---

It was a bright sunny day in the barren wastes of the Sahara. It was a beautiful sight to behold, the wonderful mix of white and crimson with speckles of green. The corpses which rot under the sun, the whelming sounds of gunfire, screams and explosions. The sound of shrapnel tearing through flesh, cutting through the lower buttocks and exiting through the groin. The anguished screams of the victim and the last, abrupt cry before the end. Hassan ignored this and kept on riding to glory. He was a farmer, a family man and a man of faith. He had been angered by the government's refusal to admit him into the "Feed the People" program. How dare they deny his plantation? Cannabis was as valuable as any other plant! And how dare they burn his farm down? Just because it was "illegal" under new law doesn't mean it isn't useful. How was he supposed to feed his family or most importantly, pay off his debts? He didn't want to be roughed up from some debt collector, his daughter sold off into the black market. It simply wouldn't do to lose another farmhand like that. So, like any frustrated and angered member of the peasantry, he filed a complaint. It was into the sixth month of no replies that he realised that the bureaucracy of the government was slowing his complaint down. Closer and closer the debt collectors came, the more anxious and desperate he was.

So, he turned to terrorism. Now, many would question the logic leap from peasant farmer to insurgent but it was quite simple to Hassan. He would join the Traditionalists, who had set up shop in his hometown with no resistance. It was desert Tindouf after all, the police were more likely to bum fuck you than actually fight crime. Then he could help overthrow the provincial government, make a country and then he wouldn't need to pay off any debts! At least, this was the fool-proof logic he foolishly believed in. He wasn't an educated man, born into a family of 12 with no formal education to his name. He didn't know what the word "insurgent" even meant and he wasn't fully aware of what it took to make Algeria bow to their cause. He had done some questionable things, things that Farmer Hassan would have refused to do.

Rape children to force conscription, maim those who refused to bow to them, kill the loyalists. There were villages who were condemned by their elders. They refused the true way, the freedom the Traditionalists were giving them. Couldn't they see that this was what Allah wanted? The Algerian government was oppressive, refusing to let Traditional Muslims to have a word in government. It was all "Islamic Modernism", where was the freedom of speech? Where was the democracy that we Algerians prided ourselves on? Couldn't they see that the Algerian people have been brainwashed into following an undemocratic government system? Those elders who refused to see the truth were stoned to death, with the fit men and women split off to fight and the other females taken to their "personal relief" camps. However, there were also villages who cheered as they rode into town with captured armoured cars and horses. They called them "freedom fighters", fighting for the right of free speech. For true freedom for all Algerians, to rid ourselves of the oppressors. To rid our ties to a false government, a false constitution and a false people who couldn't see past the lie. Every Traditionalist fighter sacrificed much to make sure that their cause would be achieved.

Their families were kept hidden from them to prevent distractions. They had been promised that they were kept in a separate camp away from the "pleasure camps" but Hassan wasn't so sure. He swore that he saw his only daughter, his sweet little Ana, being dragged off into a tent by two large men. But, that was of no consequence to him now. He needed to believe in Almami Zidane's words, to strive for success in his missions and to completely focus on his tasks. After all, he was a veteran fighter now. His bombing of that kindergarten in Tindouf shook the rest of the Algerian people to the core. He had shown that the Traditionalists were a hardcore group. He had proved them wrong, those silly northerners and the loyalist southerners. He had shown what they could do, what they were willing to do for their cause. He was willing to throw his life away for the cause, for the freedom his family could gain. Even now, as he charged into battle in an open-roofed armoured car, a machine gun melting through the armour, he was ready to kill some infidels.

Surrounded by horses, camels and their riders, Hassan felt powerful as he let loose with the large cannon in his hands. Other cars followed him but lacked the firepower that he possessed. He killed one of the loyalists, their bloody bits going everywhere. It was an officer, that silly one who kept standing to make speeches. He laughed hard, whooping and hollering. His driver, a taxi driver from Oran called Ali, shouted with him. Freedom Fighter Hassan raised his fist, shouting in the top of his lungs. "FOR FREEDOM BROTHERS!" It was like a wave, cheers spreading across the men even as the enemy machine gun cut swathes into their ranks. One unfortunate man was caught mid yell, the bullet tore through his throat and he was sent tumbling into the sand. The man was ignored and the charge continued, they were nearing their goal.

As Hassan let loose with his cannon once more, wounding the loyalist manning the machine gun, he grinned from ear to ear. But then he saw one woman emerge from that tent, covered in blood. The infidels started cheering as the woman reached into her pocket - a sling. The farmer's eyes widened. He swore, shouting at Ali to drive faster as he looked around for a shell to reload with. He grasped the large round in the corner, standing up to see a lump of grenades heading in his direction. He muttered under his breath. "God is great. God is great. God is great. God is great-" He loaded the round as time seemed to slow down. Everything became clearer in his vision. He loaded the round and fired, the cannon pointing towards the blood-covered woman. The former farmer began to roar, a fierce expression on his face as the explosives landed in his open roofed car. He died satisfied, knowing that he enacted true justice and revenge for his brothers who died that day.

---

Sergeant Muhammad Lellouche watched as the last cannon round kick up sand in front of a smiling woman, covering her uniform in it. He barked at her to get back into position. "Specialist Samiya! Stop smiling you fuckin' idiot!" The harsh voice of her superior and her almost death kickstarted the woman into action, running back to position to fire at the Traditionalist forces. They had weathered much of the storm, cavalry once again proving ineffective against an armed immovable force. He swore that the Traditionalists could be downright foolish at times. Cavalry charges in open spaces were foolish, especially against a machine gun position. The armoured car was a surprise but didn't supply the breakthrough support the cavalry had needed. The gunner spent too much time joyriding than actually firing at them, for which he was thankful. The other cars soon followed suit but were more like modified personal cars rather than actual armour. The sheet metal welded to their fronts provided little protection to their occupants.

The remaining nine out of the squad of twelve continued to hold the line, pouring immense amounts of fire into the horde. The cries of men and animals filled their ears as they cut into charge that kept on coming. Their ammunition was running low and Samiya had run out of explosives, reducing her to collecting grenades from the normal soldiers. Hard targets like that armoured car were first priority, flankers second. Any horseman or camel rider caught trying to circle around their position was soon put to death. The machine gun continued to rattle on even as the operator bled into the sands, staining it crimson. The man was tended to by his ammunition carrier and loader, the woman desperately trying to keep the gunner alive even as she clutched a bleeding arm. Even still, the pair rained death upon all who came at them but it was obvious they were going to die soon enough. Many of the Traditionalists were focusing fire on their position, bullets impacting against the canopy and sandbags.

They inched closer and closer, trampling the bodies of the dead to get to them. Their vengeful cries shook every soldier to the bone but Muhammad made them hold the line. They were tired but kept up their fire, the 39ers doing their volume work while 36ers kept up with accurate body shots. Samiya went down the line to collect her explosives. She ducked and weaved under the fire, diving between covers to avoid death. She gave weary soldiers a small smile of encouragement before collecting their assigned pair of grenades. She proceeded to throw them in places where the Traditionalists bunched up and watched with glee as gore blanketed the dunes. She was her own one man army, like many experienced explosive specialists were. She caused death among the enemy ranks and with her on their side, chaos reigned for the enemy. She bolstered the men with the cries of a fierce warrior woman, shouting unladylike slurs at the charging enemy.

"Cowfucker!" she yelled, throwing a grenade at an approaching vehicle. "Shit eating, bum-fucked traitors!" she roared, throwing a second grenade into a bunched group of slow camel riders. Samiya smiled and revelled in her own glory before running to the next weary soldier to relieve them of her toys. She was careful to circle around the bloodstain that was Lieutenant Bernard, nodding her head in solemn respect before returning to the carnage. He had rallied them in the initial charge, calling them to fight even if it was to the end. With that ridiculous heavy accented Arabic, he held the line for them. Since his abrupt death, the Sergeant replaced his role. He shouted at the men to keep firing, steeling their resolve and bolstering their confidence. They were fighting for the lives of their brothers and sisters. Every second they held, every enemy they slew, the lesser the burden the others would bear. Superior arms, training and leadership led to an extended hold. Three hours passed but still, the enemy came with a ferocity unseen. With technology that they shouldn't have, vehicles they didn't have funds for. If they weren't fighting for their very lives, the loyalists would have questioned this sudden deadly edge

They could not last forever though. One by one, the loyalists began to dwindle. The machine gun operator bled to death as his ammo carrier took over, tears streaming down her face. Samiya was pinned to a sand pile as a group of vengeful riders dismounted and concentrated fire. Several soldiers succumbed to previous wounds or died from being too burdened, the pain slowing their reflexes. They were being split from each other. Muhammad swore under his breath as one more man died from a stray round, piercing their skull. It was chaos all around now, every man fighting for himself. Scores of Traditionalists simply rode past the beleaguered few left standing. In the distance, engines rumbled and a loud horn was heard. Loud booming sounds polluted the air, another cavalry charge commencing. He was going to be overrun, he needed to make a call. "Noor! Get those horses back here, we're riding out!"

The youngest of the squad, who was tending to the horses behind a nearby sand dune, rode out with the other animals in tow. He stepped up to his own horse, flinching as a bullet grazed his shoulder. He glanced down at the red stain growing on his sleeve. He bit his lip at the stinging pain and reigned his horse under control, circling around the camp. "Retreat! I call a retreat! Ride brothers and sisters, we ride to our lines!" shouted Muhammad. He turned his steed around, grabbing for the Algerian flagpole lying in the sand. It was cut down from the tent by a horseless Tradie. He wouldn't let it fall into enemy hands.

The horses, trained and loyal, sped off towards their respective riders. Survivors clamoured onto their horses and whistled for them to move forward, Samiya throwing one last grenade before getting on to hers. One of them were cut down before they could even get on their horse. Another's animal was shot and landed on the unfortunate soldier, screaming in pain as his legs were crushed. The ammo carrier nodded at the escapees, leaving the machine gun and its operator behind, climbing her horse with dry tears. In their hurried escape, only five made it on their horses to ride out. They rode up the dunes, the mass of enemies bearing down on them. Muhammad raised the flagpole as they ascended, roaring and hoping to survive their deadly escape. One man was shot in the back as they went over the top, crying out in shock. Four left. In the distance, they could see Tindouf and an armoured column bearing down towards their position. It was up to chance now. They could be still be killed by the enemy behind and in front or by a trigger happy tanker.

The four horsemen roared their throats out, heartbeat hammering their eardrums. Muhammad raised his pistol at an enemy rider in front of them and fired, bullets tearing a hole in the man's stomach. They rode as one, kicking up sand as both horse and rider fled for their lives. Bullets nicked their skin, impacted through limbs but still they kept their hardened gazes on friendly lines. They charged past confused enemy riders and ducked under bullets. Explosions kicked up the sand, showering them but they remained unflinching. One rider, so close to the finish line, was cut down by deadly crossfire. His abrupt yelp of surprise as his horse fell was cut off by the severing of his spinal cord. He died with shock and betrayal on his face, eyes towards the finish line. The three survivors continued to race forward, the adrenaline pumping in their blood. They passed the first friendly tank. They were met with silence as they charged past the armoured column, through to the walls of the town. There, they passed out in exhaustion, falling off their loyal steeds.

Muhammad, the last to fall, caught a passing tanker's offhand comment. "Well, that was a thing that happened." He raised a one fingered salute at the tanker before everything went black.

The Golden Lady, Part Four, The German Exile, Part Five, The Agriculturalist, Part Seven, Iron Lady, Part Ten

It was rainy season, and Aurelia was glad that her estate had electric lights as she sat in her room, writing with a new-fangled ballpoint pen. While she cannot send letters right now, she can draft them in preperation for the postmen once the storm had passed. In reaction to her cronies' complaining about Archie's betrayal, she had written on fine stationary:

Let Archie's treachery stand; I already have a way around it. Remember that the Constitution has the Vice-President be elected separately from the President. And unlike the Presidency, the candidates for that position are lackluster and obscure; and more importantly, the Vice-President is also Secretary of Foreign Affairs. With one stroke, I get all the power I want, with some patience, I will keep my place as Top Dog. She rejoiced in her counterstroke; just as Ludwig had established his own stake in this interplay, so had she. And yes, she had known that the exiled German geologist was behind this idea; he had even discussed this in her estate.

The next letter she drafted was a note to Henry Cornell informing him of her plans to get around Archibald's challenge, and requesting him not to do anything rash yet. The last thing the Philippines needed was foriegn interference in its affairs. That said, she did leave a caveat in her postscript. PS: If you absolutely must do something, make sure the Japanese look bad. A moment's thought, and the plantation owner added a second post-script: PPS: Archie knows how to increase tobacco yields without using foriegn fertilizers and pesticides; that's why he should be kept around. Some more thoughts, and another postscript: PPPS: If you can get us more planes, we are willing to pay; profits from our deal are manifesting.

Now for the next letter; the corrupt Worker Co-operatives in Subic Bay were making threats. Aurelia decided to write a simple reply: Your usefulness has ran out; we no longer need you.

Briefly, Aurelia thought of her son, Candido. How was the young man doing in Alaska? Was he still fascinated with 'Woolly Mammoths' like his father, or was he turning to more useful pursuits? His last letter was a bit disturbing; it showed that he was still interested in his 'Pleistocene Park' project, but wanted to fund it with mercenary work. And he was asking her for start-up funds...

----------

The rains in Manila were over for now, but Archibald Santos still questioned the need for holding the New Philippines Party Convention (Now attended by the Houists and Muslim Congress) in the city when the streets were still soaking wet at best and flooded at worst. Nevertheless, he couldn't deny it, he was having fun. Especially when Priscilla herself, in her position as New Philippines Party leader, walked over to him, a smile on her face as she said to the Agriculturalist, "I knew my people would make an adult decision once I leave them alone."

Archibald was embarrassed at how happy his Lady President, soon to be just a citizen, was. He rubbed the back of his head, before saying, "Well, I doubted I was the right man for the job, but Ludwig did a good job telling me how much my country needed me. That and I can't wait to send more trade missions to other countries; there is this really fascinating type of plant called Kola, which in turn is the source of the drink, Cola. If we can get our hands on it, we will have another product to sell!"

Priscilla nodded enthusiastically, "I will be the first to buy such goods once they are available. That said, I will probably be half-way to Africa by then."

The sound of footsteps was heard close to them as Isiah Macadangdang, the Youth League leader, went to Priscilla and embraced both her and Archibald, before saying to both: "I never anticipated such a countermove from you two! You just saved both the country and its democratic principles from that reactionary!"

As the young man's Barong Tagalog shone in the pale sunlight which shone through the window, he grinned even as his Lady President observed that he couldn't bring himself to address Aurelia by name.

Then came the Man of the Hour, Ludwig himself. Dressed in a formal dress suit of grey fabric with brass buttons, the German turned on the crude microphone and after testing it, began to give a speech:

"Greetings, people of the Philippines. When I first came to the Islands to participate in the 'Priscilline Concilliarist' experiment, I didn't know what to expect. To be honest, I still held various 'racial attitudes' about the people here and their intelligence. But then I worked with them, got to know them, and saw that despite their lack of development, simple virtues and a sense of family drove them on. And that is the prime virtue of the Filipinos: They are Family."

"And so, it is my moment of joy to announce, even as rainbows light up the sky: That Archibald Santos is the new General-Secretary of the New Philippines Party, and our Presidential Candidate!"

Applause sounded out.

Florence was in heaven. The Mosquito was 6,500 feet up and racing over the Rhodesian countryside, the ground beneath a green blur broken by glimmering blue lakes and the lazy brown waters of the many rivers and streams the cut through the region. They were following a long, high cliff face that stretched for miles through the jungle.

"What are you looking for exactly?" She shouted above the roar of the engines, leaning in close to make herself heard.

"Communists!" Redeker shouted back as he glanced out of the canopy window.

She felt her gut sink slightly at the words. As a Journalist she was well acquainted with the Bush War, the horrendously violent and largely unknown border war raged between Rhodesian Security Forces and Communist guerrillas. A colleague of hers had once spent a week on the border with the Rhodesian's and come back a changed man. The things had seen, well, he had won a Pulitzer prize for his story and photography. He had painted the Rhodesian soldiers as baby killing monsters, and on his next journey to the country he had been gunned down by the wife of a soldier killed in the fighting.

"Where are they?!" She shook the memory from her mind as she tried to see something, anything, that might be "human". All she could see was a mass of treetops.

"Do you really want to know?!" He shouted back. She could see the warning in his eyes and in that moment she was reminded he was a soldier first.

She thought for a long moment and then, nodded. The Bush War was a fact of life for her country and she was a Rhodesian. Communism was a poison and she, as much as her family, feared it's arrival on their side of the Zambezi River.

"Down there!" He was making a gesture toward the ground and she had to partially lean over him to see out. The wall of cliff seemed unbroken until, for a brief second, she a darker patch of shadow beneath the foliage. "Cave mouth!"

She nodded as the planes shadow flitted over the cave and kept going. She sank back into her seat and then got close to his ear. "Can we go back around?!"

He shook his head. "No! Might alert them!"

"To what?!"

His finger extended to point off to their right. It took a moment for her to pick out the three aircraft skimming along over the tree tops, their dull brown and green camouflage making them almost impossible to pick out. Two of them she recognized as Submarine Spitfires. The third plane was something she had never seen before outside of pictures. It had three engines, with a pair of cockpits between them and a tail gunner in the rear. It looked like an oversized De Havilland Mosquito.

"What's the third plane?!" It looked familiar to her, she had certainly seen it on a magazine cover somewhere but couldn't remember where.

"The Angel!"

"The Angel of Death?!"

She felt as if someone had punched her in the gut when she heard the name. The Angel of Death. A strike bomber the Rhodesians had designed specifically to fight the jungle insurgency. It was famous for two things, rockets and napalm. Napalm had been invented in the past three years by Rhodesian weapon specialists. It had proven deadly against the Communist insurgents and the Angel carried two large canisters of it beneath the main fuselage.

"Yes!"

She sat back into her seat again as the two Spitfires peeled away and climbed up past Redeker's Mosquito, wiggling their wings as they shot past.

"Do you want to watch?!" He called to her. She glanced at him, ready to be angry, but the look on his face was not one of malice or glee. Rather it was of a man who had seen what was about to happen before and knew what she would see. It was a warning.

She shook her head even as she glanced over her shoulder. Far behind her she saw the twin flashes of a pair of rockets as they shot away toward the cave. She turned away before they hit home.

------------------------------------------------------------------
June 17th: Kisumu, Swahili People's Republic
------------------------------------------------------------------

Thomas Jefferson Murungaru sat on the edge of his bed in his room at the Umoja Hotel. The door to the balcony was open, letting a pleasant breeze blow in from Lake Victoria, the sound of children playing in the street coming from outside. He held a pen in his hand over a piece of parchment on a slim portable desk.



Li Huan stirred. He put down his pen and turned to look at her. Her almond skin was partially visible beneath the thin linen sheets, teasing him with her nudity, two brown nipples pushing against the fabric. She was still asleep. He thrust his hand under the sheet, running his fingers against the soft skin on her belly, down through the unshaved thicket of hair between her legs, arriving delicately at her sex.

"Good morning" she said, a smile on her face, disheveled hair in front of her half-asleep eyes. When he looked at her she giggled and grabbed onto his arm, pulling him in. Their mouths met. He thought he tasted a slight tang of wine from the night before. Why couldn't it always be like this? Wasn't their revolution over? He wanted to settle down by the sea somewhere and spend the rest of his life happy.

"Are we waiting the day away again?" she asked hopefully. His smile faded. "I have some things to do."

"What things?" she asked. "I'll come with you."

"Have breakfast. I'll be back, and we can spend the rest of the day together doing nothing."

She sat up, her upper half rising above the sheet. She looked worried. "What is it? You can tell me. I am here to help."

"I know." he said while washing up, splashing water in his face and under his arms. He started getting dressed. "You can help me by getting breakfast."

"What are you not telling me?"

"I am meeting somebody today. It's not interesting, and I don't think he wants company. It won't take long."

"You owe me."

"We'll have dinner by the lake. I promise." He was now dressed, wearing his military fatigues, the common sort that most of his men wore.

"I'll hold you to that." She was smiling, uncertainly now. He did his best to look nonchalant as he slipped into the hall.

The Umoja Hotel had been turned into Kisumu's Communist headquarters, but this changed its appearance very little except for the clientele. It was full of rough-looking bush soldiers. Communist flags of various kinds hung above the hand-me-down British furniture. His men saluted him casually, holding up their breakfast to him and smiling. He returned the gesture and walked outside.

The kids in the street paid him no mind, yelling at each other as they kicked a rough leather ball down the rutted dirt road. The smell of fish was prevalent in this city, part from the breeze blowing off the lake, part from the markets selling fishermen's catches in the open air. It wafted through old colonial buildings, cheap imitations of European architecture constructed out of whatever material was easiest to get, built to be airy and open by people unaccustomed to the tropics, characterized by spindly wood and plaster covered in pealing paint. Toward the lake he could hear the crack of guns, careful and even, the sound of target practice.

The veterans of Mombasa lounged about the town, still riding high from the sack of Mombasa, draped with jewelry and trinkets like pirates in a movie. Murungaru had deprived them of their human spoils, releasing the victims of the sack of the city through Djibouti where they could be sent to more familiar countries in a subtle way, avoiding the bad press that would accompany a similar deposit in Dar es Salaam or Beira. He knew the sack of Mombasa still made a bad impression, but this was war. Germany had made a bad impression in the rape of Belgium, and they had recovered their reputation since then. He only felt remorse in one way; the doubt it had planted in Li Huan's idealistic breast, the way she second guessed his intentions now.

He walked toward Mbaya-Hispania Hospital; a colonial hospital built during the War to treat cases of Spanish Flu, afterwards converted into a Bedlam until the Communist movement took control of the city and emptied the asylum to fill their ranks. Now it was an annex to the Communist organization in this part of the country, an unassuming single story colonial building facing the lake, its only suspicious feature being the soldiers standing guard. Franz Agricola met him up front.

"I don't like this character." he said, uncertainty playing across his face. This was the same face that'd beamed so proudly at the trebuchets he built to take Mombasa. The engineer was second guessing him too.

"Why?" Murungaru kept walking.

"I talked to him, about his research. I like a good researcher and wanted to know what this guy was about. What he had to tell me... it's creepy, I think. I don't know any other word for it."

"This man has recommendations you wouldn't believe if I told you. I want to see what he can supply."

"Is the revolution not inevitable? You don't need a man like that."

"I don't have patience for the inevitable. Wait outside please. You know I can't let you in."

"What do... who do you have in there, General Secretary?"

"Work." Murungaru passed inside.

The building was dusty and partially decayed. Inside there were only guards, the rotting furniture unused and ignored since the revolution, and the man he'd came to see. He was dressed like an English butler from another century, held a gold-tipped cane in his gloved hands, and stood so properly as to be almost feminine. His hair bushed out from his head like a halo-disk. He smiled and tapped his cane twice against the ground. "You are the General Secretary, I presume? I must extol the virtue of your facial hair, it is remarkably Communist. You have the appearance of Chairman Hou Sai Tang's negroid cousin, if such a man were to exist."

"Dr Sisi. Your name proceeds you."

"Excellent. I appreciate that you are interested in narcotics? Because I must say, my cup overfloweth, videlicet clientele, and to take on more is... well, it is onerous work, General Secretary."

"I was told you prefer a different sort of payment. Something other than money?"

"And possess have such an article?"

"That's why we are here." Murungaru smiled insincerely, "Follow me. Though I warn you, I don't know what we'll see."

They walked along a rounded portion of the building until they came to a door. The guard there saw Murungaru walking toward him and opened it. They walked into what had once been a surgical facility, but was now mostly empty, except for the activity in the center of the room. The moment they entered, one naked man, his muscle-knotted back and ass glistening with sweat, climbed off a battered looking white man, a man Murungaru recognized as Commander Trevor from Mombasa, slumped against the wall like a tossed pillow.

"I told you to be ready for our guest!" Murungaru filled with pounding rage. He attacked the black man, slapping him several times in the face, wanting beat him but restraining himself in front of the Doctor. The white man at the wall groaned, his body a bruised and bleeding disaster, fresh red blood trickling down his leg. Dr Sisi ran to the victim, his face contorted in worry, and grabbed the damaged man by the head. Murungaru slapped the black man again and turned toward Sisi. "I apologize, Doctor. This is what comes from trusting faggots."

"What have they done to you!" Sisi had the dazed white man by the chin, maneuvering his head, inspecting it.

"I will have this faggot punished. This perversion..."

"Irrelevant." Sisi cut him off, "His nose is fractured, but his skull is intact. That is
marvelous. Though a concussion could come of the trauma apparent by the wounds on his skin. Have you been hurling this man's skull about?"

"I suppose." the torturer, still naked, shrugged.

"This is a valid peace offering, but in the future I will expect more, and in better condition. Science fears no evil, but it fears confounding factors. The head is delicate, and should be treated carefully" He looked up, and then around the room. "There is some equipment in here, but not much. I need to retrieve some tools. You mind?"

"Get what you need. Ask any of the guards and they'll help you."

"Good" Dr Sisi beamed, "And get your man servant dressed. His genitals are dripping this man's claret." Murungaru didn't look to see, but instead motioned to the torturer to do as told. Sisi grabbed a dusty stretcher cart and wheeled it outside. Murungaru stared at the ceiling, wishing he was still with Li Huan, and that this wasn't the work he was fated to do.

When Sisi came back, the cart was brimming with bags and strange supplies. He went to lift the half-dazed victim. The torturer helped him. They propped him into a chair, and Sisi poured a bucket of water onto him. It partially woke him, and the process of washing him down with a rag did the rest. While Commander Trevor came to his senses, Sisi grabbed a straight-razor.

"Kill me. Finish it." Trevor asked.

Sisi smiled. "No, sir. I am only amputating your mane." And so he did. He cut the man bald, worrying over every freshly discovered cut or bruise, until the entirety of his sickly white scalp was naked to the world.

"Do you know your benzodiazepines?" the Doctor asked the two standing men. Both shook their heads. "Well, look in the bag brimming with bottles and recover the one that reads chlordiazepoxide."

"What are you doing?" Murungaru asked.

"I can't travel with him like this, hogtied and gagged so he can't make an incriminating sound. Ah, very good." the latter response was to how the torturer handled the syringe and prepared the bottle even though he hadn't been asked, handing the filled syringe to Sisi. Without saying a word, Sisi injected it. Tom Trevor's eyes went wide for a moment as if he expected death, but he didn't protest. The man was spent.

"Now this alone could make the man transportable. Customarily I would do it in this fashion. But I know a method to make him more agreeable than chlordiazepoxide could ever do, and I postulate you need a demonstration, to understand why I expect quality specimens in immaculate condition. Now, aid me with this please." Murungaru didn't say a word. He watched as the Doctor and the torturer grabbed a big steel brace and fitted it over Trevor's head. The Doctor dug into his bag of drugs and injected several other liquids into the victim's scalp. When it was all done, he admired his work like an artist.

What he did next was sickening. He began to screw the brace-like contraption into the head of Commander Trevor. Blood trickled from the wounds. Trevor winced, but did not panic. Murungaru thought it hurt him to watch more than it hurt the victim.

"What you are about to witness is neurological science of the persuasion rarely observed by laymen. Regard yourselves as lucky, my friends. There are sons of the prosperous of Europe who spend many annorum anticipating such a demonstration." He began to cut away Trevor's scalp.

It was disgusting and bloody work. He then applied a small steel hammer to the victim's skull, and opened it like a melon. Murungaru had seen battlefield gore of the worst kind, wounds no man should ever have to consider, and it didn't effect him like this did. He felt nauseous.

"What are you doing?" Trevor asked, eerily calm.

"Can you save your disturbing ejaculations for another point in time?" Sisi asked.

"What are you doing?" the dazed man said.

"If you must speak, then sing something."

Trevor began to sing Rule, Britannia. Sisi spoke. "People ascribe too much being to their bodies. The heart, the stomach, perhaps even the soul, that's just hydraulics. We are the brain. Right here, this is us. Sever a quarter of a teaspoon worth of grey matter, and a man never speaks again. It's that delicate." With his scalpel, he dug at a spot on the left side of Trevor's brain. Rule Britannia became a garble of nonsense. Trevor was babbling like a brain-damaged infant. His eyes lit up in distress as he realized what had been done to him.

"He will most likely never utter an intelligible word again. He can still think in words, but he can no longer produce them sensibly. The mind is impressions. Speech is more structural, and requires something I just pilfered. To everybody we run across in our travels, he is just another madman, and I am his doctor. Now, I need him clothed. A few more like this and I'll show you how I can serve you." It was done. The babbling patient was covered in a black cloth and wheeled out to Sisi's Helicopter. The rest of their interactions were terse as the Doctor prepared to leave.

Murungaru watched the helicopter take off, sending Dr Sisi away with his madman. Agricola met with him, and saw the concern in his eyes.

"That bad?" he asked.

Murungaru waited until the chopper became a single dot in the sky. "I need a cigarette." he said.

Patrice Lubumba looked down at his desk, his fingers massaging his temples. This was not the look of a man who just won their country's first election. This was not the look of a man who has overcome impossible odds. This was not the look of a man who has shed his country's chains to an oppressive Belgium. This was a look of pure frustration. He had onky been leading the Congo for a few months now and with every day, a new problem arrived at his desk. From inter-tribal relations, the lack of sustainable food crops, underfunded industry, not to mention the Belgians on their doorstep. The Katangan secessionists, with their Belgian military assistance, proved to be a thorn at his side. The numerous Belgian businesses had interest in the resource-rich areas and funded the secessionist movement to keep their profits intact. He was disgusted by their arroganc, holding on to a colony who wanted them no longer. But it proved annoying and with every other nation building problem stafked on top, downright stressful.

He had been foolish, he realised. Freedom was not the final step as Lubumba had thought, instead it was the first. Taking over where the Belgians left off was difficult with the lack of trained professional Congolese. The institutions they left behind were hard to replace without qualified, educated Congo staff. Freedom didn't stop their problems, it just added to it. The journey from freedom to fully functioning state was a difficult journey to make, as Lubumba's government found out. Distastefully, they had to retain some sort of Belgian technical staff to make sure things would run smoothly.

Lubumba stifled the headache and wiped the sweat from his brow, reaching for the glass of water on his desk. He took greedy gulps, ignoring the paperwork on his desk. He banished the innumerable amount of meetings he had for the day from his thoughts. Finishing it to the last drop, he set the glass down with a sigh and a smile. This first meeting would help with his uncertainty and the problems with his country. If he spun this right, he could gain a valuable ally and a way to vaquish the secessionists. With them out of the way, he could continue to build his country accordingly, under his democratic and free views.

A soft knock on his door alerted Lubumba of the Westafrikan arrival. He put on his best grin. "Come in, make yourself comfortable."

The doors soon opened to reveal about fifteen men - whom stood out almost immediately from the soldiers that guarded the Prime Minister' office outside. Namely - among the group, only one of the men was white, the others were all black. Although, looking very disciplined and trained - even their uniform seemed twice as proper and prim than what constituted as the current uniform for the formerly Belgian-run Force Publique or gendarmerie.

"Prime Minister Lubumba. I am Oberstleutant Amadou Bankole von Douala. Duchy of West Afrika. My staff, my guards-" he spoke in an accented Belgian, pointing to the three Askari officers - whom looked more war-hardened then even some of the former Belgians. "And this is Erwin Theissig."

He soon introduced the only white man in the room - whom looked all the signs of a man of intelligence. "Herr Theissing is an educated political historian and a Professor at the Royal Douala Academy. Myself and he - have come here, under the assistance, offered to the new Republic of Congo...by Herzog Hurst..." he explained, his tone crisp and calm. A man, who knew what he was doing - and what he was supposed to do.

The Duchy - the wild man of Afrika. Both a colony and also not a colony. A place where a black man was still ruled by a white man - yet his life and status, wasn't held back by his nature or color. Although, one didn't need to be an experienced politician - to know, that the German Duke was likely more eager to smash the Belgian Empire - than out of a straight nobility of his heart. Although, his offer of aid seemed genuine - plus the Duke, had promised futher economic support - once Congo was stabilized and the infrastructure was running again.

Something that with the Duchy's support, was to come earlier than later. Lubumba kept that charismatic and genuine grin plastered on his face. These men in front of him could help with his country's future, a bright and happy one. "Assistance which is gladly accepted by the Congo and her people. Please Herr Bankole, I invite you and your staff - including Professor Erwin, to make yourself comfortable in my office. We have much to discuss after all." He let the men settle down in the plush couches he had ordered in from last night. He wouldn't have settled for anything less than the best for these people. After they sat down, there was a moment of silence as the new Prime Minister churned the words in his head.

"I have no doubt that an informed man such as yourself, Herr Bankole, would know of the current turmoil in the Congo. The secessionists have been a thorn in Congo's side for far too long.They have hindered the progress of our nation and support a defunct government. They have no place in our democratic society." Lubumba eyed Bankole to gauge his reaction but only found strict German discipline. He could applaud him right there and then but continued. "The Congo appreciates the aid which the Duchy provides, in any form. We are a regrettably troubled nation with problems left over from our colonial roots. I and the Congolese government need as much help as we can get and we appreciate the Duchy for extending their generous hand."

Lubumba paused to look into Bankole's eyes, a serious look in his eye despite the charismatic grin. He wanted a straight answer. "What sort of assistance will the Duchy be providing the Congo and her people?

Bankole soon uncrossed his leg and looked the other African man in his face. Despite their united race and home-land, they were far different type of people - both in cultural and personal sense. "Herr Lubumba. Herzog Hurst has authorized me to assist, in any way possible - to allow your nation to achieve a stable and secure future. He sees the fate of a stable Congo is better - than an uncertain future under the hands of the Belgians," he explained.

"Thus Herr Theissig here - will provide assistance and advise, on how to build your nation. He is a man, who has studied Afrikan history for many years - and is one of the few men, who has studied the many political structures of the colonial states," he spoke - as Professor Erwin took over.

"Indeed. The Duke is certain, your people would have a better chance of stability for the region," spoke the Professor, his tone being respectful and polite. Leave it to the West-Afrikans to be the most polite people on this continent. Whether by choice or not, was a different saying.

"These fine gentleman - would help with stream-lining what military forces are under your control and building up a decend system of meritocracy," said Erwin. It was the only thing they can do military-wise - the Duchy only had a military for defensive purpose. Thus, the only military aid they could offer was advisory only. Although, if the Belgian system could be reworked - and decend incentive provided, then they could get their military working enough for them to gain experience and rank. While...hopefully, avoiding any violent coups - that seemed to be common among post-independence Afrikan states.

"Myself - I will be assist you in writing up a constitution, laws and rules - that a newly formed nation will need," he explained. "Most of which I will defer to you - I am here to offer assistance, not to dictate terms. Your country, your future. Once a stable governance is formed - we can begin, in fixing up a system - that would stop this sectarian violence..."

"Once this Crisis has been resolved. The Duchy will provide you country with several aid packages - in the form of skilled technicians and monetary aid in restarting your economy and helping to build several key industries that a new nation will require," explained Erwin. "Furthermore, the Duke is open to allowing many of your best and brightest to study at our Colleges and Academies."

All in all - for Prime Minister Lubumba - it would mean a lot of paperwork to do. Although, likely the most important papers - that would decide the future of the Congo for years to come, would be written likely here and by him.

Lubumba had his fingers intertwined in a fist, eyes peering at both the Professor and Bankole. What the pair told him was promising and gave him hope for his country. It was a relief that they were here but he wasn't idiotic. The Westafrikans wanted something and he would have to do his best to give that something. However, he would need to iron out some details first. He stood from his chair and began pacing around the room, the grin diminished into a small smile. "It seems as though that the Westafrikan Duchy has much to offer the Congo in aid and I, as its Prime Minister, give thanks to you kind gentlemen for coming here. However," he stopped mid step and turned towards the Westafrikans "I doubt that the Duke is doing this out of the kindness in his heart, pardon my rudeness. But a leader does not become a leader if they make one way deals without any benefits, this would lead to discontent amongst the people. What does the Duchy seek to gain from aiding the Congo? Resources? Labour? Or maybe a simple trade agreement?"

The man folded his arms with a dead serious gaze. He was a fair but strong leader with both his iron will and charisma to fall back on. Lubumba was an intellectual, a learned man who knew politics well, thus earning him leadership in the MNC in the first place. "I am aware of the growing divide between ideologies and countries. You are led by a duke and are a part of both a colony and not a colony. You have ties to your old colonials while we have gotten rid of our own. Do I have your word, Herr Bankole, as an educated black man, that the Congo will not regret receiving aid from the Duchy? That we will not be forced into an international, ideological war? As you can see, we have internal problems of our own. I will need your word on this, Herr Bankole."

The Prime Minister was glad that he was sent a black man from the Duchy, he would trust his word much more than a white man's. Belgian, British, German - it didn't matter. After what they did to his people, the atrocities and unnecessary violence, the Congo's trust would be hard earned. Africa was for Africans, he believed. But Lubumba wasn't a fool. If these Westafrikans could prove that their white men were as fair as they made it out to be, then maybe whites could be African after all. And maybe, just maybe, they could be trusted. But that was yet to be seen in his eyes.

"Ah. That is the big question many ask. Simple - the Duchy and Duke want stability," he replied. "The man - the Duke, he is a rather open-minded yet smart man. He realized long ago - that trying to rule over us as colonial overlords would lead to revolt and rebellion. It has been evident all across the world. Both in Afrika and in Asia."

Lubumba's eyebrow was raised a few inches. A white man who didn't think any lesser of other races? Now that was new. He quickly wiped the surprise off his face however, letting Bankole continue on.

"It is his belief - that a grateful ally is better than an unstable rival. The Great War broke many European states - many whom have neither the power nor influence to control their colonies anymore. Thus - he has acknowledged the fact - stability in the Congo is good for the Duchy. It means less conflict on both our borders and better opportunities of trade."

"I can promise - that no war of any kind will touch Congo' soil by us. Nor will we engage in ideological warfare - so long as neither do you," explained Bankole. "It isn't mine to speak - but unofficially - the Duke wishes to construct a great continental railway. A superproject which he hopes will grant him a position in the page of history."

Thus it was simple self-survival and prosperity - typical rulership of a German colony. Namely the most the Duchy would wish is simply merchantile. It is true, that a stable Congo would be less a threat to its surrounding nations - plus many people of Congo would be grateful, if they could grow and prosper like the Duchy did.

The Prime Minister hummed and rubbed his chin in thought. It was a delightful deal, he had to admit. It was a win-win situation for everyone. The Congo would be stabilised and he knew that it could prove as a suitable trading partner for its neighbours. His was a resource rich country, all he needed to do was to utilise these resources correctly. He began nodding, as if in agreement with himself. There was no possible way to lose except for being in debt to the Duke and he seemed to be a nice enough man.

"Well," Lubumba started, his charismatic smile back on his face "it seems that we both benefit from such a deal. And your word is as good as any right now, Herr Bankole." He extended his hand, his smile growing wider. "It looks like an agreement between our countries have been reached. To a prosperous relationship and a stable Congo, good sir."

Patara Darbazi, Georgia

Yaglian’s section took point, two jeeps moving through the winding roads in the Georgian mountains. They were far from home, the lights of the border installations long having vanished as they continued their questionably-legal mission through the rough terrain of bandit country. Patara Darbazi was vanished in the hills of Georgia, forgotten to many and home only to a few dozen civilians. Only a single raider encampment put it on any sort of map: the Armenian military’s. It was part of a network of supply camps that enabled small teams of bandits to poke and prod at the Border Service and try to find routes for their next smuggling operation. Hitting this one, in concert with an organized attack on two other encampments, would be enough to bloody the nose of the Georgian Mountain Wolves militia, albeit only mildly. A platoon of Armenian troops pulled their vehicles into the trees beside the ancient, overgrown path they were traveling on: it was the end of the road for those machines. A team from third section was assigned to watch them, much to the chagrin of its leader who was now missing the fight.

The rest of the troops grabbed what they needed from their rucksacks and bounded off. Their light-olive green uniforms blended into the shadows of the woods as mud splashed onto their gaiters and brown leather boots. Most of them carried their carbines slung low at the ready, scanning the mountaintops as the sun rose. The machinegun teams, belts of ammunition wrapped around their torsos like the fedayi of old, took up positions in the march with their equipment ready to be emplaced. A kilometer on foot at this pace took twenty minutes to march, before they spread out into the hills to the south and west of the encampment. To their west, the town was stirring as farmers came out in the early morning light to check on their animals. In silence, like they had rehearsed on a small scale in the lot behind their barracks, they spread their sections into lines. Machine gun teams from the weapons section found good spots on their hilltop and dug in, aiming their bulky weapons at the silhouettes of the bandit tents.

Yaglian’s section found cover behind an abandoned barn, its wood rotted and its roof having caved in years ago. His own team hunkered down by a pair of rusty bicycles and a stack of chicken coops that had long since been tossed away. He went back and forth across his three men as he checked them off: had they forgotten anything? Were they ready to fight? After ensuring everyone took a look at their weapons for any sort of mechanical errors, he ordered them to fix their bayonets. As quietly as they could, the knives were unsheathed and clicked into place underneath the barrels of their carbines. Yaglian tugged his into place to ensure its secure placement and slapped his curved, banana-shaped magazine into the rifle’s frame. Taped to its side was another magazine upside-down so that he could reload easily while clearing through the camp. Sergeant Ozanian came to Yaglian as he finished his preparation: “Are we ready?”

“Yes, Sergeant. Everyone is good.”

The section leader eyed the morning dawn as it crept over the jagged rocks of Georgia. The other section leader on the southern flank was jogging from his position behind a hill to the barn, waving his hand. The two NCOs exchanged words, before Sergeant Ozanian patted the other man on the back and send him off. “Corporal Yaglian, we’re all ready. I’m going to blow this whistle, our Lieutenant will hear it, and he’s going to start the gunfire.”

“We count to sixty and then begin our movement,” Yaglian continued as Ozanian nodded.

“Once we pass the line of view of the Lieutenant, he’ll blow his whistle to stop the guns as we move into the camp. It’s an easy raid, straight out of a textbook.”

The border guards all nodded, overhearing the plan, and made final adjustments to their gear. Yaglian tilted his taraz soft cover straight onto his head, brushing one of the loose wool ends over his shoulder before he looked back towards Sergeant Ozanian. The mustachioed, middle-aged section leader had stood up from his position by the chicken coops and put a dull grey whistle to his mouth: he blew three dreadfully long bursts, followed by a hearty yell: “Onwards! Onwards!”

The machinegun teams from their section fired their guns, streams of bullets hosing through the bandit guardsmen. Puffs of dirt and grass were kicked up violently from every impact as the bandits dove for cover behind rocks and sandbags. One after the other in a synchronized “talk”, these guns fired their bursts to pin down the enemy forces. Those who were not stuck behind cover down emerged from their tents, bewildered, before grabbing their rifles to return fire. Within seconds, the snaps of bolt-action rifles answered the Armenian guns. Tracers, linked every five rounds in a machinegun’s belt, inched closer and closer to their targets as the gunners began to adjust their fire. In response, the bandits’ shots tracked the direction of these and began to close in on their positions. Return fire kept some of the firing line down with their heads behind cover, but fire superiority was regained as soon as the other rifles on the line doubled down on the enemy positions.

By the time Yaglian counted to sixty, the guns’ high-powered rounds had torn through much of the bandits’ cover. Several laid wounded on the ground, screaming as they clutched gushing wounds or, in some cases, the stumps of missing limbs. Others tried dragging them out of the way of danger, risking their lives for their partners. The troops on the southern flank heard the second set of whistle blasts, and Yaglian steeled himself before he rushed out into the open field beside the barn. As soon as the Armenians emerged from their position, the machineguns shifted their fire to the north, clearing the way for their comrades to advance. Yaglian threw himself towards the bandit camp just a hundred meters in front of him, but that distance felt like he was running a marathon. The Corporal looked back from the raid’s destination to his team, and extended his left arm straight out: “Get into a line!”

The other three men sprinted out to form a straight line perpendicular to the camp’s perimeter, alongside the other team in their section. Every couple of meters, the troops would instinctively get down to a knee or behind whatever cover was available and begin covering their other team’s bound: a few rounds would be quickly fired off before they got moving again. Yaglian slid into the mud in the middle of the field just a few meters away from where he started and aimed into the radium-painted iron sights on his rifle onto the silhouette of a man. He squinted his right eye, gripped hard on the wooden rifle stock, and squeezed a trio of shots off from his carbine. Each one kicked into his shoulder, pushing the muzzle of his piece into the sky as the rounds flew towards their destinations. The bandits were still were focused on the machinegun positions, and had been caught off-guard by the southern flank’s first round of fire. Almost as soon as their shooting began, Yaglian’s team was off on a sprint to the position.

This process could would be repeated a few more times until the southern flank reached the barriers of the camp. By now, the fighting had turned into a ferocious close-quarters match as the machineguns had called off their firing entirely. Yaglian’s team reached a sandbagged position where a guard was now laying, bleeding out against a rock. Another bandit was tending to his wounds as Yaglian’s youngest soldier, Lingorian, leapt up and over the barricade. Both of them stopped, only for a split second, and looked each other in the eye. Lingorian, without the betrayal of any emotion or thought, mechanically moved his rifle to his eye and took aim at the Georgians. He hesitated for a second as the rest of his team moved past him to clear through the encampment, before he saw the wounded bandit’s hand twitch. He didn’t look twice to find out if the men were armed or not as he shot both of them on the wet, dewy ground. Lowering the rifle, he moved up to join his team.

As Lingorian bounded to the next piece of cover with Yaglian, he slammed his shoulder into a wooden box of supplies. The young Private caught his breath and fumbled to regain his footing. Both of them crouched down as another round of gunfire cracked through the camp. After looking back to Lingorian and the rest of his team, Yaglian peeked his head around the corner of the box and fired a few rounds in the general direction of the enemy. Two shots answered him, so he replied with another round of shooting. Another Armenian had come running up to their stack of crates and took aim, popping shots off as he slowed to a walk. Yaglian stepped out to join him, firing his own carbine until the Georgian militant ahead of him was knocked down to the ground. Inside a row of tents to the east, the two heard the report of a submachinegun rip through a section. A chorus of shots silenced the bandit, and the southern flank continued to move through the encampment.

The largest structure was another wooden barn that housed the bandits’ supplies for its patrols. Sergeant Ozanian had consolidated his troops together around it as the rest of the camp was cleared. Enemy gunfire was lessened, and eventually silenced, and now Armenian troops had the barn surrounded. Inside, it was suspected that some Georgians were hiding in wait. Yaglian ordered his men to take up covered positions and watch the windows, and went to seek out his section leader. The Corporal turned back and jogged quickly to where he had killed the bandit just a minute earlier, finding Ozanian talking to the other team leader in his section. “Sergeant!” he called. “Hey, what are we doing about this barn?”

Sergeant Ozanian glanced towards a guard position to the north as a short exchange of gunfire resulted in the injury of a Georgian as his knee was blown out. The wounded bandit tried to crawl away before he was stabbed in the back by an Armenian trooper’s bayonet. The Georgians were dead and all the tents had been searched. The only place left for them to be was the barn. The section leader looked back to Yaglian: “Are your guys hurt?”

The team leader shook his head. “No, Sergeant, we didn’t have too much resistance on our corner. How’s everyone else?”

“A couple troops in 3rd Section were wounded from that submachinegun, none very seriously. Our medic is with them, but that’s about it. We got lucky. Let’s hope it stays with us, George, because your team will be clearing that barn.”

“Clearing it, Sergeant?” asked Yaglian, stunned. He looked back towards the structure, now surrounded by Armenian troops. “Can’t we just burn it down or something?”

Ozanian frowned: “If we burn it down, it might set off the munitions inside. We might hurt ourselves in the process.”

“And what happens if we get hurt while we clear it, Sergeant?” testily replied the team leader, before he stopped himself and calmed his tone down. “They’ve got the drop on us.”

Ozanian twirled his mustache, a habit of his, and looked back at the barn. “We’re wasting time the longer we stay here. We have to finish this up so we can withdraw. This is a raid, not a siege.”

Yaglian was about to argue further, but held his tongue. Frustrated at the prospect of leading his team into certain danger, he just nodded and acknowledged. “I’ll go in,” he said.

Back at his team, Yaglian briefed the situation to his troops. Private Lingorian offered to take point as they kicked in the rear door, while the rest of the team would stream in and destroy whatever they found. It was suspected that there were two or three Georgians hiding, possibly up in the rafters of the barn, since visual inspection of the ground floor through the windows yielded nothing. Without further word, Yaglian’s four troops jogged their way to the back entrance as the rest of their section covered them. Silently, they lined up behind the door, eyeing the rusty hinges keeping it in place. With two well-aimed rifle shots, the door’s hingeplates were blown off and a hearty kick was delivered by the Armenian soldier. The door collapsed inwards, breaking into two as it flew towards the inside of the barn while Lingorian stormed inside, sweeping the area with his rifle. The troops rushed in, underneath the cover of a covered rafter: Lingorian was the first to head beyond this, going into the clear open area in the center of the barn.

Yaglian’s eyes were scanning a corner when he heard the gunshots: he looked back to Lingorian only as the young trooper fell to the ground in a crumpling heap. His other rifleman rushed over the wounded comrade and let loose a series of wild shots that reverberated through the entire barn. He, too, was felled by submachinegun fire. Yaglian and the only remaining member of his team both looked up to the rafter and began shooting through the wood floor. Bullets whipped up through the rafters and threw splinters of wood and hay around: one enemy was hit, falling to the ground with a thump and a cry. Yaglian fired until he ran out of ammunition, before quickly reloading and emptying his magazine at the rafter in a rage. He looked to Gagarian, the last member of his team, and nodded his head towards Lingorian and their other fallen partner. Gagarian, a veteran of the fighting, knew exactly what they were going to do. Both of them raised their rifles to cover the rafters as they walked backwards to the casualties.

A Georgian militant popped out from behind a box and was swiftly eliminated by the two Armenians. They stopped at their comrades and kept scanning the rafters, looking for more movement. Yaglian thought he saw something and fired off four shots at a dark corner, but it turned out to be nothing. He turned to Gagarian and slapped his shoulder, signaling for him to get the casualties out of the barn. The strong, stocky trooper slung his rifle over his shoulder and picked up Lingorian, who groaned and grunted and clutched his stomach as he left a trail of blood out the door. Lingorian’s partner, Gaznian, wasn’t moving or making any sort of noise. Yaglian sidestepped closer to him, still keeping his rifle on the rafters, and lightly kicked him in the thigh. He didn’t stir. Gagarian arrived to drag Gaznian away, and Yaglian scanned the barn one last time before running out to find Sergeant Ozanian. The section leader had run to Private Lingorian along with the platoon medic as the other section withdrew to the north. “He’s hurt bad,” simply stated Gagarian as he dropped Gaznian beside Lingorian. “And Gaznian… I think he’s dead.”

The platoon medic dropped his medical rucksack next to Lingorian, seeing the man groan and writhe in pain. It was a good sign, it meant that he was alive. Meanwhile, Gaznian was still staring at the sky with blank eyes and his mouth agape. The medic wasted no time, first pressing up the fingernail on his finger to try and evoke a response. When that failed, he scrambled over to Gaznian’s face and flicked his eyeball: still nothing. His last and most drastic option was to stand up, maneuver to Gaznian’s lower body, and deliver a swift kick to the groin that still wouldn’t rouse the man. The medic looked at Gagarian, and shook his head. “That one’s dead, but I think I can help the other.”

Gagarian turned back to Yaglian, who had arrived to hear the medic’s report. He exchanged worried looks with Sergeant Ozanian, right before a yelp from Lingorian cut through the air as the medic stuffed dressing and gauze into his stomach wounds. Once the bleeding of the young trooper was stabilized, the medic gestured for Gagarian to come over and help him lift the body up and out of the way. The two took off running with Lingorian as Yaglian and Ozanian both dragged the body of Gaznian behind them. The section withdrew to the north to rejoin the other members of their flank, with the medic and Gagarian heading off to the trucks to rush Lingorian back to the border station where a medical team was being called up from the rear by radio. Within minutes, another whistle was blown and the west flank swept through just like the southern one just had. They encountered no resistance, blew their whistle, and the Armenians began running off to the trucks.

As the troops withdrew, the order was given by the platoon commander to destroy the camp in its entirety. A single rifleman stopped atop the berm where the machinegun positions had just been located, withdrew a rifle grenade from his web gear, and screwed it onto the barrel of his rifle. Taking aim at the barn, he fired: the rifle grenade sailed through the air and impacted straight in the middle of its broad side. The munitions crates inside were detonated with the explosive and a brilliant fireball engulfed what had used to be the battle area. Bits of flaming debris ignited the tents and those began to burn as well. The platoon commander watched as his objective was destroyed, patted the rifleman on the shoulder, and both of them took off to rejoin their platoon. Within minutes, the Armenians were back in the trucks and gunning it back to the border as the sun cleared the morning mist. Elsewhere in the Georgian mountains, the other raids went according to plan as well: the Mountain Wolves would be stirred indeed.

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June 19th: Sheikh, Adal Province, Ethiopian Empire
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Hassan sat in the shade of a tamarisk tree, its many branching trunks creating an umbrella protecting half of the garden from the sun. Nearby myrrh trees filled the air with an earthy smell like fresh incense. Over the wall of foliage, a rough stone minaret pointed at the sky, rising beside an unimpressive square mosque. In the garden, two stools sat either side of an octagonal table, borrowed from a nearby cafe and ported over in a Doofarka. Hassan mounted one of those stools, his sheathed scimitar tapping against its legs whenever he moved.

The heat was severe. The air throbbed with it, and in the distance the desert shimmered. With the rainy season over, the scrub-blanketed mountains faded from green to brown, and the desert became a place of death. Hassan sipped at a glass of iced tamarind juice and waited silently, white-wrapped Dervish warriors all around him, no flesh visible but their hands and a strip around their eyes.

He heard the engine before the Landrover came into view. Doors opened, and slammed closed. A man in his thirties with a close-cut black beard, wearing white robes and a keffiyeh, exited the passenger's side. He was accompanied by two guards wearing khaki military uniforms and keffiyehs. Hassan stood up.

"Ali ibn Talal!" he greeted, "How is your grandfather? Is he well?"

"He is fine, by the will of Allah. You are looking well too."

"Yes, yes. I invite you to sit. Would you like something to drink?"

"Yes. Thank you." they both sat down. Hassan snapped his fingers. A Dervish brought the young man a glass of iced tamarind juice. Ali watched the servant with interest. "Aren't these your favored soldiers?"

Hassan smiled. "Yes, but soldier is the operative word. They live to serve at my pleasure, not to grow fat on pride."

"That is a strange philosophy."

"It may be, but I have no problems with discipline."

Ali took a drink. "Well, let's get down to real talk. What is it the Caliphate can do for you?"

"Let me be blunt. I seek independence from the infidel Emperor." The statement hung heavy in the hair for a moment, neither man speaking. Ali broke the silence. "You need help with that? You seem to have your land under control" he said.

"It is better to have more support than you need than to be evenly matched. To lose a war like that would be the end of my legacy. I only intend to win."

"I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I cannot help." Ali held his arms wide open and shrugged, "The Caliphate cannot go to war with their neighbor. It is simply not an option. A war fought over the Red Sea would attract attention from every nation in the world."

"I don't necessarily need soldiers, but support in arms and money would be fine. Both are precious to me."

Ali leaned back. "I would need to talk to my father. You understand this. Though I don't know if a rebellion is even advisable, to be honest with you. Is your arrangement not for protection against the West?"

Hassan licked his lips. "Europe is not coming back. Such worries are the foolishness of our time. I have heard of the dealings the old European powers have among themselves, and it is a joke. They killed their best men in the Great War and those who have come to inherit it are cowards and idiots. The Emperor in Ethiopia uses that excuse because he is weak. He is controlled by his court, uninterested in his country, and confounding to his friends. It is an opportunity for anybody willing to take it, and I plan on taking it for all it is worth. One out of every three Ethiopians are of the true faith. I intend to restore them to their ancient rights. I would leave Ethiopia with the borders of Tewodros II. That is more than a war for independence, it is Jihad."

"It is a fantasy" Ali scolded, "Are you bewitched? I always thought you were a reasonable man. You do not have airplanes. You do not have armored vehicles. Not enough to counter the Ethiopians at least. And though your soldiers are brave, and the fire of the true faith is in their hearts, they are only flesh, and their small-arms are not enough to carry a modern war."

"I have some armor, and some planes."

"As I said, that is not enough."

"I know that loyalty is a rare commodity in Ethiopia. Their highlands are afire with shifta bands. That is not a unified country we should fear." Hassan paused for a moment, the fact he had something else to say clearly present on his face. "I have a thing to show you, if you would be willing to follow."

"I am your servant." Ali conceded. Hassan climbed into the driver's seat of a Doofarka. Ali climbed into its passenger seat. His two guards crowded into the turret. The steel poles that made up the bare-bones vehicle were baking hot to the touch. The frankenstein vehicle purred alive, its engine raspy and kicking. Hassan piloted into the desert.

It skipped across the desert as naturally as if it were a paved road. Sand kicked up in a cloud all around the vehicle. Hassan squinted his eyes and floored it, gripping the steering wheel tightly, enjoying the feeling of power in his hands. They came to a place facing the mountains. The sun pounded unshielded upon their heads. The Sheikh Mountains were true mountains, but not mighty ones. They looked worn down and old, weathered peaks covered with fading green shrubs. Hassan pulled a pair of binoculars from his belt and trained them on a couple of white dots. He handed them to Ali. "Up there, near the peak where I am pointing. You will see two men."

Ali looked. "Those are your men?" He asked.

"Dervishes." Hassan confirmed. "Taking their exercise."

"An interesting track."

"Those men haven't slept for three days. At all."

Ali put his binoculars down. "Are they ill?"

"They are kept awake by modern medicine. Military drugs I have procured. I don't sit on an ancient army like the Emperor of Ethiopia, hoping things may be the same. I seek updates. I seek improvements. Anything that gives even the slightest edge, I employee it."

"And the Emperor allows this?"

"I'm sure the Imperial government is aware, but I am allowed to cultivate my own defenses. That is in the Treaty of our union with Ethiopia. They take solace in those facts you mentioned, that the Ethiopian air force is updated and organized, that they can afford maintaining armored units. But there is more to war than equipment. If one of my Dervishes were to face down ten of the best Ethiopian soldiers, I'd put my money on the Dervish."

"Many a fool has uttered that line, Hassan. I am not convinced."

"If I were to convince you with victories, what would you say?"

"Facts cannot lie. But we are a long way from these things being fact."

They had stopped to rest by the road side. Though to call it a road was not doing it much favors, it was in reality a narrow dirt path that meandered up over hills and through streams no wider than a hair in the sand. Leaning on their elbows, Li Chao and Guo scanned the barren wilderness around them. A half a day of riding had left their backs sore and faces numb from the brush of the air.

“How long is it until we actually meet someone?” Guo asked.

Li Chao shrugged, “I don't know.” he wondered allowed. In China it could be counted on to find villages or small towns. Even in the western provinces and departments where there were still nomads or semi-nomads. But there, even in the worst of conditions the roads were plainly marked. And more importantly they could read the signs. But now outside of China they learned some important facts: that they couldn't rely on much the same means, and neither of them could read Russian. “But I guess if we keep following this road we'll find someone eventually.”

“How would we know if we can even talk to them?” Guo asked, uncomfortable at the idea of finally finding someone to barter for supplies with, or even to work for to re-kit for the road. “What direction are we even going?”

Li Chao looked up at the sky, and covering his eyes with his hands looked for the sun. “What time is it?” he asked.

“17:00.”

“I'd say south-west.”

Guo sighed, low and mumbling.

Kazakhstan wasn't nearly as desolate as they had been lead to believe. Though neither was it spectacular. They knew nearby there was a vast lake, where the shoreline was imperceptible in the distance, only the distant mountains that formed the Kazakh-Chinese border could be seen and even then they were a spectral mirage against the clear open skies. Low lying brush and stunted trees pocked the hills, and a vast carpet of long grass swayed in the breeze. Every so often there would be a distant hawk drifting on the breeze, keeping an eye on the Earth below.

“I suppose we should get back on the road.” Li Chao grumbled, as he stood up.

“Why though? Africa is a long ways away. It's not moving anywhere. We can take our time.” Guo reminded him.

“It's not how much time we have to get there I'm worried about, it's how much time we can keep to not be found out.”

“That's bullshit. Look around us Chao, there's no one here!” Guo exclaimed. Standing up he turned and shouted out into the wilderness. Only his echo responded. “See? We don't need to move out any time soon. It's not like any soldiers or police are going to find us out here. I doubt there's even any here.”

Li Chao stood rigid and stiff, listening to the distance. But there was no sound that answered, nothing that called back. Only the silence of emptiness and the sigh of the breeze through grass. Acknowledging that he had been beat he sat back down. Guo smiled and nodded, “I wasn't looking forward to heading out, my back still fucking hurts.”

Li Chao shook his head. “Do you remember anything we're supposed to say, in case we have to talk to anyone?” he asked, looking over at his partner.

Guo thought for a bit. And speaking slowly and thoughtfully as if recalling the details from an adventure a long time ago began: “As-saraam arayakum. Ismeer Huan Guo. Anaar min Arsiyn. Ana afham.” he finished. Sounding even less succinct and accurate as a Hui speaker of Arabic.

“You sure they'll understand it?” he asked, “We're a long ways away from Arabia. You sure people this far away speak the language?”

“Some of our people do, I don't see the problem.” Li Chao responded, but truth be told he too had his doubts. This was an entirely new experience. And he imagined in his mind's eye the countries they would have to go through to get to Africa. Sure, some Arabic would get them there so he can meet up with his sister again. But here, Turkestan, Persia; did they speak Arabic? Their books demanded they did, but would the common herdsman be able to communicate in that way?

“Remember that old guy we met in Guangxi, when we were there for a summer trip before university?” Guo started, looking over to Li Chao

He thought a bit, and thoughtfully said, “A little.”

“I was just thinking about him.” Guo continued, “He spoke Hmong, but he also spoke perfect Mandarin. To top it off, he could speak with the Hui, and I'm sure knew some Vietnamese.”

“What are you implying?”

“That I think we'll be fine.” Guo said with a calm smile. “We don't know much, not now. But imagine all the land we have to go through. By the end of it we'll learn.”

“I sure hope you're right.”

“You've been the one with the ideas, and thus far been more-or-less right. Let me pay a bit of a doubt in right-ness. We'll be fine, partner.”



Li Chao

June 10th, 1960. The year of the metal rat

With the border well behind us I can say with good faith we have left China. It is surreal to leave one's country, to turn around and look behind to the place you called your home. As much as it is to leave your home town for the first time, your home county, province. It leaves an emptiness in the heart the fill with wanting and you it reaches out for what is being removed. But as you pull further away that thing which becomes wanting if removed surgically until finally it removes itself, and the heart fills itself with something new. You do know go without wanting home, but you no longer feel the anxiety and you don't feel compelled to turn around and go back.

I remember a passage from the Dao te Ching which we read in school, in which it is discussed that an individual shouldn't desire to be anywhere else but home. That things at home should be such that while the cock in the next village over no one has the desire to go over to it and visit. That there should be such contentment with home there is no personal need to go over. That there is no jealousy, or fear, or envy for that other village or that other neighborhood and you shall die where you are raised, in the comforts of home.

And well, I and Guo have passed beyond that final threshold and left our home, our country. We are now somewhere else and we have set ourselves with firm conviction to continue on into Africa. I can say that the bit of contentment I have had for home is gone and that I feel myself alive with wonder and curiosity for what is ahead. But also, a chilling fear. I can not help but feel worried about how we are to pass through these countries and into the others. We know Arabic, or very little. The hope is that we can communicate who we are, where we are from, and where we are going, and that we know nothing else but to get there. We do not imagine we shall see anyone else from our people beyond this point.

Guo said to me our first morning out of the country he thought about one of Grand Secretary Hou's essays for the first time seriously. He spoke some about that of Minzu. How we men of China are our own family and our own nation, but that we are equal members to the family of Asians, the nation of Asia. It had nothing he said to ever think about it with, no comparison or illustration but now on the road out from one family into another, and through yet many more in the broad community of humanity he will get to see much more. This has got me wondering, and looking ahead I think I too will come to face this. We will see not just where we fit, but where China fits in the world. We will know it not just in geographic space, but in human space.

Another thing which I thought, but I did not say is that we might see how much work yet needs to be done. At home, or abroad. We have heard much. It is time for us to see.

But for Kazakhstan itself, we have seen the country. Or what we feel is the country. Here in this part, somewhere in the eastern part it is all valley with mountains that loom beyond the horizon. The sky and the air is clear and I can not help but think we hand at the edge of a great cradle to something terrifying, in its scope or its history. But this might well be in the air, because there nothing but hills and grass around us. We have seen few people, and who we have seen were at a distance in tents and surrounded by herds. What we follow may be a goat trail, or a rough road like what exists in Mongolia. We have a vague idea on where we are going, or where we should go next. But the road we follow to get there isn't clear.

This is an experience most unlike home.

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June 20th: Fort Portal, Watu wa Uhuru held Swahili People's Republic
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The flag of the Watu wa Uhuru was not the red and black of the European anarchists. Marcel Hondo-Demissie rejected those colors, the hues of blood and death. He did not dream of violence. It was true he conducted it, but violence had been forced upon him, and he did not wish to serve under its banner. The flag of the Watu wa Uhuru was pearly white, a dove dominating its the center, an olive branch in its beak. It whipped proudly in the wind above Fort Portal.

(Optional Listening if you can read and listen at the same time)

Marcel was there when the farmers arrived to deposit their harvest in the granaries. He loved this work the best. He helped the common soldiers unload the trucks full of corn and millet into large wooden barrel-like structures held up off the ground by wooden poles. It was hard work, but it made him feel close to the earth, a part of the honest process of feeding the people. The farmers were not paid for their work in money. Instead, he gave them the right to replenish their supplies and equipment as needed whenever they delivered a load. Any man caught abusing this right and reselling the products of the revolutionaries risked losing Marcel's protection, becoming carrion for the warring factions in the so called Swahili People's Republic.

He was shoveling grain into a bin when Captain Ami approached, the tattered blue robes of the Force Socialiste hanging from the man's shoulders. His expression was grave. Marcel stopped working and waited for the hammer to drop.

"The Revolutionary Army is moving from Kisumu. They will be in Revolution-Town soon."

"Lutalo will use them." Marcel replied airily. "Don't worry. We knew this day would come. We must prepare our defenses."

"Can we defend against their entire force?"

"There is something we can do. It will be discussed at the meeting of the people tonight. I have a plan."

Ami smiled. When Marcel said he had a plan, worries went away. Marcel knew half of a good General's ability lay in his reputation. What had Joan of Arc used to retake France but reputation? His men fought hard expecting miracles. The burden on his shoulders was to keep his reputation and use it in service to his people and their cause.

He returned to shoveling corn, his hands tightening around the wooden grip of the shovel. He could feel his muscles tense in his arms. It was true that he had a plan, but he did not like it one bit.

"This is a boon crop." Marcel slapped the shoulder of the old toothless farmer when they were done. "How is your truck?"

"It is holding on to life. God willing it will survive me."

"It could use work." Marcel looked it over. It was a dented old rusting thing. The tires looked were nearly bald, and torn in some places showing the steel belt. "We have a mechanic. Your crop feeds that man, he won't mind helping you in return."

"I try to do my own work. But... I guess it won't hurt."

"Good health." Marcel sent the man off.

Fort Portal was a small colonial town in the green hills of western Uganda. Its centerpiece was the Palace of the Tooro Kingdom. The death of King Karamagi at the hands of the Communist revolution left the seat vacant, and Marcel's Congolese anarchists filled the void. The Palatial hill was now the meeting place of the Anarchist democracy; The Watu wa Uhuru Commune. That hill, peppered with a few scarce trees, watched over the humble streets of Fort Portal like a medieval mote and bailey.

Marcel went to the Maisha-Marefu Hospital, looking for the love of his life, longing for the comfort he derived by simply being in her presence. The mudbrick building held the only window air-conditioners in Anarchist territory, and their growl could be heard from the other side of town when all was quiet enough. He passed through the door. The place smelled like sauce and fresh fruit. The building was mostly open save for the quarantine ward and surgical theater. He saw Grace serving wine to the patients, and the sight of her warmed him down to the soul.

Grace Odinga was a Ugandan, a shapely woman with an infectious smile, who'd won his heart when he came to this land in the heady days of its early revolution, when he naively though of James Lutalo and Thomas Jefferson Murungaru as potential friends and comrades. They had disappointed them, but Grace had not. She held her hair up in a hair scarf now, making her look matronly.

"Where did you get those bottles?" he asked her.

"One of our raiders gave them to us. He said the the sick need comfort more than he does."

"Our people are a good people." Marcel said, his heart fluttering with pride. How much of acts like this could he take credit for? How much was innately human, freed from the gladiatorial nature of most societies?

"I am announcing the plan." he said, feeling guilty for injecting business into the happiness of the moment. "The one we talked about. Lutalo has been reinforced."

"You must do what you must do." she said, kissing him on the cheek. "I will support you. When you say your say, my voice will cry out the loudest in your favor."

"I know." he said, "But I thought you should be warned. A lot of people will disagree."

"I have faith in you, Marcel. All will turn out well." she smiled that wide, toothy smile that always got to him. He wanted her now. Not just her presence, but all of her.

"Do you think you could come home for a moment, or are you needed here?" he asked.

She bit her lip. "Let me tell the girls. I'll meet you there." He smiled, and they parted. He went ahead.

The sound of hammers and chattering of workers came from a nearby build-site as he exited into the open air. He went to their home, a small house under the palatial hill, consisting of a small front room, a kitchen, and a bedroom barely large enough for the bed. The decor was bare. It was not a true home after all, but a war-time hideout. Getting attached to it would not do.

She entered and flung herself into his arms. Their mouths met, and they started undressing each other with excited arms, half-naked by the time they reached the bed. Her breasts fell out when he took off her shirt. She grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him into bed.

--

The sun was setting when the free people of Fort Portal gathered on the palatial hill to discuss their future. It happened outdoors, when the humid air was starting to cool, and the insects beginning their song in the yellow light. Marcel and Grace sat in the center along with their captains. Those captains were no sign of creeping authority; they were elected by this very council, the soldiers and their families choosing them by popular acclaim. The people surrounded them on all sides, gathered together in a great crowd, the healthy standing, the unhealthy sitting down in chairs that'd been dragged out from nearby homes.

"Is the assembly of the people present in this field?" he shouted, his voice carried, deep and low. Several hundred ululating shouts and cries came in response. He smiled. "Good. Now, what do we have to discuss?"

A sheep-like crowd, untrained in the art of deciding things, like those found everywhere else in the world, would become a hollering mass at this moment. The first few attempts at such a meeting had been just that. Marcel's style of democracy was born in the Askari rebellion, forged between disciplined comrades with a common goal. When he came to Fort Portal and applied that practice here, it'd been a confusing mess. But Marcel was patient with his people, and he trained them how to conduct democracy. Conversations in cafes, in the back of patrol cars, and in the family home oftentimes drifted to public policy. People chose spokesmen. Those speakers brought objects with them to hold up, and waited until they were chosen. When Marcel asked the people what they had to discuss, planks of wood, sticks from trees, cooking pans, and even rifles appeared above the heads of the crowd. Marcel climbed onto his chair and chose a waving rifle first.

"Our patrol spotted an elephant herd twenty klicks to the southwest. It would be no struggle to harvest their ivory and move it to market north or south. Such a thing would be a boon to our cause."

Marcel was impressed. "Good find, comrade. What is the opinion of the people?"

A mighty clamor came from them, a fierce roar and show of hands. There was no question, the motion had passed. Marcel held out his hands. "What else is brought before the people?" A plank went up before anybody else. Marcel motioned for the holder to speak.

"I say we applaud Marcel Hondo-Demissie's victory over the enemy in the battle of the tree men. Without you, we would be lost."

Marcel didn't have time to speak before the crowd shouted agreement again, this time their voices lasting longer, so that he could only smile and wait. When they'd stopped, he spoke. "I share that applause with the men who fought against the enemy that day. It was a victory they won and bled for. And we have all fought and bled for the final victory. So let us remember that. The people are great, and the martyrs for the people are the best of all." Another ululating shout. He held his hands out, and motioned that he was going to speak. They people became quiet.

"We have another issue to speak of, before we can get to the rest. We have won many great victories, but we have not won the war. Our enemy gathers his strength now that Mombasa has fallen, and his strength is great. We cannot fight this war alone. We need allies."

The crowd buzzed. A stick went up. "What allies can we have? There is no one near who shares our values." the speaker shouted when pointed to.

"This is true." Marcel agreed, "It is an unlucky truth that we are surrounded by tyrants, but what can we do? We can lament our fate and die like martyrs, but what do we gain by such a thing? We do not fight for death. We fight for life! The life we have created for ourselves! We live in a world of devils. What do we do? We make deals with those devils, and we survive." The people began to murmur now, but Marcel continued "The Free Army of God, and the King of Buganda, share the same fate with us if Lutalo wins. They are reactionaries, I know this, but they are our only potential allies, so far from everything and inaccessible to the world."

The muttering crowd became loud. Objects were raised above their heads. Marcel knew their objections would be similar enough. He picked a man in the front. "Many of us fled from the King of Buganda. Some of us have family who are suffering in the north. The Free Army of God murders Muslims in cold blood, and so many of our people are of that faith. We cannot sell our own people to these monsters. Better die at the hands of the communists than be murdered by the King of Buganda or crucified by the Free Army."

Marcel responded. "We approach them because we are their only hope. We have leverage over the reactionaries. Who is it who has won victories against the Communists? Only us! When we die, the reactionaries die too. They cannot ask anything more from us than to fight with them so we all might live."

Another response, from a man holding a stick. "When we finish the communists, we will be finished too. The Free Army and the King of Buganda will see us as the biggest threat, and we will be destroyed by them. What is the gain?!"

"More time to live, to grow, and to plan." Marcel said, "I have faith that our revolution is the right one. Why have the Communist revolutions failed to spread like the wildfire they were supposed to be? Because they are not true revolutions at all! Hou is an Emperor! Villeneuve is a King! Priscilla is a President! They are statesmen, not revolutionaries. This is the revolution! And when we make victories, we will spread our revolution, and the people who suffer under the reactionaries will join us. They will be allies at the beginning, but they will be ours in the end!"

The people cried out. He had them. In the declining light, the singing insects were joined by the hymns of revolution.

The Second El Greco

After all he had suffered at the hands of the Communists, Markos Nikolaos (Marco Nicolas) had never expected to be in the employ of a far-left regime, much less sympathize with them. But the Philippines had done much to heal his soul, and since his conversion to the Philippine Independent Church, he had resumed his career as a painter of frescoes. All things considered, it was a fulfilling job, and the only thing that made him nostalgize for Mystras was the cuisine, which his Philippine Hosts had tried and managed to duplicate. That and the lower costs of paint; the old man had to make do with substitutes made from tropical materials for his church paintings.

Either way, as he stood on the scaffold, mixing his knowledge of iconography with the Philippines' own Iberian Traditions, he reflected on the story of his subject: The Virgin of Balintawak; Our Lady of Liberation.

"For He brings down the mighty from their seat, and fills the hungry with good things," Markos recited from the Magnificat before musing. "How can such a song be mistaken for the masses' opiate?" He then finished his current section of the fresco, which showed a black-hared woman with European features clad in a red farmer's dress with a blue cloth wrapped around her skirt, carrying a machete in hand. Accompanying her was a child in a farmer's white rough cotton shirt, a red scarf, and red trousers and bare feet. The woman also had a halo that was shaped like the eight-pointed sun of the Philippine Flag.

A voice interrupted his reverie, its tone smooth and musical: "It is beautiful."

Markos turned around to find a woman dressed in priestly robes walking towards him; one of the female clergy of the Iglesia Filipina Independente. Like various fringe demoninations in the Americas and Europe, the IFI remembered that Pentecost outright said: Your sons and daugthers shall prophesy. But enough theology; all that mattered was that Catherine Fajutagana was an able cleric who had withstood threats from the male-dominated establishment that still prevailed even today. Rubbing his eyes, Markos said, "It is for God's service, and service to The People is service to God. For are we all not made in his image?"

A nod from Catherine at that. "I wish more people realized that." Her hair was still largely black mixed with grey, her heart-shaped face wrinkled. Her eyes were narrow and Markos remembered embarrassing memories of remembering Hou's 'Yellow Peril'. "God has always sided with the oppressed, and Our Savior even turned out the merchants in the temple when they promoted corruption and excess. How can Hou and your Vafiadis mistake his word for a defense of The World as it is?"

Markos smiled as he climbed down from the scaffolding to show Catherine a better view of the frescoes that now adorned the interior of the newly-built Cathedral of the People. Built to commemorate the centernary of the birth of Gregorio Aglipay, the Former Lady President's father, it was originally designed as a gigantic trapezoid inspired by a Nipa Hut; a most ugly building. But Markos, upon his conversion, had pressed for a more 'traditional' building; one that retained the comfort brought by the past on the outside while containing a message of the future on the inside.

And by that, the building was a traditional basilica shaped much like Agoi Theodoroi Church in the municipality of Mystras, only with a bright red dome instead of pale orange, a bright red dome decorated by yellow eight-pointed suns made up of brass (real gold was too gaudy, and the copper and zinc that made up brass was common in the Philippines). In answer to Catherine's question, he gestured to the frescoes and mosaics of the church with his right arm, directing her at the Apostles dressed in Peasants' and Workers' clothing, the Saints weaving cloth and digging irrigation canals, and the glorious people of God being elevated into heaven.

"As you would already see," Markos would say, "Vafiadis and Hou are idiots."

@Nerevarine

Gabriella shivered slightly as she opened the door to her house. After a quick internal dialogue as whether or not to take off her jacket, she favored keeping it on, only to catch sight of her husband.

“John, there you are!” she spoke loudly, John nearly dropping the papers he was holding, quickly meeting his wife's gaze.

It had been 3 years since the couple had gotten married. Seemingly little happened in the lives of John and Gabriella Pashaj. And yet Gabriella stood in the doorway, brow furrowed at her husband with a stern expression.

“Gabby, I need to tend to the restaurant's paperwork...”

“John, he has to go.”

John anxiously placed his hands over his head, twisting to the side to avoid making eye contact with his wife.

“I can't just throw him out, he's family. I'm afraid if I send him back he's going to do something stupid.”

Gabriella huffed loudly, provoking her husband to sternly demand she not do so.

“A year and a half, John. A year and a half and he's been nothing but trouble the entire time he's been here. He clearly has no intentions of leaving and living on his own, and I don't want him around when we have children of our own!”

“Family is important to him. You know that.”

“You're important to him. Maybe. He hates me, you know he does. He says horrible things about me, even about you for marrying me.”

John sighed, yet Gabriella persisted.

“He's told me he considers you only half of his family since you changed your name.”

John winced at that. It was never clear to him why it mattered if his name was spelled John or Gjon. John empathized with his wife's complaints, indeed his cousin's perverse, far right beliefs were becoming a problem for him as well.

Gabriella's expression changed, almost to that of someone pleading.

No words had to be said, John nodded at her and made his way down the hall.

Three firm knocks at the door. Ahmet knew exactly who it was that was there.

“Hyni!” meaning “come in” in Albanian.

The creek of the door coincided with John's entrance into his younger cousin's room. Ahmet had taken up residence in John and Gabriella's home around the time he turned 18, at the request of his mother, who wanted him to leave Albania. Albania, she said, was a dying country, and her son would have more opportunity in the west. There was some luck that a family member had married an American. The US had far more chances than Albania, the woman thought.

Ahmet's room was unlike that of any 18-year-old John had ever seen before.

“The Quran again, Ahmet?”

Ahmet nodded, gently placing the book onto the holder in front of him. “You should read it more, Gjon. It would do you some good.”

Ahmet stretched himself out, an audible crack coming from his back as he did so, standing himself up to meet his cousin's gaze. Not much was in the room, save for his bed and a shelf filled with books concerning Islamic concepts, most of them in either Albanian or Turkish. With little more than a sparsely read Quran, John could hardly claim the same devotion as Ahmet.

In fact, it seemed like at time's religion dominated all of Ahmet's thoughts and desires. He certainly wasn't associating himself with any other young men his age. Gabriella often noted how starnge it was that he just sat in his room, writing all day. Writing what exactly? He refused to show anyone. It had to be released on the right day, he said.

“We need to talk Ahmet”

Ahmet chuckled a bit. “I know she wants me gone, Gjon. That's no surprise. But you can be sure to tell her that I will be leaving of my own accord.”

“What?”

“I'm leaving. I can't stand it in this country.” Ahmet placed a hand on his cousin's shoulder. “I need to be back in Albania. Albanian's belong in Albania. That is our home, not this place.”

John just lifted his cousin's hand off of him, glaring at him. “And what are you going to do in Albania that you can't do here?”

“Live a good, proper life. Not like the way people live here.”

“You're crazy, Ahmet. You idolize that place, as if you'll end up anything more than a farmer. You act like you're Skanderbeg himself, a regular Gjergj Kastrioti for a new era.” John slipped into a small rant. “For one thing, the countries at war!”

“Yes, and I plan to go back and fight the Greeks like I should.”

John simply looked off to the side for a second. “I don't get you, Ahmet. Really I don't.”

Ahmet nodded, “I appreciate your help, Gjon, but I need to go back. I want nothing more than for you to leave that woman and come back to Albania with me, but I know that will not be the case.”

“I can't stop you, I know that. But know that if you need anything, I will help you.”

Ahmet nodded. “Thank you, I will remember that.”


Every nation is entitled to a piece of land of their own. The Albanian should not be ruled by the Greek or the Serbian any more than the Ukrainian should have their lives dictated by the Russian, or the Somali's destiny be under the control of the Habesha. The Empire is truly the greatest abomination of humanity. It takes a corrupted man to willingly deprive an entire nation of their freedom, leading to the death of their identity, language, way of life, their religion. There is little more in this world more disgusting than the empire. Thus, it is natural that nationalism was to come about. Any sane man would do anything to be free of the yoke of foreign oppression. Indeed, it is not just the right, but the obligation of any people who find themselves under the yoke of imperialism, to fight to break free of the chains of the oppressor, whether he may try to exert his influence in the form of military, political, or even cultural domination. Thus when one looks to Albania, let him not disregard us as irrelevant. If a man says, “Why should I care, I have no ties to Albania.” let him know that we are but an example, and that this could be any nation.

The Right of the Nation-State
“Gjergj Kastrioti”

“What is Luigi's Place?”

Ahmet spoke up, not once turning away from his yet incomplete book. “Question, Andrej. How do you keep the state off of your trail when you're bringing in large amounts of money. Larger than what your employment should allow?”

It had been some time since Andrej had spoken directly to his partner. The hulking, dark-haired Albanian had spent a great deal of time in Central America, as well as in much of Western Europe and the United States, negotiating and organizing drug trades and trafficking. Ahmet preferred not to get his hands dirty in “haraam” work. Even if that haraam work was what was making his little venture profitable.

“My cousin Gjon has a thriving business going on in America. Some fast food place, they sell cheap Italian food, and it's been growing through the midwest, so it's a good place to hide a few hundred thousand a month.”

Andrej nodded. Of course it was that.

“So how's this going to go down?”

Ahmet glanced over his shoulder at Andrej, giving a short chuckle as he turned himself around.

“Xhamile's in Germany, so we go in and get her out. The Greeks know we are serious and willing to fight now, so we have to get the ball rolling on this. I want you and Muhammat to go to Frankfurt, and bring Xhamile back to Albania. I will be taking the rest of us to Skodra. You bring her there, and we can get the rest of this going.”

Ahmet simply returned to penning his book as his associates left. With any luck, he could begin distributing it soon.

I recently met the acclaimed author Farrokh Mirza Ramjan to discuss his most recent novel, Lower skies, published earlier this year. Here is the edited and condensed transcript of our conversation.

Ebrahim Arvindarian: Your editor told me you didn't expect your novel to be this successful.

Farrokh Mirza Ramjan: Certainly, I was very surprised when he told me the sales figures for the first month of publication. It's already on its second print, after less than six months. That's the first time that's happened to me.

E.A.: Your past efforts hadn't been overlooked by the public. It wasn't unreasonable to expect a breakout success someday.

F. M. R.: That's true, but the subject matter is nothing special. It's the story of two siblings, Arvind and Miryam, in the early 20th century, whose life is rather unremarkable, coming to terms with the disillusions of growing up in the world. That's been done a thousand times. I immensely admire Flaubert's Madame Bovary, and consider my own work vastly inferior.

E.A.: Every reviewer has noted the musicality of your prose, and for my part, I loved the deftness with which you handled the descriptions. They very quickly capture the essential traits of characters, places and objects. But don't you think its greatest merit, as far as its current success is concerned, is that it perfectly captures the mood of the Persian public right now?

F.M.R.: I suppose I can't be cleared of suspicions of contemporary afterthoughts.

E.A.: The Constitutional Revolution and its aftermath provides the backdrop for a significant part of the intrigue. This period of tremendous hope and even greater disappointment not only perfectly mirror the personal trajectory of the characters, but also the general arc of Persian history since the beginning of the century. The Constitution itself ultimately resulted in little change, just as the slow reconquest of sovereignty following the Great War did not produce many practical effects for the people. The current era is one of unmistakeable disappointment. I think your book really resonates with that.

F.M.R.: I believe that's one of the clearest and most honest expressions of what has been going on in this country I've heard in a while. More than any particular event, what I really wanted to render was a certain mood, a tendency, an atmosphere. I spent a few years in Brazil a while back. People over there, despite all proofs to the contrary, have an unbreakable faith in the future of their country. They feel that all it can do is go up. Every time I returned to visit, I was struck by how different the disposition of our countrymen is. It's not that Persians today are exactly pessimistic. I'd say the best qualifier would be tepid. No one knows what the future holds, and no one truly wants to know. The country has been stable enough in the past few decades, and I've seen it develop noticeably, at least in Tehran where my family lives. But there is a diffuse anxiety, an ominous feeling. I do think cynicism and resignation are more common here than elsewhere.

E.A.: Why do you think that is the case?

F.M.R.: I wouldn't want to get into trouble. [laughs] I think everyone knows that the current situation is unsustainable, but no one knows when or how it'll change, for the better or the worse. Hope was never my forte. My gut feeling is usually that things have to get much worse before they get better. [laughs]

E.A.: Is that an adage you apply to your daily life as well?

F.M.R.: Oh yes, undoubtedly. However, I don't take myself too seriously. I always find the amusing in unpleasant situations. For instance, a few weeks back, I was taking the train to Tabriz. A very rude sir kept insisting that my seat was legitimately his. I could show you my ticket; he was wrong. I ended up relenting, and had to stay standing, since it was a very busy day. My mood wasn't darkened by his antics, though, since his oddly squeaking voice and habit of twitching his waxed mustache almost had me bursting into laughter.

E.A.: Humor is very noticeable in your novel. It is not often spectacular, but subtle irony, sometimes complicit and tender, sometimes harsh, is something I think many readers appreciated in it. What is particularly rewarding is that if often unfolds over many pages, so that it really seems to pay off emotionally. One thing that particularly struck me were the evolutions of the siblings' father Ali's positions. At first, he is rather unsure about the demands for the Constitution. Then, after encouragement and discussion with other traders in the bazaar, he becomes convinced, and remains so, for a long time, even after the Shah has the Majlis bombed. But then, there is a great silence about this issue, and towards the end of the novel, he's completely changed his mind, and announces so clearly and unequivocally, as if the entire novel hadn't happened, in terms that distinctly echo the beginning. It's never clear whether he believes what he says, what he said earlier, if he's become disillusioned, but it's simultaneously terribly funny and poignant.

F.M.R.: To me, humor works as an instrument of revelation. And contrarily to discourse, it has the merit of creating and revealing paradoxes and inconsistencies, but doesn't pretend to solve them. It says: "there is something here that is not as it should be". But it doesnt say what it is, nor where it should be. At least, that is how the best humor works. It's at its most efficient when it simultaneously hides and reveals melancholy. It's far more effective to underline the gap between successive personas without saying what nor how. Laughter, in a way, is the body's way of acknowledging the discrepancy between what it sees and what it thinks. It makes it more haunting. It makes you wonder: "What happened?" Someone changed, nothing changed.

E.A.: I think Ali is one of the more tragic figures in the novel. Ultimately, what makes his story so disheartening is the silence that surrounds him.

F.M.R.: Literature is at its most powerful when it suggests what cannot properly be said. It creates this space for the full expression of a feeling, and lets the reader inhabit it, without imposing anything. You know Ahmet Fulnani's famous closing words to The Tortoise: "Whereupon one cannot properly speak, one must remain silent." The buildup to this phrase is magnificent, but it is powerful enough that it retains much of its potency out of context. It's a radical act of humility. And humility makes the best literature.

E.A.: This attitude isn't one universally shared by Persian-language authors today. You must've heard of Aqa Dariush Hossein Sanjad's recent claim that 'literature's main task is to give men the tools to change their world". Some might say that you diminish the importance of literature, and keep it in a corner.

F.M.R.: I certainly believe self-aggrandizement is pointless. Literature is vital, but its position in society shouldn't be overstated. Hoping too much is the best way to be disappointed and turn your back on what can still deliver. If anything, that's the key takeaway from the novel. You have to have a realistic view of things. Some things literature can and should perform, and others it can't. Furthermore, recognizing the powers of art is one thing, and wielding them responsibly is another.

E.A.: What do you mean by that?

F.M.R.: Some authors today are celebrated for writing huge frescoes about the history of our nation, to – I quote- 'educate' the masses. It's all well and good, and often quite engrossing, but you have to be mindful of this: stories are always intrinsically a certain partial way of presenting the world. They put in shape the world, they don't imitate and copy it as if that were possible. Aristotle already knew that. Life isn't intelligible. It isn't. It's literature that puts it in order, organizes it, gives it something that ressembles meaning, or at least an explanatory principle. If you forget that, and present things as 'history itself', what you really are doing is reorganize the past with the schemes of thought that prevail in your time and seem natural, that is, those of the powerful. Even if you don't purposefully set out to justify the existing social order, by using the lens of today's powerful on the past, you do just that.
In my opinion, Persian literature today is thriving, but not where we think it is. The nearly official narratives that sell like hot cake are stale and sclerotic, propose nothing new, and are fundamentally reactionary in their effects if not their aims. Official recognition, especially [he pauses] in fact in general, is always something to be wary of. If you are recognized by power, you're captured by it, whether you want to or not. But where I really see promise is in authors such as Saddam Al-Jabari, Golshifteh Jepur, Ruhollah Reshdi, who are really exploring new ways of telling stories, or perceiving the world. What's the use in having different perspectives if everyone sees the same way? As Proust wrote, 'The pleasure that an author gives us, is the pleasure of discovering an additional universe."

E.A.: So if you were proposed an institutional award, would you accept it?

F.M.R.: If I were a fledgling author, maybe I'd say yes. The money and recognition are vital when you're just starting. But at the point where I am today, I don't think it's necessary. I want to remain as separate as possible from the literary establishment, which is really just an extension of the regular establishment.

E.A.: It's interesting that you would say such a thing, because you yourself have stated before that you didn't consider yourself to be at the avant-garde. I'm sure some young authors, even among those you mentioned, would reject your endorsement.

F.M.R.: Well, each generation grows up wanting to overthrow the previous one. We've all been there I suppose. I leave the formal innovations to others. I think there are many other things to discover from the sidelines. I am not a man of cliques, in a world where so much seems to depend on that. I don't want to be coerced into doing what upsets my writer's conscience.

E.A.: What is your greatest fear as an author?

F.M.R.: I've already said it, I believe. The greatest disappointment would be to be judged not based on my writings, but on preconceived notions of who I am, what I have done, who I have associated with. I want to be judged as a writer for my work, not as anything else. It seems obvious enough, yet it's a true fight to obtain it. John Hedgewood's plays are sublime, but they've been overshadowed by his involvement in the recent civil war. It's actually worse than that. He wasn't actively involved. He just happened to be friends with some of the separatist leaders.

E.A.: It's tremendously pleasant to discuss with you, Aqa, but my watch is telling me time is running fast. I'd like to mention this one last item before we part. One aspect of your novel that was universally commended was the treatment of youth. Arvind and Miryam's growth, their maturing,their doubts, hopes, enthusiasms and despairs are very tenderly rendered, in a way that feels perfectly organic. How did you manage that?

F.M.R.: Having children of my own is a formidable ressource, I feel. There are many obstacles that all authors try to avoid, with more or less success: making children and youths either too adult-like, too mature, treating them as others with no internal psychology, or not taking them seriously and patronizing them as characters. The key is really no different from the treatment of any other character: you have to take them seriously, and make an effort to understand them as full human beings, but also understand that they are not you, that they are distinct and unique. So you have to become them, but they also have to remain different from you. Being an author is always having to balance this act between self and other. One cannot avoid being divided.

E.A.: What do you think of today's youth in Persia?

F.M.R.: What I see is that their forebears, us, have left them little to be proud of, yet they retain a sense of optimism and energy. As seems to be the rule in this country, as soon as you get clear of anything official, possibilities and invention are bountiful. Some of these youths on the rise, such as the athlete Muhammad Elarbi or the actress Shirin Asmedyarov are doing fantastic things in their respective fields and for Persia in general. They seem to have a real desire to make this country better. Now will we let them? I don't know. But this generation might just be the one to achieve the promises of Persia.

E.A.: One last question. Where does the title come from? It's never mentioned in the novel.

F.M.R.: It's pretty simple, really. The siblings like to climb the mountains near Tehran, where it can get quite misty. When you climb a mountain on a cloudy day, it seems that the sky gets lower. You could say that with age, expectations and hopes flounder, as you face obstacles and see clearer that what you were aiming for wasn't all you hoped it would be. But on the other hand, you're higher than you started, right?

E.A.: I see. Thank you very much for your time, Aqa.

(The main English-language newspaper in Iran, it caters mostly to expatriates. Government censorship is therefore much lighter than on Farsi papers.)

Gulf of Mexico

Robert Baker knew today was the day he would die. He and eleven other men stood in the landing craft as it rocked against the choppy waves, all of them dressed in full combat gear and rifles over their shoulders. The artillery guns of a destroyer boomed off in the distance. A pair of NEWI Jackrabbits roared overhead, low and fast and on a course to cause havoc on the beaches of Galveston.

The plan was somebody up at the top’s idea of bold. While the Southern armies fortified all along the Mason-Dixon Line, the US would catch them with their pants down by invading the largest state in the Southern United States and push through to establish a beachhead in Houston. Houston was less than three hundred miles away from the SUSA’s seat of power in Baton Rouge. Home by Christmas, they had promised.

Baker thought that was a load of horseshit. At thirty-one, he was the oldest man in his company by almost five years. Even Lieutenant Terkanian was only twenty-three. The only person close to his age was Major Grice at Battalion HQ. Men Baker’s age were either officers or support staff and not company sergeants. The few in infantry weren’t on the front lines, in one of the first boats on the beach. But Bob Baker wasn’t like the typical army grunt.

He was a teacher before all this. History and English Comp in Hamilton, Ohio. He’d read all the anti-war lit that was written both during and after the Great War, read up on the war. Baker was a student of history, and he knew an assault on this scale had been tried once before. Gallipoli. Allied troops came off boats and right into machine gun fire. There was a chance it wouldn’t be like that, but Baker knew enough about the army to know that they factored thousands of casualties as the price of doing business.

A squadron of a dozen NEWI Big Sticks all flew in formation above them. Most of the time, the sight of the big bombers inspired whoops and cheers from the enlisted men. But now, none of them responded at the sight of the powder blue bombers with the USAAF star on their tails. Every man, Brewer included, was too busy with their thoughts to muster any enthusiasm.

"We're a minute out," the pilot of the landing craft announced.

Baker inhaled and exhaled slowly. He was already dead, he reminded himself. He died the second he signed those enlistment papers in Ohio. If he died today or tomorrow or any day after that, then it would be a simple fait accompli.

"Thirty seconds!"

The sound of machine gun fire erupted from somewhere close. An explosion rocked the landing craft. Baker leaned against the walls of the craft to steady himself. He slung his rifle off his shoulder and held it tight. Another Jackrabbit appeared overhead, its guns firing at the now close beach.

"Ten seconds!"

"Keep moving," Terkanian shouted from the front of the craft. "No matter how bad it is, we keep moving. More men are coming behind us. If we end up stalled on the beach, then we're easy picking for the rebs. I'll see all you on the other side."

The giant door of the craft swung open and landed in the shallow waters of Galveston beach. Gunfire burst through the early morning light as Baker and the men pushed out of the craft and on to the beach. He almost tripped on the way out. He caught a glimpse of Lieutenant Terkanian on the ground, half his face destroyed by bullets.

A half dozen fortified machine gun nests at the edge of the beach was the welcome committee for the army. A Big Stick flew low, dropping a bomb right between two of the nests. Baker felt shrapnel and heat pepper his face as he ran towards the gunfire.

Keep moving, his now dead lieutenant had said.

If you stay still, you die.

---



Boulder, Colorado
10:23 PM

"Keep moving," Ohio Governor Robert Baker said softly. "That was the key to survival that day on the beaches of Galveston, and that is the key to American prosperity."

Baker looked out at the crowd of people watching him with rapt attention. The trip through Colorado was the Baker campaign's first big test of national support. His war time service was well documented and Colorado held many scars from the war. Things like what happened to Denver would never be forgotten. On top of that, it was the president's home state. And while Baker was Republican, the large turnout at all of his rallies instilled confidence in him heading into the convention this summer.

"We have become stagnant in the past four years, under the leadership of the current administration. They are hampered by corruption, incompetence, and indecision. We've stopped moving forward. It's time for a change, ladies and gentlemen. My six years as governor Ohio has proven I am up to handling the role of executive, that I know the challenges that come with the position and am capable of meeting them head on. No state has grown like Ohio has. While the country as a whole has spun its wheels, Ohio has moved forward. And if you can help me make it to Washington, I'll see the rest of the country catches up and together we all move forward. Thank you."

The crowd cheered wildly. A rolling wave from the back started forward until every person was standing and applauding. Baker stepped out from behind the podium. He limped on his false left leg as he waved and smiled. The crowd went even crazier when they noticed the limp. This kind of response in the state Michael Norman was born and raised in? Baker had very little doubt that come November, he'd bury the president in a landslide.

The Second El Greco, Part Two

It was the next day, and Markos was overseeing the pruning of the Salinbogbog trees on both sides of the lane leading to the Cathedral of the People; Salinbogbog was a native tree species with greenish-yellow, almost white, flowers that would turn purplish later. Growing up to 15 meters, these made for a fierce rival to the cherry blossoms of Japan, cherry blossoms hard to acquire due to the hostility of that country.

Catherine, dressed in her priestly vestments, was walking nearby, and approached him with two sacristans in tow. Her expression was awed as she saw that the seedlings were already in flower, and the next words she said were, "You and the crew having a good day, Markos?"

Markos' answer was: "My wife would have loved this, had she taken the trip to Asia with me. Say, did I ever tell you how I ended up here, 10 years ago?"

Catherine, her wrinkled face turning towards his', replied, "Only that you planned to go to Rhodesia, got turned aside by storms, then...something about 'Raj Pirates' and being driven further east till you reached Manila."

Markos nodded as the wind picked up and blew some flower petals onto his white hair. "I was a church painter and icon maker, one who lived in Mystras in Greece. I had a wife and a daugther, and we lived a happy life until the Communists came." He clenched his fists in rage. "I was part of the militia defending the town against Vafiadis' minions, and for that, my wife and daugther paid the price."

Catherine touched Markos' shoulder, concerned now. "They were killed, or worse than killed."

"I hate them!" Markos blurted out. "My wife, the love of my life, my daugther, the jewel of my years. The Communists, they are hypocrites, intolerant heirarchs who use people's poverty to their advantage!"

The painter breathed hard, before finally calming down. "I survived, I escaped; I made the trip to the port of Gytheo where refugees were fleeing south to Egypt, then to Rhodesia afterwards. If God hadn't planned differently for me, I would be in Africa right now, probably without an outlet for my skills in their bland 'Protestant' Churches."

Catherine nodded understandingly. "You've gone through a lot. It is surprising that you don't hate us as well."

Markos chuckled. "You earned my love." He made a last-minute correction, "Your people, I mean. Either way, a storm forced the ship I was on to turn back, then turn east, just in time to be caught by the 'Raj Pirates'; descendants of the British Raj that decided to turn to piracy. Those people...they reminded me just what 'reactionaries' were capable of."

He then looked at Catherine. "Those people robbed us of everything we had, then took our women and young men; the first for 'breeding', the second to conscript to their cause. I barely escaped being executed by them by giving up one of my last reminders of my family; a precious ivory statuette of the Blessed Virgin. And so I was given transport, along with a few others too old to be 'useful', to Singapore."

"By then, I was tired of anything British, so I went further east, knowing full well that the Philippines was a stronghold of the far-left who took everything for me. Which was the truth, but not all the truth. So imagine my surprise when, in Manila, the first sound I heard was that of church bells!" Markos smiled at Catherine even as the wind blew more flowers into his hair. "And that was when I knew that everything would be all right."

Catherine smiled. "Well, we are happy, but there are still problems. We are at risk of invasion, after all." She then looked at the red dome of the Cathedral of the People. "Hou himself might invade us."

Markos pursed his lips. "Let him come. God's Wrath will arrive too."

Constable Michael "Mac" McGuinness opened his locker and sighed, staring at the uniform within. Tan t-shirt, shorts, black loafer shoes, knee high tan socks topped with a blue band, and a tan forage cap with blue band. Very... Simple and plain. The Canadians, now they did it right, with their bright red coats. He was mildly jealous.

"I rather was enjoying the days off. Met a lovely gal from Pretoria." He said with another sigh as he began to shrug off his personal clothes and pull on the uniform.

A grunt came from the next locker over where Constable Mabasa "Sas" Sasa was already buttoning up his uniform shirt. The two had been partners for three years now, Mac had been in Counter-Insurgency before that and Sas had worked in Major-Crimes. As a General Patrol unit they were a force to be reckoned with, both men standing over six feet and well fit.

"I should have joined you then. I had to go to my sisters house for her twins birthday. Why are two year old birthdays even a thing?" Sas replied as he finished buttoning up the shirt and grabbing his duty belt from the hook inside the locker. A holster for his semi-automatic "Weerlig" pistol was on the right hip, two loops on the left side would hold a large flashlight and a wooden "billy-club", and two pouches on the rear held handcuffs.

"Hell if I know..." Mac grumbled as he pulled on his socks and then laced up his shoes. He heard Sas slide a mag into his pistol and rack the action. The Weerlig Pistol held a fifteen round magazine and you always rode with the round chambered. Mac copied him a moment later, pinching the chamber open a crack to ensure a round had been chambered.

The two men finished dressing in silence before making their way toward the briefing room. It was Friday night and things were sure to be hoping in downtown Salisbury as a music festival was getting underway. Despite that, the halls of the Salisbury District One office were fairly quiet this evening, most of the big brass would have gone home and only the beat cops would be out and about at this time. The briefing room itself was on the main floor, just outside The Pit. There would be roughly twenty other officers on shift this evening for District One, which covered the whole of the downtown core.

"Sas, Mac, over here." The two men turned as one to see their Sergeant, a fit black woman named Hannane Ferdjani, striding toward them with the familiar manila envelope she had carried every day for months, the daily assignments and pass-ons from day shift would be inside.

"Sergeant." Sas and Mac both offered her a respectful nod. Hannane was the only black female Sergeant in the Salisbury Police Force and she took her job VERY seriously, this was good or bad depending on who you asked. She had been sent down to District One six months ago to replace a Sergeant shot in the line of duty and few had anything bad to say about her.

"You two are the Brute Squad tonight and I need you out there right now. Forget briefing." She tossed them two sets of keys and jerked her head in the direction of the parking lot.

"Nailed it." Sas said, and the two men high fived without looking at each other. Hannane laughed and offered them a rare grin. "Stay safe you two."

"Always." Said Mac.

"And forever." Said Sas.

Hannane snorted and pushed past the into the briefing room. A storm of noise greeted her as the door opened and then died into silence as she headed for the podium at the front of the room. The door closed behind her and Sas grinned at Mac.

"Dibs driving."

"Fuck." Mac swore. "Why am I always so slow on that one..."

"You white boys never were very fast." Sas said with a wink as Mac raised an eyebrow at him. "You need the practice on your foot pursuits since I outran you the last two fitness tests."

"Sure, and I made you look like a girl in the strength portion." Mac said, flexing two massive fists.

"Alright, I'll drive now then, and when we need someone to bend a steel pipe in half, you can drive."

"Pest..." Grumbled Mac but his tone was humorous, the two men were easy friends and had been since they met.

They headed for the parking lot. Rows of Police vehicles sat in the parking lot, white bodies with blue front doors, hoods and trunks/rear doors, everything from standard four door sedans to Land Rovers. It was toward one of the Land Rovers the two men went. The "Brute Squad" was a term given to a pair of officers who sole task for the evening was to roll around the downtown core, particularly the areas with high numbers of drunks, and move them along. That might mean a quick word, a fisticuffs, or dragging someone off to cells for the night.

The pair approached a Land Rover, the words "Salisbury Police Service" embraced the cities coat of arms on both front doors and hood. POLICE was painted in bold letters on the flanks and rear door of the vehicle. Under the POLICE were the words "Paddy Wagon". This particular Land Rover had a metal cage that separated the two front seats from two bench seats in the rear. Four metal u-bolts were attached to the floor, each of them with four short chains topped with handcuffs. Anyone who didn't want to move along of their own accord could easily be transported by police.

Sas bent down, ducking his head inside the driver side door and grinned at a pair of switches that had been newly mounted on the dashboard. He flicked one of them on and immediately the two blue bulbs on the roof began flashing and blue light filled the parking lot. He nodded, satisfied, and then flipped the other switch. Instantly the scream of the siren tore across the parking lot and he flicked the switch off just as quickly.

"Ah, technology. Love it." He grinned across at his partner who gave him a thumbs up from the far side of the vehicle. The electronic sirens and emergency lights had only been installed during their last block of days off and this would be the first time they got to try the "new toys" out.

"Certainly loud." Commented Sas as the two slid into the car. Their wooden batons went into the holders above the door next to their flashlights, it was impossible to sit with them attached to you. They pulled on their seat belts, clicked them into place and then Mac waited as Sas fiddled with the rear view mirror and engaged the big engine.

"Ready to roll?" Sas asked and Mac flashed him a thumbs up as he turned on the radio receiver mounted just below the light console. Immediately it lit up with the voice of a dispatcher.

"...port four people fighting outside the Village Idiot Club. Charlie Eight and Nine to attend. Any available Paddy Wagon requested."

"And it begins!" Said Mac he rubbed his hands together with childlike glee. Sas laughed and eased the Land Rover out of its parking lot. As he approached the security gate he flipped on the blue lights, the officer inside the security booth giving them a wave as they passed. As the nose of the Land Rover cleared the high brick gateway he engaged the siren.

Vehicles on the roadway slowed, pulled over, or generally just panicked and scattered in front of them as the Land Rover roared out of the parking lot and turned southward.

"Village Idiot is on 10th Street, near 4th Avenue." Mac said without needing to look at the city map they had tucked into the door of the vehicle. Every cop in Salisbury knew where the Village Idiot was, it was notorious for rock and roll music, cheap beer, easy women, and drunk idiots looking for a fight. It also happened to be right on the border of what the locals called "Little Zimbabwe" and "Gas Town", two areas frequented by working class blacks and whites alike. Both areas were part of the District One patrol zone and made up the majority of the call volume on any given evening.

The Land Rover hurried through the darkening streets, swiftly passing other motorists as Sas urged the big engine onward. Traffic lights were still uncommon in Salisbury and the Traffic Officers frantically blew their whistles and halted traffic as the blue lights approached and then flashed through intersections.

District One had always been an interesting place to Police. The demographic here covered all types in Rhodesia. There were blacks only bars, whites only strippers, inter-racial everything, even a gay disco that had twenty four hour Police protection following a brutal murder of two men outside the place a year ago.

The Village Idiot was easy to spot, it occupied the corned of 10th Street and 4th Avenue, a four story red brick building that had once been a hotel. Each floor boasted a different kind of music, any drug you could think of was sold there, and if you wanted to have a few minutes alone, you could still rent an old hotel room kept around for just that purpose for a couple of pounds.

The lights of two other police cars were visible outside the pub club already and four officers, three white and one black, were dragging struggling bodies apart. A small crowd had formed and were yelling encouragement to one side or the other. One of the more foolish souls, a black man in a red shirt and fedora, ran forward and kicked one of the Police officers, Constable Timmermans, who was kneeling on top of a struggling suspect. The officer saw the kick at the last second but still took the brunt of it in the gut.

"Oh no you didn't!" Mac's voice was loud inside the Land Rover as they screeched to a halt. Mac was out the door before Sas had even put the gear shift into park.

Fedora was already retreating back towards his friends and turned just in time to see Mac bearing down him. The man gave a pathetic high pitched shriek and began to run as his buddies burst into laughter. Mac might not be a long distant sprinter but he had played plenty of rugby and was very dangerous over short distances.

"Police, stop!" He roared as he launched himself through the air, tackling Fedora high around the shoulders and riding him to the ground so that the fedora went spinning off as his face cracked into the pavement.

"Geroff me!" The downed man tried to push Mac off of him. Teeth flashed in a savage smile and Mac slammed his fist into the mans kidney, bringing forth a fresh shriek as the man went limp. Mac could hear him gasping for breath between sobs.

"You're under arrest for being a fucking nob, and for assaulting a police officer." Mac growled as he clicked handcuffs onto the mans thin wrists. He stood and lifted the downed man with one hand, half carrying, half dragging the suspect back toward the initial fight scene. Timmermans had managed to cuff his own prisoner and turn him over to Sas and was now walking toward Fedora.

"You..." Whatever else Fedora had to say was cut off as Timmermans buried a fist in his belly. Fedora folded like a Chinese napkin and dropped back to the pavement as Mac let him go.

"Fucker!" Timmermans spat the word at the downed man before nodding his thanks to Mac. "Thanks Mac, We'll take him and our two drunk friends back to District if you guys are going to hang around."

Mac nodded. "Can do. We might as well do a walkthrough."

Timmermans grabbed Fedora and hauled him upright, escorting him to one of the waiting police cars, banging the prisoners head off the doorframe once more before slamming the door shut on him. He gave Mac a wave before jumping into the passenger seat and the two patrol cars sped off toward the District Office.

That left Mac and Sas standing outside the Village Idiot with a dozen or so people smoking, to drunk to be allowed in, and a couple of prostitutes, all of whom gave them a wide berth. The two Constables returned to their Land Rover and pulled batons and flashlights out, sliding them into their loops, before Sas parked Land Rover on the sidewalk. He locked the doors and the two men headed for the entrance of the club.

The building was old by colonial standards, built back when the whites first started putting up "modern" work. Four stories of windows protected by bars, as much to keep people from climbing in as to preventing them jumping out. There were two doors on the backside of the building that led into a small ally where there would no doubt be tricks being turned and drugs exchanging hands, just par for the course really.

Two bouncers stood just inside the first set of doors, both massive black men who offered the police officers polite nods. They were dressed in white pants and black shirts that strained against their biceps.

"Alright Harold?" Mac asked the man on the right, officially he was the head of security for the place.

"Doing well sir." Harold replied with a wary expression. The man was well known for his ability to scrap but he had made the mistake of going toe to toe with Mac four months previously and still had a scar above his right eye from the fight. Since then the two men maintained a cordial business relationship. "Yourself?"

"Just working the Brute Squad tonight, Harold." Sas chimed in. He was not much smaller than his white partner and Harold had seen Sas bare knuckle box a few times, he didn't fancy a donnie brook with either officer.

"Got some new bands in the house I see." Mac gestured to a series of large posters that had been pasted in the deep entryway of the building. "Peppermints... Wilted Roses... and The Evan Catz. Never heard of them."

Harold brightened up a bit at that. He was intensely into the latest music and collected records from all over the world, and when he wasn't breaking skulls at the Idiot he ran a record store two blocks away.

"Yea, the Peppermints are an all female group playing cover songs of the latest American music, on the second floor. The Wilted Roses are a bunch of older folks, playing Jazz on the third floor. And the Evan Katz, well, they're some sort of new age noise I haven't heard before but the younger crowd like it well enough, especially the girls." He shrugged. "Whatever works I guess."

"Alright, well, we'll be inside." Sas said as he reached for the door handle and looked at Mac. "You ready for this?"

"I was born ready!"

Sas opened the door and the two officers were hit with a wall of noise. The main floor of the Idiot was a bar only. Tables of every description were scattered about with any number of chairs pulled up to them. The crowd was a blend of black and white faces, only a few of which even noticed the police officers as they walked in.

A large bar was set against the rear of the room where male bartenders moved with purpose as they filled shouted orders. There was no serving staff at the Idiot. If you got a drink, you brought your glass back or you didn't get another one. To the right there was a line for the washroom, to the left stairs climbed upward to where Mac knew another set of heavy doors helped the various musical inclinations from bleeding into each others noise.

"Well hey there good looking. Do you... you want to arresht me?" A white girl, not more than nineteen, had stumbled up and was stroking Sas's arm. She stared up at him, her eyes slightly out of focus. "Punissh me with your shtick?" She tried to make what Sas could only assume was supposed to be a sexy face before suddenly reeling away toward the bathroom.

"Being so handsome is such a curse!" Sas shouted to Mac who only rolled his eyes and pointed upward. The two officers began to make their way toward the stairs.

So then, if the cloistered halls of monarchy and the god-king were too inwards and too backwards, what then for a republic, and what then for the Chinese Republic?

A republic, for all its grand and noble ideals is a system that in this time has swiftly become backwards as the kingdom and the imperial court is. The brutish free-market ideology of the contemporary republic may leave the power more finely distributed among the people, no longer locking it in one institution but in several. It however might be said, that in the absence of the correct institution the natural course of power entails that it goes to the next best option. And finding no rising petty bourgeoisie or fully developed mature bourgeoisie in China from which to rule the Republic in China found its powers resting in military men, these military men ruled as if kings throughout China, and the ancient cycle of kingship was continued with intense warrior rule.

It is at this point that differentiation must be made between the Chinese barbarian Republic, and the Republic of the established west. And it is here that it should be noted that the focus is on the two as separate entities. One as a historical differentiation and the other as an ideological comparison.

It was in the Chinese Republic that when it came to the distribution of power, the fruits of Sun Yat-Sen spoiled on the tree as the wolves circled. In combat with imperial reaction the best power was put on the shoulders of the generals. And when the institutions were drawn up it was here the power of the generals became concentrated in a Byzantine manner. Though while the people could vote for representation in the government, the show of democracy was only theater as no real voice was ever given to the people to protect the bourgeoisie interest active in a Republic. For without commitment to liberty the ideologues of the Republic further concentrated power in a smaller caste of individuals, by limiting their gender, the income, and the property of the voter to produce a voting set of the population which was small, but pitted against the military might of the Warlords was a mere ant before an elephant.

The unfortunate betrayal to the people then was not just the generals, but the limiting of power and the inclusion of the material wealth variable into the system. For in any given system when wealth is a factor it is the individual with the greatest wealth with the greatest opportunity to cause disruption. To further disruption, the variable of arms was overlooked and power through raw military force could be exercised. The inclusion of raw uncontrolled military force turns any system into civil war and armed strife, and is thus the warlord period.

By comparison, the republic of the western world is a much more peaceful affair. Though as locked in its own silent Byzantine troubles. The variable of money in the flow of power still exists. But as opposed to the barbarous republic in China, the relative calm of a western Republic amounts to a feeling of solidarity and ownership with the government which encourages law-abiding action. For in contrast against the monarchy and the imperial court where the gods are law, in the Republic the law is the people. For it is within the confines of the Republic promises of peace and of great individuals can be found, as was written by Thomas Paine: “The greatest characters the world have known have arisen on the democratic floor. Aristocracy has not been able to keep a proportionate pace with democracy.”

And this is well and good, and it is perhaps the most preferable to monarchy or warlord rule. As it is, a well functioning republic, a democracy should be the most stable form of government that exists in our time. It is in the promises of popular rule that ancient China's tiānmìng promises: for just rule from any man, so long as he and his heirs rule rightly and just.

But it is in a republic and a democracy that the errors written into ancient propaganda are fixed and that tiānmìng is corrected and improved upon. And that it becomes less divine rule, but popular rule. A rule by the people from the people, refreshed or approved regularly to continue based on the real input of real people, and not eunuchs and courtiers, fighting along with magistrates to uphold the suffocating hierarchial systems of artificial man, that only suffocate the freedom and spontenaity of man. Or which alienates man from his own world. For: “The Republic is the organization by which, all opinions and all activities remaining free, the People, by the very divergence of opinions and of wills, thinks and acts as a single man.”

The republic, in its purest form is the most harmonious means of government. So why then criticize it? Because the western inability to update it weakens it. For in its time of creation the Republic was crafted as a tool by the Bourgeoisie to protect their power and to call themselves free men. But free only from kings, so they may explore the free market and make themselves wealthier. Because it is through wealth that man obtains power in the Bourgeoisie Republic. And it is when this power reaches a disproportion to the people or among each other that the naked errors of the unkempt republic becomes known, as the case in the United State of America, where the raw self-interest of the accumilation of surplus wealth by the men in power or in their backgrounds prevented any appropriate work, and in the indirect character of the republic as in China only stunted the dialectical process of true political work and instead translates it only into a nondialectical process of the buying of votes and favor; as in the Chinese Republic.

And while for over a century and a half, with only a single upset has the United States' Republican model persisted, it was the natural effect of accumilating capital in a system defined by the concentrated private property of a small class of men in proportion to the whole of its society that the solidarity of the Republic faltered and was driven to political stagnation through 1936 and 1937. And it is with the nature of well organized armed forces that the deadlock was broken with military force by the US Army and Bourgeoisie Democracy fell about the feet of America as a four year political civil war waged, and become the competing forces of capital in that nation could not rest their differences, for doing do would be laying down their competitive edge to one another.

And while the people might have hope for the government of the United States, assured in the rightful place they shared in the government, the functional structure of the government, the existence of private property which could be accumilated created within it a feudal class none to different than a feudal society in an ancient empire or an ancient kingdom. But none so far developed as of this time that it becomes like that of the barbarous warlords of China's recent memory.

But the unchecked – whether of the self or from the outside or from the State itself – growth of political powert through economy can only lead to one inevitable outcome: which is that of the warlord republic, where the purchasing is power is great, and military counter-action is expected from the internalized factions.

We are striking a theme in these structures: that the gross neglect of power is in the accumilation of capital. We now start to realize the Marxian critique of capital and of the Bourgeoisie in the political society. That the private ownership of material economy or even manufactured economy or the distributive service economy entails a concentration of pure power in the hands of an organization and allows the disproportionate use of that power to the organization or the individual's scale or place in the political structure. And that the people – the proletariat esspecially – exist alienated not just from their own labor and products of that labor, but from the political process which they are involved in by birth or immigration.







A shuffle of papers, and clearing of throats. At the head of the room the speaker took a polite bow, not cutting it low for the general informality of the situation. Or in that at meeting there today were twenty men, all who knew each other, and no specific need to posture for self image. Only for that much demands a display of humble respect to one another.

Seated at a table, the men sat collectively in conference in the Zhongnanhai, the ancient and former imperial palace of the old dynasties. In the intervening years it had changed its function and purpose, with additions made and repair conducted. During the Republican era, an entire new gate was build along the south wall on Chang'an avenue by Yuan Shikai, the Xinhuamen gate. Following the close of the Revolution and the securing of Beijing there had been discussion among the government to utilize the Forbidden City itself as the seat of executive – Politburo – power. But as the discussion went on its nature changed as the Forbidden City was transformed from a government palace, to a museum and public space, a memorial of the Revolution. And following the construction of the still relatively new Congressional Hall the needs of any large space to hold all of government waned. And so for official duties and theoretically official residence, the Zhongnanhai became the White House of China again, as it had during the Republican era.

“I must admit, comrade Ming Xin has me convinced. I'm not on the fence as much as I was. I will sign off on a second phase of the Five Year Plan.” said Guo Jing-Sheng announced, tapping out a cigarette into a black porcelain dish on his side. Serving as not just a member of the Politburo but as the minister of national transportation he oversaw the operations of the trains, roads, ferries, canals, and even the limited air traffic in China. A wide pot bellied man with a cherry round, and cherry-red face he looked almost out of place with his tycoon hair and tiny glasses resting on his squat pressed nose. He was the third to sit in his position, the others having rotated out in party shuffling. But he, like the rest of the room turned to Hou for consideration on the piece of legislation that would soon be making its way to the Congress.

Sitting at the head of the table Hou leaned back and considered what he had heard. “I have heard talk that a governor has been probing the halls of Congress looking for considerations for his province following incidents of injury in ruins of factories.” he began, “Would it be perhaps too much to allocate the considerations for new construction to be moved towards the refurbishing of the untouched old, or even the removal of these structures?”

“It might be.” Ming Xin said, a feathery light framed man of minimal importance in the party. Outside of the members of Hou Tsai Tang's advisory board he was a man put into the seat by insistence of the Party, whose members had petitioned through the Congress for his election to Politburo from a regional assembly. If it were not for his relative youth in a party going whose members were going into their middle age he would not stand out. It may not have hardly been considered, and the Executive Committee may have passed a motion to remove him if he had not shown to be bright and well educated through his own energy.

“Refurbishing these plants may be more trouble than they worth. I am not aware of many that may be a danger, but the records and evaluations of them lead me to believe that they may not be at all worth it. It would be far too much to use for little gain in the end.”

“Might they simply be gutted and reused?” another man asked. A sour looking man in a western suit. His face was spotted with old sun spots and his close cut black hair was beginning to turn gray. Zhu Mang, the minister of industry. “Assuming all other factors, it may not be too much to think that scrap material can be removed and anything at threat of deterioration is reinforced. We may turn it over to the local commune assembly for their own use then. To Hell with us doing anything with it then. But if we're simply being asked to make something safe so no dim-wit kid or wayward goat herd doesn't get his feet cut and jaws locked up then we don't need to put anything we have no use for back into work.”

Ming Xin was rounding the table to sit back down as he considered, “That I suppose is true.”

“It sounds like we're done on that matter.” Hou Tsai Tang announced, “On the agreed upon points I sanction this for Congress's approval.”

“Hold on.” a tired, bearded old man, his heavily wrinkled, furrowed face burned dark by the sun began, “If I can say one thing then it's that the direction we're headed with these feels vague.”

“I'm under the assumption that Congress will fill it in, Hue Yu.” Hou Tsai Tang told the Minister of Agriculture, “Did you have anything in mind?”

“No.” Hue Yu said. There was murmuring approval.

Hou reached out to the papers on the desk and looked down at their agenda, the last option for this session of Politburo. “Our last matter is the war plans concerning Russia, and by extension the instability in Vietnam. Feng Hui, you approached and wrote to me about how we're to even consider this in the framework of our policy.”

A sinewy looking man with a dour expression in his wide mouth rose in his seat. Scratching at his chest he looked out among the seated and began to walk around it. “To propose Harmony in Asia.” he began, “Was a bold and genial move on our part. However, in the past few years I feel that we have been weak on our incentive to promote Harmony in Asia. By that, I am referring to the activity of the People's Republic of Thailand, who we have decided to tacitly support, if at the end of a long stick. Longer now following their invasion into Cambodia and subsequent occupation of the Cambodian nation. And while the government of Thailand has thrown over itself a cloud of uncertainty the former French colony of Vietnam has thrown itself into disarray. Which is to not speak of Russia, which we have had deemed is a purely European problem for the past few years.” he scratched under his chin where a light gray stubble was starting to poke through.

“I do not want to say that Harmony has been unwise, and that Harmony is not worth its merit. I merely wish to express my concerns over our weak enforcement of continental Harmony. Where European geopolitics may have kept the region at peace, assigning Asia's peoples into colonies which they held as extension of their own Empires, and that Europe's gradual abandonment of Asia has left a vacuum of security in the region. However, while we declared ourselves to fill this vacuum to hold the peace, indifferent to their national politic based on the gracious wisdom of Hou.” he paused to look up, smile, and bow deeply to Hou to punctuate his compliment in a brief display of drama. “We have lacked the willingness to pay real attention, or the actual use of arms. After all, words can only go so far without the backing of guns. And when the power of words is not strong enough to clear an obstacle then so do guns and bombs and the blood of martyrs need to be applied.

“What I feel needs to be cleared up, and put into real legislation and actual outward policy is binding self-given necessity for the nation to define our Harmony policy, to give it a framework, both diplomatic and military. Where do we define Asia? Do we include Russia into the title of Asia? Is Russia a European exception, a nation that exists in both Asia and Europe through occupying both in its homeland territories? Shall we for once designate onto the army the power and the equipment to enforce Chinese will against the belligerent states of Asia before the likes of Japan take the lead? Or India? It is not a realistic assessment to simply ignore what is going on in China's own backyard, comrade. That which happens in Vietnam may undercut the Revolution at home! Action in Russia outside our outlined policy may undermine the validity of Chinese policy! What do the leaders of the world think of China when we declare Asia to be under the defense of China, but we attack Europe?

“I am not opposed personally to any invasion of Russia. Nor, if the intelligence proves necessary an intervention in Vietnam. But I can not, as a political figure, using political policy actually defend either when one has been so weak, and the other is not within the prescribed definition. When institutions exist that operate within ill-defined, or outside ill-defined boundaries and codes of conduct: that is when we have disharmony, that is when we stray from our way.” He closed his statement as he came back to his chair, and resting a chair leaned on it.

“Thank you, minister.” Tsai Tang thanked him. He was the Minister of Foreign Missions, tasked with managing the scant foreign portfolio of China and scant assignments abroad.

The room was contemplatively silent for awhile. The members of Politburo leaning back in their seats. Zhu Mang put his fingers up to his chin and held them there, tapping his index against the corner of his lips.

Cutting the emptiness Hou leaned in. “I and Feng Hui have been exchanging word on this.” he started, “After word of Zhang Shu's exploration to bring Congress into war we have been discussing the merits and means by which the entire architecture of the plan might be scuttled, or even explicit permission might be given. After long consideration on the topic we have concluded that without speaking on it we may go to war, but he's afraid that our image as a nation may be spoiled without an adjustment of definitions, and I agree on this matter. But, if Politburo does not want war in Russia, we can double down on the definition of Russia not being in Asia, and we can expressly tell Congress of this and it may so heavily discourage making China an aggressor and a belligerent state in someone else's affairs that the motion will be defeated before it takes the floor. But on the Russian front we have to have a decision now. The motion will move into debate shortly and an early tally of representatives suggests they will move on it.

“This ties into Vietnam as well. The Qíngbào Jú is as I understand it preparing a memo on intervening in Vietnam on behalf of the Vietnamese expatriates in the south with Nguyen Sinh Cung at the command. Now granted, comrade Nguyen as I have heard it has no granted explicit consent to yet lead anything, it is the primary contingency being contemplated by the Bureau while they make some identifications on new parties in Vietnam. But as Zhang Shu is took acting on his Russian movement on behalf of a Dymtro Radek the assumption I am taking as Grand Secretary is that a defeat of his move on the ground of technicalities that deny what has been set as state policy may fall into the realm of Solidarity, and we go through the entire battle the second time; if we chose to deny him war.

“I encourage Politburo to consider this policy as beyond a matter of technicality and morality as Feng Hui wishes, but also to broadness and scope. Should China play a more proactive role in encouraging and assisting Revolution, or shall it declare itself as following a road to independent revolution, as keeping it within the local state parties.”

“This puts it into a whole new context.” said Zhu Mang, “If I were to have it my way I would be for support of international revolution. Simply keeping ourselves from being outmaneuvered by the global right is not to maintain independence in Asia, but for the construction of an international solidarity through the liberation of the proletariat.”

“China may have the means for a hundred years war against whichever enemy she chooses.” started Feng Hui from his chair, “But to propose we may go to war against the entire world in permanent revolution is stretching it further than it has any right to be stretched. A man on a rack can not be stretched out like a bolt of silk, and like the man the nation will break if it attempts to stretch itself across the world.”

“Such is war's own art.” a uniformed officer said at the table, a representative playing stand in for Lou Shan Yuang who had to be absent. He was fully empowered to speak for him, “We may be able to stand against Japan, but it would be threatening the war making abilities of the nation and its own safety if we were to make an attempt at war.”

“Then perhaps someone might have told that to Napoleon!” exclaimed Zhu Mang, “Or Alexander.”

“One of a million products of different times. As far as my powers can take me then I would not rely on us having a Napoleon among us to lead brilliant global campaign. It would be far more secure to tread careful, and perhaps someday a global coalition will be built to take on the world in final Revolution.”

Not final, but the next, Hou wanted to tell him. But kept silent as he sat silently watching the proceedings unfold.

“I think we need to stick to present policy. Tell Congress that we will not tolerate war in Russia.” the elderly Hue Yu insisted at one point.

“If Congress were now to send their motion to your desk, how would you vote?” another member of Politburo asked.

“It depends on how many voted yes.” Hou replied to him.

“I am beginning to feel that at the end, the best course of action is to maintain the status quo. But to not look as if we have not been cowards, action is now being considered because we have advocates of involvement.” Ming Xin said, “This also I feel has a strong advantage in moving into any theater by way of us having a clear set of leaders, and men to make a government to form the revolutionary vanguard. Before an interim-government to transfer a state from war to peace can be placed at the end of a campaign, we might very well have as a result of the war a full interim government with ministries and functions and constitution before the fighting begins and a smoother transition from war to peace can be had without having to actively seek out one or create one from the army.”

Late in the day this proposal was given consideration, and then its majority of consent. It was written down, and filed to be delivered to Congress's next session for examination.

The Lady of War, Philippines' Ally, Part Three

Another gap in the moonsoon rains, another advance for her troops, this time towards Quảng Bình. The province was falling to her troops after a prefunctory fight put up by the enemy, which was fast dissolving into scattered bands of men. But Đồng Hới, the capital, was held by a would-be warlord who had re-established order at the last minute, meaning that there would have to be a siege. It was also where the planes that had destroyed Vinh had launched from; that air wing had been reduced to a few surviving vessels, but Lady Trung still felt a burning anger towards the current holders of the city even as she led several platoons of her troops towards the air base's airstrip.

It would not do to sack any city, even so, she thought before she and her troops burst out of the overgrown shrubbery, firing their Mosin-Nagants and Federov Avtomats - another Russian model of semi-automatic rifle - while being covered by Molotov Cocktail throwers. A few guards who had been unlucky were blasted instantly, their ruined bodies hitting the ground even as Lady Trung used the very planes that had destroyed her hometown as cover for her charge. Her objectives: The control tower and the air base's facilities themselves. Gritting her teeth even as resistance stiffened, Lady Trung plowed on, Mosin-Nagant in hand.

A crude rocket hit the control tower's windows and ignited the room beyond; Lady Trung suspected that there were snipers stationed in the small spire that could have given her troops a harder time, maybe even killed her. She kept on running forwards, stopping only to fire at what guards were left, before getting close enough to the air base to throw an fragmentation grenade inside. As it exploded, she could hear screaming, and the sounds of surrendering people. Part of her thought: They dare to surrender now? What cowards! Perhaps it would be best to - She stopped herself from that train of thought and instead shouted: "Come out with your hands up and surrender to the Vietnamese Restoration League!"

These orders were obeyed, but Lady Trung was mildly disappointed that not one of the soldiers, officers, and personnel who trooped out in humiliation pulled a gun out of a hidden pocket and tried to kill her; that just went to show how cowardly the enemy was, right?

------

As the day drew on, Lady Trung was advised to stay inside the airbase as the monsoon rains picked up again, and her men and women had to shield their guns with canvas covers. Said covers were another gift from Priscilla and now, Archibald, whom she had been content to hear was Priscilla's chosen successor. These covers, when combined with raincoats of thick rubberized cotton, allowed her troops to keep fighting in rough weather.

Not that she was allowed to do so by her own troops; as her successes grew, so did her value as a talismanic presence. And a talisman was better shown to the troops than sent out in battle. If not for the military logic of this development, the 34-year old would have objected to being held back.

However, she would just content herself with reading Lady Le's reports; her deputy had managed to establish communes, municipal councils, and most importantly, the mobile courts that Priscilline Conciliarism depended on for the distribution of impartial justice. This ensured that even if she died, the northern parts of Vietnam would be prosperous and well-defended for a long time.

Even so, as the rains intensified, Lady Trung felt as though something ominous was coming...

(Collab with @Letter Bee)
It had been two years since the soldiers of Vafeiadis had the honor of hanging their greatest enemy from the gallows of Athens. Dionysios Hatzi had had the pleasure of being there first hand when he watched the old man die. The feeling of watching the nationalistic pig twitch and flail so pitifully in his final moments was indescribably satisfying and pleasurable to him, almost erotic in a way. He felt no shame, no guilt in his reactions. Metaxas was a chauvinistic monster, an enemy of basic decency. What kind of person...no, not a person. As far as Dionysios was concerned, men like Metaxas had lost any right to be called human. For 22 years, Dionysios had lived in squalor, huddling with his family for shelter in the gutters of Corinth. It wasn't like this was unusual, many lived like this, more than should ever have been acceptable. Yes, one family in poverty is a crime, so what of the blood of hundreds that the Kingdom had on its hands? Metaxas' stances could only mean that he supported the death and starvation of thousands. He had deserved to die like an animal on the gallows. Now, Dionysios was determined to enact justice on those who stood against the communists, against a better Greece. They were just as guilty as Metaxas in his eyes, and they too would pay the price. All of them.

The Democratic Army had entrenched themselves around Mystras, hoping to force the defenders to attack out of desperation once the siege had taken its full toll on them.

Within Mystras

The commander of the motley coalition of conservative militias holding Mystras, one George Batazes, gave his final orders:

“Alexandros, Markos, and Basileos, you three stage the breakout attempts to the south of the city. Escort the women and children in three groups; escape to Gytheo. I and the remaining militias will stage a final diversionary charge to wound the foe as much as possible. Like Leonidas, we will hold back the enemy as much as possible before dying a final, glorious death. Any questions?”

There were none. And so the defenders of Mystras made their final defense of the city, the last roar of Old Greece...

Meanwhile, outside of the city, the commander of the communist forces, Orestes Panagos, began the advance into the small town. He was certain that there was only one final outcome for Mystras. Like Sparta before it, the city would fall, and with it, there was little doubt that Laconia, the final enclave of the anti-communist resistance, would fall.

"Alright, comrades," Orestes shouted as they began the advance towards the city. "Let's end this once and for all. Do not hold back, this battle was already over before it we even got here.

And with that, the communists began their assault. Dionysios was in the initial infantry divisions, entering into the city. The initial advance from the north, however, was met with brutal resistance. Dionysios would remark in just how brutal the incursion was, the resistance fighters attacking like wild animals, running into battle as if in a berserk frenzy, nothing left to lose. It was something intense and mystifying to the young soldier, the sheer ferocity of it all, the passion and the suffering in the fight. The North would be a bloodbath, though Orestes had already called the majority of the encircling force to begin advancing on the east and west. The order called for the soldiers stationed to the south of the city to leave and move either east or west to join the advancing parties, leaving the roads leading out of the city to the south virtually undefended.

George’s men were in close combat with the enemy, shooting until their guns overheated, then pulling out their daggers and hacking at the closely-packed ranks of the enemy. When the daggers broke on the bones and armor of the foe; they bit with teeth and clawed with lengthenef nails. They would make history.

Markos, meanwhile, was only slightly more lucky. He and his breakout group had overwhelmed the remaining besiegers to the south, but had attracted a patrol of foes that were going to head for the east. His men were now being cut to pieces, but most of the women and children had gone on under him, leaving behind their remaining menfolk. He looked back to see if his people were safe; they were.

Except for his wife and nineteen-year old daughter. They had been left behind.

With a heavy heart, the church painter turned militia commander gave the order to move on to Gytheo...

The battle raged on for a while more, but in the end, it came to the expected end. The Eastern and Western divisions made quick advances into the city. What few defenders remained in its walls were killed. When the northern division made its way into the city, Orestes made an example of the town, and ordered it to be burned to the ground. In a few short hours, where once stood a city was only a smoldering pile of ashes and rubble. From the ruins of Mystras rose a pillar of smoke, rising like a dark tower to loom over Laconia, like an omen telling all that the battle was over, and Laconia, the final fortress of resistance, had fallen.



Dionysios twisted neck to the side a couple times, lifting his arms up in a stretch before walking over to the burnt out pile of rubble that remained on the streets.

"I haven't seen something this badly demolished since I was in Laconia." he quipped to his partner, who simply rolled her eyes at the joke.

Souroupo was barely recognizable, little more than a skeletal structure of a building. The nightclub had become the final sight of 22 people, with another 50 injured in the bombing. Little was known about the assailant, other than that he had allegedly pledged allegiance to the House of Zogu before he detonated his explosive. It was suggestive that he was involved with Skanderbeg's Own, and thus the case moved from the jurisdiction of the Ioannina Police to the Prefecture Level Authorities. Epirus was a busy prefecture for crime.

"You can't take a piss without getting called out to go check out another terrorist attack in Argyrokastro or Ioannina." Dionysios had said this once, and there was some truth to it. He often compared it to his time in the Civil War, when the was fighting guerillas in Laconia. He drew parallels often.

"Back in Corinthia, you had guys hiding in the mountains with guns, blowing up buildings every night. I didn't think I'd have to deal with it again when I was 39!"

Eleni was getting tired of hearing war stories with her coffee and casual racism every investigation. Dionysios had a habit of sneaking in a joke about her Albanian heritage every chance he got.

"Hey, Dervishi; they say this guy was a Muslim. What're the chances he had a Catholic name?"

Eleni rolled her eyes and stood up once again.

"As Hilarious as that'd be, turns out the guy's name is Muhammat Burim, from a little hick town called Cassiopeia. Authorities over there gave us his address, and witnesses say he met up with a family member, one Aleksander Burim, before he came to Ioannina, so we're gonna pay them a little visit."

The drive to Cassiopeia was long and arduous, navigating through the twists of mountains. Somehow Epirus never benefited from those infrastructure programs Vafeiadis was always bragging about in his speeches. The only way to access most of these little hamlets was through mountain passes half of the time, and Cassiopeia happened to be one of those. The village was certainly nothing to look at. Dionysios estimated about 500 people probably lived there, likely all Albanians. Chams to be exactly.

"Lucky they put us on this case, huh?"

Eleni shook her head, "They won't like me. If anything they'll probably like me less than you."

Dionysios laughed heavily, "Eleni, I really couldn't give a shit if they like us, but I do give a damn that we can understand them." Eleni made a face of disgust, knowing that the aging cyclops couldn't see her from the right. If anything the eyepatch he wore probably hid her better from his one good eye. "I don't know how to say much in that language. Sounds a lot like the sounds their goats make."
He then hit her lightly on the shoulders a couple times. "Thankfully that's what I've got you for. Hell, you even speak the right dialect for this place."

Cassiopeia was far from inviting. As the agents entered into the city, what little faces they passed stared at them in judgment, in disgust at the presence of the outsiders, watching, tracking their every movement as they made their way through the quickly darkening village. Night had fallen by the time that Dionysios and Eleni reached the residence of their mark. A little house out in the boondocks of the backwoods. The sounds of sheep echoed through the night, the little white shapes of the creatures faintly visible in the misty darkness. The rotting steps creaked under the two detective's weight, as Dionysios gave a couple heavy knocks at the door.

It took a few minutes before a response was made. The door slowly prying open as a single dark eye peered out from behind the crack, a golden brass chain holding terse between the door and the frame.

"Good evening," Eleni said firmly, clearing her throat a bit. "I am Detective Eleni Dervishi, and this is my partner, Detective Dionysios Hatzi, with the Epirus Prefecture Department of Investigations. We're investigating a suicide bombing in that took place a few days ago in Ioannina. It's become apparent that the attack was carried out by Muhammat Burim, and we know that he came here shortly before the attack." Eleni continued, speaking in Cham Albanian the entire time, "We have questions that we would like answered."

Aleksander said nothing, only making a gesture for the agents to wait as he closed his door and opened it up once more, motioning for them to enter.

The dwelling of Aleksander was quite empty, almost barren. The man motioned for the agents to sit as he joined them, sitting from across. Dionysios was the first to speak.

"Let's get straight to the point. Your cousin has known connections to Skanderbeg's Own. A search of his house found copies of texts by one Gjergj Kastrioti. Atdha, The Case for the Nation State, Against Communism, The Kosovo Question, you name it, he had it. And it doesn't take a genius to read through one of his books and know he's planning something against Greece."

Aleksander's expression remained blank

"I'm fairly certain that Skanderbeg didn't just rise out of the grave and start writing books in Argyrokastro in a couple years ago, so the question I have is, what do you know about Ahmet Pashaj?"

Aleksander finally spoke up, the man's raspy voice tinged in a very thick Albanian accent. "Ahmet Pashaj is the oracle of our times, the one who will make Albania a great nation, and prove to the world the greatness of Albania and her people."

Aleksander continued, "Ahmet Pashaj is a friend of the Burim Clan, and we are loyal to him. He is what the Albanians need. And we will do anything to aid his cause."

"So Muhammat wasn't just a lone wolf, the whole clan here is affiliated."

Then, a creak came from behind the agents, as the door opened, moonlight pouring in as several figures came into the small house, armed with various makeshift arms. A Shovel, A Cudgel with nails hammered into it, a baseball bat, knives, and one armed with a shotgun. Aleksander himself picking up a knife as he lunged at the agents. In that moment, Dionysios reverted back to the civil war days, grabbing the would-be assailant by the arm and throwing him across the room into a wall. Eleni grabbed her gun and fired a couple shots at the approaching group, hitting one in the chest while another fired the shotgun, obliterating one of the chairs. Dionysios quickly ducked under a swing by one of the clansmen, grabbing the arm of another and breaking it, causing him to drop his cudgel, which he quickly grabbed and swung at the leg of another attacker, causing the nails to stab into his knee. As the attacker fell to the ground, Dionysios delivered a blow to his head, only to be tacked by another one of the Burim clansmen. As they wrestled onto the ground, Dionysios managed to reach up, digging his hands into the attacker's face, digging his fingers into his eyes, twisting them into the sockets before taking hold and slamming his forehead into the attackers' nose, freeing himself as the assailant went unconscious. Aleksander had returned to consciousness and ran at Eleni, who grabbed the lamp next to her and swung it, hitting the man in the ribs and knocking him down. Eleni then fired her gun once more, hitting the shotgun carrier, causing him to pull his trigger inadvertently, killing the knife-wielding clansman to his left.

Aleksander was the last surviving attacker in the house, with Eleni quickly jumping on top of him, holding him down as she restrained him, cuffing the man, as Dionysios grabbed him by the back and forced him to his feet.

"We've got a lot of questions that you're going to have to start explaining once we get to Ioannina."

As Eleni escorted the restrained man to the car, Dionysios took a look around at the carnage that had gone down here.

He shuttered, feeling that same intensity, that same stimulation he felt in the war.

Yeah, it was just like old times.

The city was singing with the songs of civilization as the warmth of the summer sun poured over Hamburg. The men and women, dressed in fine clothing, chartered as they walked in groups down the street. The children played in their parks, running, shouting, and crying, while the older folks sat off to the side, enjoying games of chess, and reading their newspapers.

"Gertrud recommends Pellkartoffel mit Quark as this week's 'Wonderful German' meal of the week." Read the headline on the front page. "How to show your patriotism as a Pole, Russian, or other immigrant." Followed close after.

"Hmph. As usual, it's just fluff." Said an old man, crumpling the paper, and tossing it in the garbage. "I miss the good old days when there was substance to the stories. The state treats us like children now!" He shouted, as parents began to herd their children, and a couple ran off, towards the closest Sicheres Münztelefon, in order to call the Gedankenpolizei.

As the old man continued to rant and rave, a younger woman, average as could be, approached him, and gently tapped him to get his attention.

"What? Are you going to tell me to be quiet? Well, I won't! That's how we got into this mess! We all stayed quiet while Wilhelm… whatever number this one is! While he slowly stripped away our humanity! While he replaced our books with propaganda! While he-!"

The old man was cut off as a whistle sounded in the distance. The telltale sign that the Gedankenpolizei where on their way to silence a troublemaker.

"Sir…" muttered the woman, making sure to keep a safe distance from his flailing arms. "Sir, you should probably leave."

"What? Leave?? Why??? If I leave, they win! If I leave, I'm written off as some old crack! Well I won't have it! I fought in the war, you know! They have to treat me with respect! If it weren't for me, they would be eating baguettes and cheese, and call each other comrade! I should be marching up to the Kaiser is what I should be doing!"

With a swing of his arms, he turned around, and began to march away, in as dignified a manner as he could muster with a bad back and wobbly knees.

The woman just watched, a defeated look on her face. One second, he was marching away, full of pride. The next, he was being tackled to the ground, and being beaten with a little plastic baton while a child probably a quarter of his age recited a script to him.

"The Kaiser provides for everybody. Dissent will not be tolerated. Disturbing the peace with mad rants will not be tolerated. Siding with the enemy will not be tolerated. …"

The list goes on and on, hand tailored to the individual, but scripted responses nonetheless. Unable to do anything else for the man, the woman straightened her blouse, tucked a stray section of brown hair behind her, and moved on to a more quiet location.

As she walked down the street, she stared blankly at all the new billboards.

"Need a new car? Raising a family? Gertrud recommends her 1958 Handwerker Familienwagen. A van for the average German family."

"Tired of cooking every morning? Try some Vorsprung Zuckerkugeln! These sweet balls of grain will provide your family with everything needed to get the day started. Family preferred, Mutti approved."

"Tired of your job? Still in your 20's? Head over to your nearest Armeecenter, pick up a gun, and fight for your country! The top candidates from each group will get to fly to Berlin, and dine with the Kaiser when they finish their training!"

'Always the same. The old man wasn't wrong. Our country treats us like stupid cattle. But what can we do?' the woman found herself thinking. 'Even if we were to speak up, we'd all end up like that man. Or worse.'

Shaking the thoughts away, she continued down the street, keeping her head down as she passed a group of Gedankenpolizei who looked to be starting their shift. Just as she was almost through, one of them grabbed her by the shoulder, and turned her around. As they did, her face went pale.

"Hello, sweetheart." Said the youngest looking one with a pug face and toothy smile. "Why the long face?"

Doing her best to avoid eye contact, she caught herself replying without meaning to. "I… I just saw a disturbing scene at the park." The words flooded out of her mouth like a river. "An old man. A veteran. He was talking crazy, and scaring the children. He started to get violent, but some of your people came.and stopped him. I was standing close when it happened. It was just starting, that's all."

Catching her breath, the woman watched for a response on the boys face, and thought the same thing she usually did when speaking in public these days.

'Those weren't my words. They came out of my mouth, but they weren't mine.'

"Oh, well. Don't you worry. I'll keep you safe from villains like that man!" The pug boy said, placing one hand on his pistol, and the other around her shoulder. She stifled her cringe as best she could.

"Oh, thank you, but… I'm sure I will be fine. I see such things often enough."

'Shit. Wrong words.' she thought, but it was too late. The boy was already grinning.

"If you see things like that often, then my escort is all the more needed! Most people would see it only now and again. But if you see it often, then you are either unlucky, or you spend time in dangerous areas. To me, both options scream 'protect me!'"

Sighing, the woman gave up. There was no winning. "We'll, if you insist." She said as short as she could. "I was going to head to the market."

"The one next to the Einheitswand?" He asked, tightening his grip on her shoulder. "You really do like scary places. The Einheitswand is a place for criminals to make their penance with the state. Of course, not all of them really mean it…"

"It has the best fruit." She said, ignoring his other comments. "The one close to the school is safer, but their fruits are almost always bad."

"Suit yourself." The officer said, as they began to walk to the city center. After about a minute of silence, the officer spoke. "So, does the beauty under my arm have a name?"

"Sofie." She replied. "Sofie Bohn."

The officer took a long, deep inhale off the top of her head, sending a shiver down her spine. "Ahhhh. Sofie. Like a beautiful spring flower."

"It means wise." She said curtly, as the meaning of her name was something she took pride in. "Not that it's my name you are interested in."

'Wrong.' she thought, as the officer tensed up, and stopped.

"And, sweet, charming Sophie. What is it that I want, then?"

The look on his face made her gag. She wanted nothing more than to get away from him, but knew it was impossible if she didn't play along.

"You want to do your Civic duty, and escort me to the supermarket so that I do not run into any more shady characters." She replied, holding back the quivering in her voice.

"Well, yes." He said, smiling a smile nearly as disturbing as that of prince Wilhelm. "But why is it I am doing that, miss Bohn?"

"Be- Because it is your duty, and you must-" she was cut off as he moved in to try to kiss her, forcing her to dodge and, instinctively, punch the disgusting sleezeball right in the face.

As he staggered backwards clutching his face, Sophie froze. The crowd around them froze. Then officers eyes began to burn.

"You bitch!" He shouted, fumbling for his gun. "You disgusting, awful, traitorous bitch! Who do you think I am?"

Whether it was out of habit, fear, or a mix of both, Sophie began talking before she could stop herself once more.

"You? I think you are a worm! A sleazy, no good worm who is taking advantage of his position to take advantage of me. You aren't trying to protect the German people! You are trying to violate them, in a way even worse than the state already is! You are no hero of the people! You're just a tiny man, with a fragile ego, who needs to be in a position of power to feel any self worth! You should be shoving that gun down your throat before you even dare point it at me!"

Blinking, Sophie processed what came out of her mouth, and immediately became terrified as the officer finished taking his gun from the holster. As he raised it to her, she shut her eyes tight, preparing for the worst. But instead of a gunshot, she heard the crunch of bone breaking.

Opening her eyes, she saw the officer on the ground, and a larger man standing over him, fist bloodied. Before the officer could do anything, the man's boot found itself in his side, making another loud crack.

"H-help!" Shouted the officer, but not before another person joined in, stomping their foot down on his head. "Hel" the officer tried again, but not before a third boot landed in his mouth, shattering his teeth.

Before Sophie could even blink, the crowd had turned into a riot, feet taking out their anger on the downed officer in any way they could. What surprised Sophie even more was looking down, and seeing herself joining in. It was something she wanted to do; and she was actually doing it. She wasn't suppressing it and watching somebody else do it for once. She was actually taking part. She wasn't even sure the bloody mess below her was even alive anymore, but she didn't care. She wasn't kicking just for her at this point. She was kicking for every person she had sat by and watched get kicked by the Gedankenpolizei. She was kicking for her grandparents, who watched their country turn into something worse than communist, after they had given their all to save it. She was kicking for her country.

Just as soon as it started, however, it was brought to an abrupt end. Whistles were sounding from all directions as the Gedankenpolizei were rushing to their position. Sophie expected to see the crowd shatter, but… They didn't. Instead, they began to link arms, forming a human wall. Sophie found herself joining in, stepping away from the mangled corpse at her feet, and finally getting a good look at everyone she was with. A fireman, a baker, a few factory workers, some people in fancy dress clothes… This wasn't just the lower class fighting back. It was Germans of all walls of life, standing together as one against the oppression of the state. Sophie couldn't believe it. Though, what happened next surprised her the most.

"This Germany is not my Fatherland. This Germany is a prison." She shouted, eyes going wide. "I refuse to stand by as the state treats us like cattle! Germany is my home, and it is sick. The only way to cure it is to stand together, and tell the Kaiser that his people are sick and tired of this oppression! The only thing it's going to do is make the people turn against him. Starting with us. Germany for the Germans!"

"Germany for the Germans! Germany for the Germans!" The crowd began to chant, as the Gedankenpolizei arrived on the scene, and immediately started to try tearing people away from the line.

"Germany for the Germans!" Continued the crowd, even when the Gedankenpolizei began to pull out their bludgeons. "Germany for the Germans!" They continued, as people began to get beaten down. "Germany for the Germans!" They shouted to the sky, even as the first shot was fired.

"Germany for the-" shouted Sophie, being cut off as a seating pain flooded out from her torso. She looked down, and saw red pooling out, devouring the white of her blouse. Tears rolling down her face, she snapped her head back up, and shouted as loud as she could, before everything went black.

"GERMANY FOR THE GERMANS!"

Downtown
12:02 PM

"Jess? Someone's here to see you."

Jessica Hyatt looked up from the counter at Bernadette. The two women were in the stockroom of Beaumont's. Bernadette had a playful smile on her face and an arched eyebrow. She was younger and shorter than Jessica, round enough to fill out the sales girl uniform that hung on Jessica's frame. The uniforms Beaumont's provided ran small, medium, and large without any special alterations. Jessica had the height for the large, but not the rest of the proportions to properly fill it out so it was always baggy.

She passed Bernadette and adjusted the beret on her head before stepping out on to the sales floor. The ladies section of the large department store was as busy as it always was on a weekday afternoon. Her curiosity was piqued by who would be calling on her at work. She secretly hoped it would be Penelope. But how would she know where Jessica worked? The two women discussed many things last night before they drifted off to sleep, but her employment had not been one of them.

"That is a smart looking outfit."

Special Agent Nate Parker stood by a rack of dresses with a smirk on his face. A dark hat hid his rapidly retreating hairline. Jessica felt a mixture of anger and fear at the sight of him. Parker turned his eyes away from her and looked at the dresses on the rack. He removed a hand from his pocket and thumbed through them.

"You know, Jessica. I find it a grand irony that the radical socialist works for the largest department store company in the world."

"A girl has to eat," she replied. "Not all of us can live off the tears of the oppressed."

Parker chuckled, staring at the dresses as he spoke.

"What a cutting remark. Your new friends teach you that insult, Jessica?"

"No, Nate. I don't need them to tell me you're a rat bastard."

He looked at her sharply. His mask of amusement slipped and she saw real anger underneath it. Just like that, the mask was back on again and he was smiling sardonically.

"My men followed that car into Brentwood," he said. "We know about Penelope, known about her for years. Our file on her is as thick as a phone book. I'm sure she'd be happy to hear that."

Jessica could feel her anger rising. For this man, this creature, to say Penelope's name enraged her. For Jessica, it sullied Penelope's beauty for him to even know of her existence.

"Thanks to you," he continued. "We know everyone who was at her house by the license plates on their cars. Curiously enough, you spent the whole night."

"I had too much to drink," she replied. "I crashed on... the couch."

"Sure you did," he chuckled. "I just need you to confirm who was there and tell me what they talked about, corroboration the courts call it."

"I was never introduced to anyone." It was her turn to look amused. "We talked about baseball all night. I'm an LA girl, so I'm rooting for the Dukes to take the pennant."

Whatever emotion that was on Parker's face evaporated. He looked at her blankly, his eyes so chilly they made Jessica shiver.

"Do not forget who I am," he said softly.

He leaned in to her, towering over her and making her back up into a rack of ladies slacks as he spoke.

"Do not forget what I can do to you. Do not forget that I know who you really are. I can destroy you like that!"

When Parker snapped his fingers, Jessica flinched.

"You thought the LA city jail was bad? Wait until I throw you and your little dyke friend into a female federal prison. You'd be used as currency, passed around from bull dagger to bull dagger until you couldn't take it anymore and make a noose out of your bed sheets."

"Jess--"

Jessica and Parker looked suddenly. Bernadette stood a few feet away with a worried look on her face. Her chubby hands were clasped together.

"Is everything okay?"

"I was just leaving," Parker said with an easy smile. "I'm a friend of Jessica's. I just wanted to remind her of something very important."

He looked at Jessica, the smile gone and replaced with a blank expression.

"I'll see you later. Hopefully your memory improves."

Without another word, he walked away.

"What was that about?"

"A customer," she said, adjusting her beret with shaky hands. "Some old creep who thinks I owe him something."

She looked off the way Parker had left. She thought she was in an untenable position when she had been pressed into service by the Pinkertons. Now, she knew that earlier pressure was nothing compared to now. Parker wanted names. But, names would mean arrests and an end to what she had just discovered. She felt like she had a place with Penelope and her people. For the first time in a long time, she felt like she belonged. And now, this man -- this bully -- was threatening to end all of that before it could even begin.

"You okay?" Bernadette asked.

"Yeah," Jessica said with a smile. "Let's get back to it, huh?"