the phone. Wondering.

It could be another lead.

He figured he probably shouldn't. But the bell was too much a siren. Reaching for the receiver, he bit his tongue. “Hello?” he said in muddied Russian.

“Do you even know what you're doing?” a voice on the other end crooned.

“Excuse me?” Jun replied.

“Do you know what sort of bees nest you are kicking? What do you think you're doing? Can you fight ghosts, Uzkoglazy?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.” said Jun, turning to the window, peering out through the thick ashen film that had accumulated on the glass. He looked over to the building across the road, looking to see if anyone could be watching them.

“Of course you do.” the man said, “You haven't been that well hidden. You come into Perm and guns start firing. But we thought you would have died going into that damnable church. But what did that insane fool tell you? What did you promise that fucker?”

“Of course it does.” the voice on the other end crooned. His voice sounded slick like oil. Sharp as venom, “You don't walk into Perm like this, on the trail for blood and don't expect it to be picked up on. Your job in Yekaterinburg was very messy, and now we know.

“So how do you propose we continue? End it here? You go home? Or we talk?”

“There's nothing to talk about.” Jun snapped, turning back from the window.

“There's a lot.” said the voice, “I'm here in the north of town. 165, Repina street. You can come and try me if you'd like.”

“Try you, what do you mean?”

“You want my life. I know this. But just do something before you arrive.”

“What is this?”

“Not burn.” the phone sneered, clicking silent.

Jun stood aghast, bewildered. He frowned, staring at the dull gray wallpaper with a twisted expression. His blank stare was broken with a tremendous fiery blast. The agent's heart jumped a canyon as he dove. The hot tongue of fire and the biting teeth of shrapnel grazing the air alongside him as a wide explosive cone fanned across the room, spraying into the far war and sending up clouds of powdery drywall and plaster.

Wood board and smoke filled the room as a second thunderous explosion rocked through the room. Shattering the wood of the door as it chunks the size of fists exploded inward, hurling a hot mess of lead and wooden splinters. Jun turned his back to the explosive spray. Splinters and shrapnel flew against his back. He felt the molten warmth of cinders lick through the black leather of his coat, peeling back the tanned leather and flying back against him.

In the reprise between shots he turned, his face beat blank and paper-white as the wooden door swung open on its hinges. In the doorway looming a man of steel, shotgun burning cheery hot in his steel-gloved hands. The vacant tinted lens of a heavy mask stared into the main room of the studio apartment, bearing no emotion or human will.

The man behind the metal cocked the shotgun, ejecting a smoldering shell casing with a metal snap. Jun scrambled to feet as the man rose the gun to his shoulder. The cherry-red glow in its barrel subsiding as he aimed down the sights. Jun dove as the weapon gave another thunderous roar. Hot cinders blew up from behind him as he crashed into the mess that was the mattress bed with a stumbling roll. From behind him tongues of fire licked from the pulverized dry wall and plasterboard. The internal straps of wood within exposed and singed with a thin layer of blackened soot.

Jun moved quick, grabbing wildly out for anything on the floor. His teeth gritted and chewed as his heart raced. Pouring blood through him. His hands found something hard under neath the blankets. It'd have to be a chance, or some sort of distraction at least. Fingers wrapped around it he heaved the object out of the clumped sheets. Hurling through the air a thick rubbery dildo.

He didn't have time to register it, nor was it the moment. In blind desperation the rubber penis was in the air. And in the seconds after the last shot it collided with the mask of the assailant with a loud crashing clang. Jun turned in time to see the pink schlong roll off the bewildered mask of the attacker and to the ground. The shotgun whirling in his hands as he fumbled to push aside the rogue toy. Loose on his fingers, the trigger of the rose-red shotgun collapsed in his hands and fire with one loud thump into the carpet at his feet, exploding the ground before where he stood in a bloom of fire, carpet, insulation, and smoking wood.

Jostling and bouncing the dildo fell at his feet, the man no less shocked about what happened. It was Jun's chance. Jumping to his feet he charged for the door while the man was unaware. Putting his shoulder's first, he hoped to ram past him, and then to loose him in the halls.

He however never made it that far. The sound of his feet broke the man out of his distraction and the vacant welding mask that shielded his face looked up to catch the Chinaman coming for him. Jun slammed shoulder first into the barrel-chested sentinel, pushing into his side as thick heavy arms wrapped around him in a great bear hug. With a heave the might of the Russian pulled Jun off his feet and threw him to the hot ground below. With a crack his body bounced off the floor. His teeth gritted as he landed, if more at the shock than the lack of pain that tore along his back.

It was in less than a blink of an eye that he was staring up at his would-be executioner. He scrambled back to his feet. “Uzkoglazy!” roared the man from behind the mask, his voice sounding more machine that it could be living. Thick arms crashed down against his shoulders, pinning him to the floor as the pillar of steel mounted the agent.

The man in the armor screamed in rage as he rose his head back. Coming down against Jun's own with a crashing hammering blow. For a moment Jun went blank. The world washed out to black as for once a splitting pain and uneasy warmth exploded from his forehead. His eyes opened as the Russian reared back. Bellowing in rage as he readied to bring his head down again.

Jun's chest froze as the chest-breaking swing of the Russian froze to come down. Jun twisted, and through his coat his arms shifted under the grip of the Russia. He threw himself to the side as the Russian's head came down. The flat metal of the mask coming down to where his head had been with a rattling wooden crash against the floor. Its warm steel pressed against Jun's face.

Roaring, the assailant pulled his face from the floor. “Ublyudok!” he boomed. Jun felt him loosen the grip on his arms to readjust. Seizing the moment, he threw his arms out from under the hit-man's hands, and threw his palms up at his face, wrapping his fingers around the steel of the welding mask and throwing him to the side.

The sound he made hitting the rough smoldering carpet was akin to the sound of crashing pans. The armor plates smashed and crashed against him as Jun levered his weight over him, pushing himself on top of the hit-man, wrapping his fingers under the steel mask and prying. It didn't go without fighting as the other grabbed hold of his wrists and fought back. With all his strength Jun pulled back, yanking and levering the metal plate as the Russian underneath grabbed his arms tighter and tighter. An overbearing numbeness welled in his hands. Slowly eking away what feeling he had in his fingers.

The tug of war was quick to go nowhere as the two men fought and threw their weight into each other. Alongside them the fire from his shotgun began to smolder stronger, growing as tongues of sticky flames burst to life in the thick carpet. The Russian's hands hit Jun with the force of a truck, jerking him off into the wall with a sudden crack of his jaw. Jun's head hit the drywall with a papery crash, he tumbled off his foe as he lurched up, grabbing the Asian by his coat.

Jun felt himself soar into the air as he was lifted off the ground and thrown. His arms slipping through the sleeves of his long coat. He flew like a haphazard sack of onions across the room. Landing with a solid thud against the ground. His elbow spearing into his side with a wet crack. Sprawled on the ground he spat and sputtered, choking on wet phlegm building in his throat.

Behind him the thunderous foot steps of the Russian marched towards him with the beat of a drum. He turned to watch the overbearing man looming over him. Smoke filled the air about him. The faint shine of growing fire shone in his mask as he looked down. “This, mine.” he grumbled. Reaching down. Jun kicked himself away, backing himself against the wall.

The harsh gauntleted hands wrapped around the sword at Jun's hip. With one strong tug he broke the harness free, and pulled free the sheathed Mao Dao. He seemed to pause to consider taking Jun's Changu revolver. But turned away instead of taking it. He waded through growing fire as he walked to the door, holding in hand his looted sword, and pulling from a pouch behind a drab-green cylinder.

Jun's breaths trembled, chest heaved as he watched the beast of a man pull from the grenade its pin. Releasing the trigger he dropped it by the door as he turned to leave. Jun shook as he curled against the wall, throwing up his arms to guard himself. With a dull thud the room suddenly became engulfed with a harsh heat. A whopping rush tore in the air with a metallic hiss. Through his clenched eyes a sharp blinding light cut through the air.

When he opened them he found a silver sun blooming by the door. Forming out of its tail a whipping trail of golden fire as the incendiary grenade tore and seizured across the ground. Emitting a bright blinding light. A thick screen of silvery smoke exploded across the room, filling the already chemical-thick air with a new sharp acrid smell. Precious oxygen was sucked up, and the apartment became claustrophobic and unbearable. A hazy sensation was quick to ride onto Jun as he breathed in thick competing chemicals.

Jun staggered to his feet, stumbling along the wall as he headed for the window. Door was blocked off. He had no choice. Something exploded by the door, Jun flinched. His breath caught in his throat.

Shaking hands ran across the charred and chipped walls. Tongues of flame licking up from underneath as smoldering ashes turned to fire. The room was a haze of gray and white smoke. His head felt like it was swimming.

He found the window. His hands brushing against the warm hard glass of his only likely exit. Working frantically about the frame he searched for a lever, a button. Anything to unlatch the window and throw it open. But his numb fingers found nothing. Just the coarse wooden frame of a window, with the paint peeling.

“No, no, no.” Jun stammered. He looked behind him. The source of the white haze obscured by its own smoke. But the roar of a building fire was growing greater. He could feel the welling heat as it built rapidly. Something exploded again. Like a gun shot. Jun ducked. Nothing happened.

He needed to move fast. Searching the frame he continued to find nothing. He panicked. Breath shaking. Cough building in his chest as he breathed in more of the acrid, putrid smoke. There was another loud bang and he dove forward, against the table with the phone. With a dull chime the appliance danced on the table top.

He had no other choice.

Pulling himself back up he grabbed the phone, body and all. Pulling it up off the table he swung it to the side. Throwing it against the glass pane. With a crystalline sheering note it shattered outwards. Large teethes of glass exploding out into the Russian spring outside. Cooler air rushed into the heat of the apartment.

Turning, he grabbed the table the phone had called a home and shoved it through the empty window frame. Clearing out the remaining glass. Following the table, he climbed to the ledge outside.

The footing was tentative. And five stories below loomed the side-walk below. It was a long-fall, and already a crowd was pulling together. A bustling crowd was beginning to gather as the window six-floors above breathed smoke like some elder dragon.

He hugged the cold brick facing of the apartment building. Holding to the stone as he watched the street below from the corner of his eye. He trembled. It had been a long time since he was on a face so sheer, on an edge so thin.

In the distance sirens blared. His heart thundered in his chest. Adrenaline beating through him made him feel weightless. But flighty. He shivered on the six-story ledge, staring into the rough pattern of granite brick and cement mortar.

Jun rested his forehead against the wall, taking deep breaths. The events that had transpired still washing over him. “Fucking damn it.” he swore. He would have kicked himself.

Sighing, he shimmied along the wall. The spectators below called out. Shouted. Cheered. Or jeered. He couldn't tell.

He inched along to the next window on the apartment floor. With a careful hand he reached for his holstered pistol, and using the stock of the weapon broke through the glass. Clearing out the dagger pointed shards before climbing back in.

Atlas Mountains, Spanish Morocco

Julio Zuraban struggled to keep pace with Joaquin as they and a hundred other former prisoners scrambled across the desert sands and up into the rocky crags at the foot of the Atlas Mountains. Their presumed liberators, these masked men of the Sahara, rode alongside the sweating, panting caravan of malnourished Europeans on camelback. The steeds snorted and growled in annoyance as their riders bounced upon their humps and harried the beasts onward, maintaining a steady trot at the same pace as the Spaniards. A few of the riders cantered back to the tail of the sweat-moistened gaggle, demanding they move faster The words of these veiled men themselves were utterly foreign to the Europeans, but their exasperation communicated a demand for urgency that needed no translation.

This running trek through the desert would have been a challenge for Julio even under ideal circumstances. Though his duty as a Senator of the Spanish Republic had been a taxing post, as was his self-exile afterwards, neither line of work was particularly strenuous at least in terms of physical exertion. Though he was always a wiry man, Julio had never been able to call himself fit. Complicating his softness were months of neglect and imprisonment that had left Julio positively emaciated. An evening jog along the riverfront in Madrid would be a difficult proposition in his current state - to say nothing of a forced dash across the Sahara at the height of summer. Thick, cottony foam bubbled up under his tongue; his palate and tongue felt as if they would mummify with every breath of dessicated air that passed across his mouth and into his lungs. Atrophied legs threatened to bear Julio's strides no longer. He could simply collapse into the sand, let the others pass him by, and allow the desert to consume him. He could escape the hardship that had been the last four months - the last three years - here and now. At Arratzu, Julio begged his captors for death, as Sotelo had hoped. Here he could have that death that days ago he had wanted so desperately, if only he could falter and submit to the sand and the heat.

But Julio did not submit. With every aching stride Julio chose llife: to accept this new lease at freedom offered by the camel-borne warriors who had saved him from a fate worse than Arratzu. He would not squander his newfound freedom.

The desert sands sloped up in rippling dunes toward the sheer walls of the Atlas Mountains. Half buried slivers of rock sheered off the jagged peaks poked up from the dunes and presented a maze to the approaching prisoners and their mounted escorts as they drew closer. The Spaniards slithered through the boulders in a single line after the rider leading the prisoners, the man who had spoken to them in Spanish.

"This way!" Their scarf-veiled leader commanded in perfect Castillian. "Keep moving, we are nearly there!"

This man was distinct from from the other warriors. He was no Saracen, Julio knew that much. He had seen Bedouin tribes before once; a tribe of wandering Arabs outside of Damascus in Ottoman Palestine. Just as the ones that escorted them now to safety, they were merciful to strangers and ruthless to their enemies. The leader of these Bedouin was no native man. His Spanish was well pronounced and his grammar far more precise than that of self-taught speakers - he had clearly been educated in a more formal fashion. More tellingly, he rode his camel in a noteworthy fashion. He kept himself rigid upon the bobbing hump of his dromedary, whereas his comrades bobbed up and down in tandem with the trot of their steed. His method of riding was not as natural and organic as his companions, but learned and practiced. He was a foreigner of some sort.

A distant, percussive twocking echoed through the boulders and against the mountain face before them. This rumbling, mechanized din built in pitch with each passing second. The source could only be but one thing: helicopter rotors, and they were approaching fast.

"The Spanish are coming!" The foreigner exclaimed, wide eyes visible through the open slit in his scarf as he turned toward the haggard escapees. "Into the canyon! Move!"

Motivated by sheer terror for closing gunships, the prisoners burst forward as quickly as their legs could carry them after the foreigner Bedouin. The scarf-clad warrior dismounted from his camel and tumbled into the sand before leading his camel and the prisoners on foot into a craggy fissure running up a solid face of the mountain above. Joaquin stood at the threshold of the crack in the rock face, beckoning his companions through into the fault. Julio fell in behind a dismounted camel being walked through the narrow pass by one of the Bedouin. The Spaniards behind him pressed Julio forward into the rear of the camel, which groaned with annoyance as those behind him shoved him into the beast's haunches.

Though his face was firmly planted against the camel's ass and he hadn't the faintest idea where they were going, Julio felt the sand give way into a coarse gravel crunching underfoot. A moist, refreshing breeze coursed through the chasm, beckoning the prisoners further into the shadowy depths of the fissure. Cool blue light filtered into the chasm as the gaggle of escapees pressed forward after their liberator. Over their anxious murmurings, a gentle babbling could be heard like that of running water falling onto stone. Julio glanced over the camel's hump and saw a gout of cold, clean water spilling out from a hairline in the rock above his head and patter against the gravel below in a waterfall of fat, sparkling waterdrops. The trickle carved a gurgling ribbon through the chasm that ran into the blue light beyond.

With little warning, the camel moved ahead and gave Julio and those behind him a glimpse of what lay beyond the chasm. The fissure opened up into a massive gorge walled on either side by sheer stone walls some twenty or thirty meters high. That tiny rivulet beneath their feet joined with the larger brook that had carved this canyon out over millions of years. Olive bushes grew from the watered banks, each quivering of the in the shade-cooled breeze that coursed through the canyon. Camels attended by turban-sporting natives slurped water up from the deeper pools, menacing schools of tiny minnows as they did. The herders beheld the gaggle of prisoners with palpable suspicion, which seemed to be partially soothed when the Spanish speaker addressed them once again.

"We are safe here. Their gunships will not find us in these canyons. We must keep moving, but you need not exhaust yourselves. Move at a relaxing pace within reason and refresh yourselves with the stream water if you wish, I assure you that it is clean."

Julio acknowledged the foreigner by collapsing onto his knees and dropping his head into one of the pools beside the camels. The surge of cold, bubbling water instantly extinguished the throbbing heat on his cheeks as he imbibed the surrounding water in humongous gulps. Upon surfacing, he found that nearly all the other prisoners had joined him in drinking from the canyon stream. The camel herders, still wary of the newcomers, had pulled their beasts away and continued down the gravelly corridor through the mountain. Joaquin, however, kept pace with the Bedouin leader as he and his fellow warriors went down through the canyon with camels in tow.

"Do you honestly think we are safe here?" Joaquin demanded of the foreign warrior. "You don't think that they'll not be suspicious when they find the wreckage completely empty when it should have dozens of people inside?" We can't afford to slow down. We need to put as much distance between ourselves and that plane or we will be found."

"The Spanish already know we are here, it is only that they do not know exactly where to find us. The destruction of their airplane will embolden them, their commanders will send more patrols out into the desert to locate us, leaving fewer men at their Mountain. We know full well what we are doing; who are you to question us?"

"He doesn't mean to come across so critically." Julio exclaimed, butting into the exchange. "Joaquin here is only concerned for us. He was a leader by profession, and he has his opinions what the best course of action is. We are all very grateful for you and your companions, and we are in your debt."

"We will address this debt of yours soon enough. The Amghar will see you now. He shall decide how your people will assist us."

The foreigner drew his hands across the scarves obscuring his face, loosening them and allowing them to fall upon his shoulders. He was a Subsaharan with characteristic nappy hair cropped short upon his head and forming a long yet well-kempt goatee that maned his mouth. His hazel eyes, light skin, and narrow nose however were decidedly un-African.

Julio's obsession with this man's identity distracted him from the walk through the canyon, as well as Joaquin's palm extended before him that immediately brought him to a halt and galvanized him from his reverie. It was then that he noticed the contingent of armed men standing before them at a bottleneck in the shady chasm. Great War machine guns nested behind stacked blocks of sandstone flanked either side of the narrowed pass, behind which turban-sporting North Africans trained on the Spaniards. The light-skinned African continued ahead, addressing them in Arabic once more. After a brief exchange, the guards lowered their guns and stepped aside, permitting the African and his following of liberated Spaniards into the narrows, but only with suspicious glares at the passersby.

Beyond the narrowing, the canyon opened into a massive sinkhole nestled within the bosom of the jagged mountains. The stream coursed through the narrows in a shallow riffle down to a cataract that emptied into a great blue pool. Waterfalls spilled out from cracks in the algae-stained walls of the sinkhole, feeding the oasis with meltwater from distant peaks. Majestic date palms grew to massive stature along the gravely shore of the oasis, their fronds forming a dense blanket that obscured the sunlight. Presumably, this curtain of palm leaves also hid the inside of the crater from anyone looking down from above. This, Julio presumed, was was the reason the Bedouin had chosen to place their camp here.

A small city of tents and tarp-roofs covered nearly every meter of available space in the sinkhole. Under draped tarps and betwixt palm trees, makeshift shelters housed every sort of supplies needed to fight a small war. The ancient clashed with the modern here; farriers hammered out horseshoes on forges built from oil drums and fueled by prepackaged grilling charcoal; horses and camels stabled under the same tents where anti-tank rifles were inspected and cleaned. Storage areas held dozens of sheathed swords resting on tables beside metal ammunition boxes. Julio had to make a double take when he saw a swarthy Saracen unloading long, silvery rockets from a crate stamped with Chinese lettering.

"Where in the Hell did all of this come from?" Joaquin blurted, wondering aloud.

"It was difficult." The African responded, slinking past a duo of natives carrying a long wooden crate down the path between the tents. "The weapons especially. Good men died to bring them here. It is my hope that they kill many Spaniards."

At the far end of the sinkhole, the African and his company came to rest before a pavilion - large and made from a rude, beige fabric. As the Spaniards caught their breath, a wizened and stoic Sarecen clad in a billowing robe pushed his way through the door flap. A long, gray beard hung from a face made into tanned leather by a lifetime in these inhospitable lands. It was face whose features spoke of immense displeasure.

"You have brought the enemy to our camp!" He rasped, a trembling hand feeling for the pommel of the sheathed sword on his hip. "This is a foolish thing indeed. You told me that you were wise in the ways of war. What wisdom is this, what kind of adviser are you? God willing, you have an explanation."

"These are no enemies, Amghar." The African explained, reverting to Arabic. "They were aboard the airplane of the Spanish that was shot from the sky. We slew the pilots, but found these people within the airplane's belly. I think that they are prisoners of some kind."

"Prisoners? This plane was flying toward the Mountain?"

"There is nowhere else it could have been going, Amghar. It is possible that every plane we have witnessed passing over these lands is carrying prisoners like them to the Mountain."

"That is impossible." The ancient Saracen huffed. "It defies logic. Why would the infidel expend such resources to transport their prisoners to the Mountain? Are there no prisons in Spain? I cannot believe such a thing. These men are agents of the Dajjal. What else could they be?"

The Amghar drew his sword, eliciting visible fear in the prisoners as the straight-bladed longsword cleared the sheath. Despite his advanced age, the Amghar found ample strength to point the silvery tip at Joaquin's chest.

"They are agents of the Dajjal. They are captive enemies. Our people do not keep captives. You know this, Dejene."

"These men are prisoners, Amghar." A woman exclaimed, commanding the attention of everyone. A silky hijab obscured her hair, but left her face visible. Her skin was fair and light - far lighter than any Arab or African. She was of obvious European descent. How she had come to arrive at this place was anything but. She made her way to the elder. "Please, lower your blade."

"You would let them live, Graciela? So that they will betray us and deliver us on a plate to the Dajjal?"

"Sotelo is as much an enemy to these men as any of us. Dejene could not have found more dependable allies than them. They have been beaten within an inch of their lives, this because they threatened Sotelo's autocracy. In the past year, some among them have been taken from the prisons and sent away by plane. My father and his people were likely among them. I didn't imagine that they would send them here."

"They are taking Spaniards to the Mountain? As they have with my people?" The Amghar asked, lowering his sword from Joaquin's breast at last. "I had thought that place was a fortress. Now you are saying that it is a prison?"

"I don't know. Arratzu - where these people came from - was a prison. The facility here, La Cabeza... I don't know.

But these people might. If anyone knows what lies in wait for us in that place, it will be them. Let them live and allow me to speak with them. They will fight alongside your warriors, Amghar. But we must show them that they are safe here first."

The Amghar stood silently for a time, staring into the gravel beneath his feet as he thought to himself.

"I will let this be.

Graciela, Dejene... speak with the Spaniards. Feed them as we are able, and find out all that they know of the Mountain. Find out what is in store for us."

Manila

Carlos Cortez was the young and charismatic leader of the Philippine Social Democratic Party, born during the American Occupation, lived through the nationalist revolutions and the Chinese War, and now, in the ten years of Chinese Occupation, made a name for himself as a politician and party officer. Driven, determined, and above all, attractive, he can be a bit reckless and selfish, but that was more than eclipsed by the fact that, well, he genuinely wanted what was best for his nation. And, in this Election Debate, he can, and will, prove it. For Carlos was now facing the incumbent, President Ramon Cristobal, who, despite the taint of corruption, still held, in his corpulent, pale, form, an air of experience. And, so, Carlos had to be careful.

"Capitalism has failed us," Ramon Cristobal was now saying, "The American system of 'Free Enterprise' has only brought money and power to a few, an oligarchy," how ironic considering that Cristobal was born from the ranks of that same oligarchy, "who hoarded their wealth, built dynasty after dynasty of collaborators, and, furthermore, betrayed their own ideals of competition by the instiution of company monopolies and the gifting of entire corporations to cronies. And now, ang bata na ito (this child here), wants to bring back that system? While at the same time plunging us to a future war? War has brought nothing but pain and suffering towards our people, everyone here must know that," there was actually some passion in that plea, and so it was Carlos' turn:

"And look what is happening now!" the brown-skinned, well-built, black-haired and brown-eyed man spoke, looking immaculate in his suit. "We may not be suffering anymore, but can we call this prosperity? We used to be happy, even under the system of exploitation that you decry. We used to meet life with a smile, with optimism. We used to dream that if we worked hard, we would be able to live a happy life, resting upon the fruit of our labors. The only thing wrong with that dream was that it was a lie, but it was a lie that could have been made into truth. Look at us! We have health and education, but we lack work! We have land and are free from the hand of the tyrannical landlord, but not the means to improve said land!" He then continued:

"Our State-Run Enterprises are, with few exceptions," Carlos meant the Mining Industry, "corrupt and inefficent, reliant on constant subsidies to keep running. Our currency is kept up by artificial means. Our trade is supposedly needs-based, yet we have no surplus to call our own! We are wasting money and resources that we can better use elsewhere!" He now had the initiative, and would press on:

"As for the coming war with Spain and the Comitern, Spain has learned nothing from her earlier failures, and is starting a war to destroy the very systems you hold dear. they despoil and demean the people of the world, denying them their basic rights. Let us not forget the fact that we were once theirs, the days of the Friars, of the Forced Labor, of the denial of positions based on skin color. A war on them is a war to save the world -" it was not Ramon's turn.

"Our State-Run enterprises have provided the Government with revenue that it uses for the benefit of the people, never forget that," Ramon was giving a somewhat angry rebuttal, "and as for War, you know nothing of it, and furthermore, it is obvious to everyone that you just want to send troops against Spain - eventually - so that our Chinese Protectors would look upon you and say: 'what a faithful member of the Internationale he is, let us support him! Such a cynical bid for power," he said with no small amount of irony; he himself had been among the first to collaborate with the occupiers. "That said, I will not deny that the situation needs improving, that we need more jobs, but said jobs can be provided by the State." He was now finished.

"Which in turn causes increased maintenance!" Carlos was now regaining the initiative, hitting back. "As for revenue, private corporations who pay their taxes and tolls can mix with the State-Run enterprises that do work, in order to provide more revenue." This was the weakest point of his debating positions, due to the existence of 'deadweight loss'. "And, yes, I'm aware of the fact that private enterprise doesn't want to pay taxes, that taxation is inefficient and causes inefficiency except in cases of negative externalities. But, I say that as long as there is profit, as long as there are products that only the Philippines can offer, that there will always be people willing to pay the 'deadweight loss', because there are comparative advantages in the Islands."

"But enough of that," he spoke, "the fact of the matter is that our economy is bleeding itself out, that our people need jobs and money in addition to health, and that we have forgotten, and are in the process of, forgetting our past as both Eastern and Western. Our spirit, unique in all the world, is being lost in imitating others, our cities are losing their souls. We have forgotten our music, our literature, our art. Who knows now of Juan Luna's art, of Jose Rizal's novels?" An exaggeration as regards the latter; they were still well-known. "Who knows of our native dances and festivals? I do not oppose Chinese Culture, per se. What I oppose is the insistence of the ruling party in replacing our own with it, instead of mixing it with what we have now..."

"You claim to follow Chairman Hou, yet have forgotten his statements on other cultures! In your eagerness to repay your debt to our protectors, you forgot that our protectors outright stated:"

"China mustn't seek to eliminate all race and culture in it to make a mono-toned landscape. It must bridge the barriers like man bridges river, lake, and ocean to make connections. China should remain colorfull, by extent the world. But the people within need to look to their neighbor and not feel hate or fear, but love and compassion. This is my goal: to bridge those social and racial gaps and both preserve our identity and history, but create strong and everlasting love."

"People have forgotten this in their race to repay their debt, people have forgotten what our protectors have set out to do. And what is forgotten, must be remembered!"

And here was where Carlos Cortez held the audience. His love for Philippine Art and Culture was sincere, and that sincerity showed. It also helped that while Ramon Cristobal wore a western-style suit, Carlos wore a native Barong Tagalog. Either way, the fact was that Carlos, whenever he went on this tangent, won the debates.