NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: For the benefit of all those lost, bewildered or able to walk on their heads, I'll just recap: Sir Reginald Styles is the Governor of Chimaea, he's been in power since Lord Bryce committed suicide, which would have been, um, let's gloss over how many years ago. He has had to contend with high-level terrorism in Chimaea, two unpopular wars and the whole Reich thing.

Remember folks--nobody else knows the events of this thread

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Sir Reginald Styles gazed at the paperwork on his desk and blinked several times as the words swam in front of his eyes. The harsh overhead lighting in his office cast dim shadows along his desk as he tried to concentrate.

He'd had barely ten hours of sleep for the last four days... Report after report coming in of the Reich's activities, Street Island operations, protests and gestures of support from other nations...

One piece of paper caught his eye. It bore the seal of Lavenrunz and had been forwarded - a copy he noticed - from the Prime Minister's office. He stared at it and noticed it has a red 'urgent' marker on it. How had he missed it?

He opened the folded document and read the content. Then he realised that he didn't understand anything that he was reading, so he read it again, twice. Still nothing. Something about the Embassy?

"Hah, have they started attacking embassies too?"

Sir Reginald's head jerked up and he stared around. There was no-one there. He blinked into space for a second before he realised that he must have been thinking aloud. That'd be it of course.

He looked down at the document again.

It had vanished.

His brow knitted in annoyance. "The hell...?"

The big wooden clock on the wall struck ten. He looked up at it, his eyes sliding down to the portrait of Lord Bryce on the wall. His predecessor gazed down at him with those intense grey eyes.

He turned back to his desk, discomforted.

The document was there again.

It was this glare. The lights were far too bright, he'd get someone in to fix them. Yes that's what he'd--

There was a knock on the door. Then it opened and one of the staff entered, pulling a wheeled trolley behind her. On it was a...

He sniffed. "Lobster? Why are you bringing me dinner, I've already eaten... and I don't even like lobster!"

The staffer looked startled. "Sir? You ordered this ten minutes ago."

"I... what? I most certainly did not!"

The staffer was now looking terrified. He softened. "Er... why don't you eat it yourself? I can't remember ordering anything, but we'll let that go eh?"

The staffer mumbled an apology and hastily exited, closing the door behind her.

Tick, tock, tick, tock...

Now what was it he'd been thinking? Oh yes... the lights. On an impulse, he reached over his desk and flicked the switch on the control panel there. The lights blinked out.

There was still light though... he looked up and realised that the giant television inlaid into the wall was turned on. There was no sound though, just flickering images as the screen was split into six channels, all showing different newscasts.

For the life of him he couldn't remember turning it on.

He watched the pictures and read the captions under them. Something about a fire in South New Sydney... updates on the Reich situation... Michael Jackson defending charges of child abuse...

He watched as it all blurred, changed...

He blinked.

There was so many pictures now he couldn't tell which was which, and they were all swirling, different colours, billions of pixels running like coloured clay left in the sun.

Tick... tock... ...tick...

His left cheeck twitched. And he kept staring, deeper and deeper as the images flickered and flowed and washed over him.

"Yes..."

OOC: look... these people are our allies... :P

OOC: Pretty cool eh? Anyway, this is me posting after a night out on the town, so don't mind the added madness ;)

IC

Two Days Later

The sun rose in the sky like a... well, like a giant burning ball of exploding gas. The bright blush of the morning swept across New Sydney, throwing the tall glass-panelled skyscrapers into a blaze of light.

The New Sydney Parliament House stood close to the immense Royal Botanical Gardens, which had been created by the one and only King of Chimaea during some of the darkest days of Chimaean history. The Parliament House itself had stood even before that, well over two hundred years old. It's Colonial-Imperial architecture dominated the scene. The four Guardian Angels on each corner of the vast building were coloured rose by the rising sun, and the tall flagpole set into stark relief against the new dawn sky.

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Sir Reginald was asleep in his office. His eyes were closed and his breathing slight, though regular; if anyone had seen him they'd have first wondered if the leader of the Commonwealth was in fact dead.

The rectangular and elongated beams of light crept across the carpet like warm fingers of fire from the tall, arched windows. It crawled up the wooden desk that was the central piece of furniture in the room, across the untidy heap of paperwork, the flags, the small control panel and acorss the Governor's face.

He jerked awake with a start, almost as if the warm sunlight had indeed burned him. He felt around blindly for the control panel, felt along the switches and flicked one. Immediately, thick security screens descended across the windows. Sir Reginald waited until the last of the sunlight was extinguished before stumbling into the small bathroom to one side of the office.

He washed his face and stared at himself in the mirror above the steel basin. His face swam in his vision, but this time from the awakening and not from the lack of sleep. He reached out a hand and touched his reflection, running a finger along the angles on his face.

Mirror mirror on the wall, show me the vilest man of them all...

There was something in the mirror.

He blinked. Just his reflection? No, there. Something. Just fleeting.

He peered closer.

Hate you kill you murder stupid stupid stupid stupid hate

Sir Reginald jerked back, then he pulled back his fist and smacked the mirror, which fractured. He slammed it harder again, and this time most of it seemed to explode downwards and into the basin. He kept hitting the wood behind it, again and again, his hand cut and bleeding from the broken glass.

Black.

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Later.

He opened his eyes. The bathroom light shone down onto his face, beautiful, golden. His hand was throbbing.

He got onto his knees, disoriented, then struggled onto his feet. His hand was cut badly. The blood was running but most of it had clotted the wounds. The basin was full of glass but he ignored it, and opened the steel tap. Cold water gushed out onto the glass, and he held out his hand to it.

He watched as the drips of blood fell onto the water and glass below. The droplets formed on his hand, then was dragged down until it fell onto the wet surface of the glass, where it exploded out like a bomb. Golden light, mettalic blue, mercury glass. Beautiful, cherry red blood.

Something was looking at him through the fragments. He looked around at the glass in the basin. It was fractured, one entity inside each fragment of glass.

Hate you hate you hate you

He looked away.

Nice Tagged

The hallway was deserted.

That was the first thing Phillip Achefield, the Prime Minister of Chimaea, noticed as he neared the Governor's Office. Usually the long hallway was busy with aides and advisors and VIPs scurrying and scuttling from place to place, conducting the business of government. This was the place where no-one slept--specially the Governor, according to common legend.

Now the hallway was deserted. His footsteps echoed on the marble floor as he strode towards the large double-doors at the end of the hall.

He raised his hand to knock, then thought better of it and reached for the gold-plated doorknob. It turned in his grasp and he opened the door and slipped inside.

The office was dark apart from the flickering screen of the giant television inlaid into one wall. He looked at the screen and saw that it displayed about ten news feeds; the top headlines about Knootoss and AMF were being reported on, as well as Count von Mirbach's win in the Lavenrunz elections. A few were reporting on the Reich situation.

Then his eyes moved onto the figure sitting on the floor in front of the screen. Achefield almost shouted as he realised it was Sir Reginald. The man was concentrating unblinkingly on the images, the planes on his face flattened by the flickering bluish light. His chin was rested in his hands and he didn't move.

For a moment, Achefield was frozen by the tableau in front of him. Then he recovered his senses and coughed nervously.

The Governor's head snapped around to face him so quickly that the Prime Minister flinched. One part of the Governor's face was cast in shadow, the other lighted by the screen.

"Uh... Governor... Did... did you receive the file on Lavenrunz sir?"

Sir Reginald stared at him motionlessly. Then a smile appeared on his face. "It... must have escaped my... attention." the voice was hoarse and unsteady.

"Er... Well, Ambassador Chang has been suspended pending an investigation. We aren't quite sure why the Ambassador would do such a thing--"

"Because they're Reich ass-lickers, Phil."

Achefield paused, not used to Sir Reginald casually swearing. "I... well. Still, it is unusual of an Ambassador to do so without instruction..."

"Have you... asked him?"

"We haven't been able to contact the Ambassador as of yet about this, no."

Sir Reginald turned his head back to the screen. "They're plotting against us, Phil. All of them. Our. So-called 'allies', they're never there when we need them..."

The Prime Minister looked shocked. "We have received quite a lot of support, sir..."

There was no answer. The Governor continued staring at... into the screen.

"Governor? I need to know our position towards Lavenrunz now that Count Mirbach has been elected Chancellor."

There was another brief silence. "Why don't you talk to them about it, Phil?"

"About what, Governor?"

"Maybe tell them about how the Reich burns Elves? Or ask them how often they sleep with President Mathew? Or..."

"What? Sir--"

"Go! Just go! Do what you like!"

Achefield took a step back, then turned and walked out of the office, closing the door behind him. He then leaned against the wall for a moment, and breathed out slowly.

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Inside the office, the Governor stared at the swirling patterns on the screen, listening to the messages it put in his mind.

"He's one of them! Another Reich-kissing bastard!"

He listened more.

Then he got to his feet, walked over to his desk and pressed a button on the control panel. After a while, part of the wall swung out and a figure stepped into the room.

The Governor looked up with a smile of childish malignance. "Ahhh... I have a job for you..."

tag

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o.O Someone bothered to spam/flame this thread? lol