NationStates Jolt Archive

Iansisle, off the North-West coast

“Woah, man. It’s cold here, you know that?”

The pilot – that’s what they call them in boats that small – shrugged as he tried to find his way through the morning fog.

“What the hell do you think I’ve been doing standing behind this wheel all night long? Yeah, I have noticed that the temperature is slightly below average, thank-you-very-much. Who the hell do you people think you are? Princess Charming? Or maybe the bloody soldier of Valley Forge? ‘Cold’! ‘Cold’, they say!’

Henry smiled shily and returned below-decks of the small boat, where Jane sat. He resisted the urge to respond to the man “Yes, we’re kinda like that.” Nobody must have known who they were, and why they came here… well, except two people. And their knowledge had to be tested.

“Oh well, Jane. Do you remember who we are and why we came here?”

Jane smiled, throwing her long, brown hair back from her face. “We’re reporters. Allanea-Times or something, going to cover a press-conference by one of the local leftist politicos. I’m Sandra Keey Morrison, and you…”

Henry appeared nervous, moving to clean his glasses with the edge of his T-shirt as he recited:

“I’m your photographer, Michael Reagan. We have a strange hobbies – I play the violin and you play the sax – and I always carry the cases, since we’re backwards Allaneans and the man still carries the woman’s gear.”

“Yeah, and Allaneans always have strange hobbies.”

Both laughed.

* * * *

In Allanea

“Hello, Sir? Am I talking to the Iansisle Ministry of Foreign Affairs? I’m calling from the Bluebird Travel Company, Florida. I would like to make arrangements for the travel of some tourists – an organised tour of Ianapolis. Can you make the visa arrangements?’

"Cold" was an awfully good way of describing the northwestern coast of Iansisle, especially in that desolate land north of the River Mans. Although the land had been under cultivation for countless hundreds of years, since before history had been recorded in the country, this was a country without a soul: it was neither the low, verdant hills of the Shield nor the towering alpine peaks of the Noropian Range. Cliffs dominated along the shoreline -- quite inhospitable to any large-scale shipping -- with rugged, craggy canyons and rock formations in the interior. Almost every square inch was terraced with crops or turned to pasture. The two largest cities in the area, Nenton-on-Mans and Shield's End, hardly accounted for a hundred thousand people between them.

For years, the only reason anyone had to come to Mansford was for the Nenton and Turnish Railroad, which operated a single track that snaked its way eighty miles along the western fringe of the mountains, water lapping at it every inch of the way, along the Turnish Pass. However, Royal Mining and Manufacturing finally managed to drill, tunnel, and blast a rail from Topton to Antangaux over the Noropian Gap. So completely did this transform the nature of Shieldo-Noropian commerce that the Nenton and Turnish was bankrupt within two years and Mansford was once again the backwaters of the Grand Empire.

During the Gull Flag Revolution and its aftermath, Mansford chose to abandon Ianapalis and form an independent Kingdom. However, the breakaway Republic of Weshield -- its southern neighbor -- soon invaded and laid waste to the Kingdom (the sacking of Shield's End was particularly brutal). However, the Republic's subsequent war with Charles Bradsworth's United Kingdom of the Shield (which would later become the Gull Flag Republic) laid Weshield prostrate and annexed Mansford to the latter state.

Despite its status as a conquered realm, Mansford has proved particularly patriotic. Even before the introduction of conscription, fully one third of Mansford's adult male population had volunteered to take up arms and fight the Effitians in the mud along the River Jaizar. Now the Manbâr was populated only by women, the very old, and the very young; almost every village could expect to see one father, son, or husband on the weekly casualty lists.

The Allaneans landed at a particularly deserted beach below an imposing line of cliffs some twenty miles north of Nenton (and Mansmouth).

---------

"Hypocrisy! Duplicity! Outrage and scandal!”

“If the Assemblyman from Feinwick cannot articulate a speech further than these emotional outbursts, I shall have to take the floor from him,” said the Speaker of the Assembly, his hands in his head.

“I apologize to the chair,” said Thomas de Fenne, but he did not look the least bit sorry. “Sometimes my temper carries me away in the heat of the moment. It’s just that this sham -- democracy at home and autocracy in the colonies -- is so acute that it cannot but raise my ire.”

There was mumbling throughout the Assembly, but de Fenne was allowed to continue. In the front row, Charles Bradsworth leaned in to whisper something to Peter Appleton, the Director of the Gallaga Office.

“The Iansislean people have had enough experience with despotism -- both royalist and corporatist -- that I should think that inflicting the horrors we have borne on our own backs on another people should be absolutely unthinkable. And yet everyday, another East Gallagaman arrives in Ianapalis or Mansmouth with the riches pilfered from our colonies in the Orient! The Right Honorable Premier and his Honorable Directors have been paying for their war in Gadsan -- and their posh homes in Dûn Sâdôra and their Westerton motorcars -- with the blood and sweat of honest Gallagans!”

de Fenne continued in this manner for nearly ten minutes before the Speaker finally demanded the floor back. Charles Bradsworth had no doubt that the fiery rookie Assemblyman from industrial Ianapalis could continue to harp on the Gallagan Troubles until the last molecule of oxygen on Earth had been exhausted. His comments were met with hisses and cheers both from an Assembly divided: de Fenne was a member of Lawrence Madders’s radical left-wing group, not Bradsworth’s moderates.

“We have the makings of a new Markus Rumbiak here,” said Appleton quietly. Bradsworth grunted in acknowledgment.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to turn this Gallaga business into a run at the premiership,” continued Appleton. “If the radicals haven’t rallied behind Madders by this time next year, I wouldn’t be surprised to see de Fenne headlining their ticket.”

“I don’t think that Madders will give up that easily,” said Bradsworth. “de Fenne is more popular at the moment, but Madders has put in the hard work to build up the radical front.”

“I don’t think either of them could beat the hero of the Revolution, though,” said Appleton, smiling at Bradsworth.

“I hope not so!” chuckled Bradsworth, listening to de Fenne’s closing words.

------

“That’s Directorate of Foreign Affairs,” said the rather irritable voice on the other end of the line, as if she had made this correction far more times than she cared. “Directorate. Now what’s this? A tour of Ianapalis? Well, I cannot make the arrangements, but I believe one of my superiors can...please hold.”

A rather interminable time later -- counting being on hold, being transferred from office to office, and one time where the system hung up on the Bluebird Travel Company’s representative and they had to restart the entire procedure -- the call reached the desk of one Harold G. Craft.

“Yes? visas, you say? Well, that is my department -- Erm, my area of expertise. Now, how many visas are you applying for? And when can we expect them to be needed?”

Nenton-on-Mans, Iansisle

It wasn’t particularly a good hotel – but they have never really expected anything good, given the area. And in a hotel such as this, they would remember the clients that payed such as the Allaneans did – in Allanean money. In good, solid gold. And, unlike most secret agents, Henry and Jane wanted to be remembered – though not as what they really where. There’s nothing to mask a paranoid secret agent like a pretense of being a flamboyant, extroverted, wacko. Which was why Henry and Jane were doing what Sandra and Michael would do. Playing their musical instruments and singing a duet – at one in the morning. For added effect, Michael stomped his foot against the floor in rhythm with the music. The effects were of course nearly immediate – and they had the form of a polite – given the circumstances – attendant – asking them to be ‘a little bit quiet’.

And now, when they were sure the hotel management thought of them as nothing more than a pair of eccentric, rude, but very rich foreign reporters, they could get to business. Jane slipped a hand over her inner thigh, moving slowly and gently until she reached the very top of her stocking – and the slender metallic object she had concealed there – a small 6.35mm Lignose semiautomatic handgun. Designed for just such a method of carry, in Allanea this would be the last-resort weapon for a lady – and for many unsavory characters, the last thing one would ever see. Here, it was very nearly Jane’s only weapon – she could only hope it wouldn’t fail her.

Henry in the meanwhile reached inside his high shoe, producing a slightly bigger, black object – a Smith and Wesson Magnum Airlite. Again much smaller than what he was used to carrying, the weapon would have to do. He swung the cylinder out sideways, and began to clean the firearm while talking to Jane.

“Oh well. This place is hideous, don’t you think? I mean, look! They don’t even hold rave parties! How can you trust people that don’t hold rave parties?”

She sighed as she moved back the slide of her own weapon. “Can’t really expect them to be much of partygoers given the local history can you Michael? I mean, is there ever anything on your mind other than parties?”

The “photographer” shuffled his shoulders shily – without admitting he was slightly humbled by the retort, however – and focused on the work ahead, while wondering momentarily what would hotel owners think of the WD-40 stains on the carpet. Not that there weren’t stains on it already of course – stains that he didn’t even want to know the origin of.

In the meanwhile, Jane started pacing back and forth, abandoning work for a few moments as she began to talk agitatedly, the subject apparently incurring much passion within her.

“Observe! Their nation is embroiled in constant war! Their leaders chase out, try, attack all the best and most capable men of Iansisle. The King of this nation is on trial. Ashtonbury is on the run – and the damn Burungi are trying harder and harder to rip apart what remains! How can you even expect the part of the contry that gave all its sons and husbands to the futile wars of this rotten ‘republic’ they’ve got there to be insane enough as to hold rave parties? Sometimes, Michael, I do wonder what in the seven hells is wrong with you.”

Henry looked up at Jane as he moved a small cleaning rod several times in and out of the barrel of the .44 Magnum revolver – something that elicited associations he currently believed to be inappropriate.

“You see, Sandra, all is not that simple – after all, it’s not like they don’t have parties – and they do dance. It’s that they don’t know any modern way to celebrate… doesn’t that seem a bit, well, strange to you?”

She shrugged: “It seems your education in Midlonia did you little good – you’re now thinking like a foreigner – way too much like a foreigner for any comfort. My Mom is in the Peyote Way Church of God – do you find what they do strange and backwards as well, my friend?”

Michael – or Henry, whichever the reader prefers - blushed slightly as he looke up at his companion, continuing his rubbing and thrusting motions without really understanding their meaning.

He looked out into the window, where the night already appeared totally and absolutely black, then reassembled his gun, got up, and drew the curtains. You never know – the outside observer can be just on the next rooft, whatching carefully what you do, tracking the sounds of your conversation with a laser-beam emitter the size of an old radio.

“Tell me, Sandra, do you feel any… uncertainty? Any… concsiousness pangs about this? Any… guilt about what we’re doing? Or am I the only one?”

Sandra – or Jane - chuckled: “Why? Do you think we’re actually doing anything wrong here?”

He looked back quizzically: “What do you mean? First, the deception and numerous illegal things we need to do on our way to the capital – in itself a problem. Second, this LeFenne character may indeed be a right bastard, but what’s his actual guilt? Why can we sacrifice him to our mission?”

There was a pause before Sandra broke out in a storm of even more passion: “What the bloody hell is wrong with you today, He.. Mike! He’s a politician and member of their legislature, for crying out loud! Every day, he votes to use taxation, anti-trust laws, licensing laws and so forth to deprive innocent people of their life, liberty, and property. Innocent my arse!”
She paced faster and faster back and forth across the room. “And yet there is always someone like you, to mumble “are we doing right?”, to whine whether it’s all OK to be doing that, whether or not a man – is he even a man – like LeFenne – deserves to live or not! As if it were even a question in the first place!”

Sshsh… – Henry moved a finger to his lips. “They might hear you. Ought to start the music again now, I guess – just so they don’t notice what you just ranted on, even if some of them do know the language.”

She stopped abruptly, her face going blank slightly as she looked at Henry. “Point. You do have some good points sometimes, Little Mike.” – this time, she stopped hereself just ahead of saying “Henry.”

She reassembled the handgun, placed the saxophone case on the bed, and opened it, as if opening a weapon case - to slowly extract a long, curved object with a golden sheen. A saxophone.

Henry/Michael then reached for his guitar. He moved his hand across the strings, and began to play, tapping his foot on the floor in rhythm. He wondered if Room Service would be angry – after all, it was already six AM.

It's been a hard day's night, and I been working like a dog
It's been a hard day's night, I should be sleeping like a log
But when I get home to you I'll find the things that you do
Will make me feel alright

The mangled, distorted tune flowed out of the window and over the sleepy Iansisle city – and in the covers of the violin and sax cases lay silently the two real weapons of the mission – two keramic-blade knives, handles wrapped in friction tape, and strange words engraved into the blade proper.

They waited.

Back in the Confederate Capital

‘Most excellent. The visit is for twenty people, a guide and a photographer, all lasting for two weeks. Is that possible to arrange?’

At six am, little Nenton and Mansmouth, its overgrown brother across the river, were starting to show some signs of life. Old women went down to the river to do their wash, landlords woke up to prepare their renters' breakfastes and the morning shift at the large factory (a textile plant turned over to uniform manufacture) started on their way to work. There was also much activity in the roads: tugboats manouvered between behemoth vessels as convoy A-36-V -- sixteen fast ships escorted by elements of the Tenth Destroyer Flotilla and assorted anti-submarine sloops and frigates -- gathered steam.

They might even hear the sound of a rather timid knock -- followed by a louder, if still timid, one -- at their door. Opening it would reveal a rather frightened old lady, missing most of her teeth, who stammered out:

"Please be, gentle-folks, but his honor on the first floor has demanded that I ask you to ...cease that noise. Please, he swears that he hasn't slept a single wink all night and does not look forward to noise over his breakfast."

-----

"Certainly it is possible!" cried Mr Craft, hoping that his enthusiasm provided some cover for his shock. There hadn't been many tourists in Iansisle of late -- wars tended to do that -- and every foreign general that could be squeezed into the Shield's economy was MOST welcome.

((sorry that took so long and all. Bloody school has been hitting me like three tons of bricks. =/))

‘Very well,’the violinist told the lady. ‘I see the customs here are not such as in my old homeland – and certainly I will cease playing forthwith. Here’s some for your trouble, dear woman.’ He handed the woman a single gold coin – actually, a leaf of gold a gram in weight, pressed inside a small transparent plastic disc, with the value of ten Allanean dollars. On the averse, the profile of Alexander Kazansky, Allanea’s first president, was impressed.

When the hotel-keeper left, the sax player smiled. You know, I thought of what you said last night – and maybe you’re right.’ Then her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Maybe indeed we do not need to kill him. Perhaps, even, it would better serve us if we don’t.’. The man raised his eyebrows. ’What do you mean?’

‘Well, first we need to catch a train to the capital – and pay a visit to the local post office.’

While they would be on their way to the capital by train, a message, written by gluing newspaper letters to a piece of paper, was making it’s way through the mail. It was addressed to a prominent leftist politian, and a single revolver bullet was in the envelope with it.

The message read:

Rumbiak is dead. Ashtonbury lives.

(('tis bizarre. Not only could I swear that I was the last post on this thread, but also that I answered the very post below. =/ My apologies for another delay -- I thought you were the tardy one =D.))

‘Very well,’the violinist told the lady. ‘I see the customs here are not such as in my old homeland – and certainly I will cease playing forthwith. Here’s some for your trouble, dear woman.’ He handed the woman a single gold coin – actually, a leaf of gold a gram in weight, pressed inside a small transparent plastic disc, with the value of ten Allanean dollars. On the averse, the profile of Alexander Kazansky, Allanea’s first president, was impressed.

The old hag's eyes lit up at the sight of the gold. She tried to restrain her joy as she bit softly into the corner of the coin and felt it give. The Republic, heavily in debt, had already given up on the traditional coin-based monetary system of the Grand Empire and started printing paper money; given the poor financial straits of the government, emphasis must be placed more heavily on the word 'paper' than on 'money', as Republic-notes were steadily declining in value.

"Thankee, sir, thankee madam," she stuttered as she slipped the coin into her apron and backed out, closing the door behind her.

‘Well, first we need to catch a train to the capital – and pay a visit to the local post office.’

While they would be on their way to the capital by train, a message, written by gluing newspaper letters to a piece of paper, was making it’s way through the mail. It was addressed to a prominent leftist politian, and a single revolver bullet was in the envelope with it.

The message read:

Rumbiak is dead. Ashtonbury lives.

The Mans, Daldon, and Penton Railroad was one of those lines, formerly owned by RM&M, that had been nationalized immediately following the Revolution. Like its sister services, customers had noted a steady decline in efficiency since the state took over, but late trains and over packed carriages were all part of 'doing out part.'

In Ianapalis, some three hundred miles from Mansmouth, Thomas de Fenne, the MA from Feinwick, considered the bullet and its cryptic message. He knew who Ashtonbury was, of course: the corporate lap dog who had organized the holding hostage of Ianapalis during the Yoke. And 'Rumbiak' of course would mean Markus Rumbiak, whom de Fenne knew mostly from his work for a free Gallaga.

And who died at the hands of a corporate assassin in the employ of the East Gallaga Company, though de Fenne. Could Ashtonbury also be the one who had killed Rumbiak? If so, was the madman now gunning for him? He flipped the cold bullet in his hand a couple of times before putting it down and picking up his telephone. This was all damned bizarre and, like all bizarre things, was something that Lawrence Madders ought to know about.

And so, Henry and Jane – or, as the locals would hear of them, Michael and Sandra – made their way towards the capital. On each station, one of them would descend and mail off another threatening letter (always with a fake return address) to some socialist politician. Nobody (they hoped) would link them to the letter. And yet, some would begin to look for whoever was mailing them.

In the meanwhile, the people in the train would probably (though Michael and Sandra weren’t sure it’d work) begin to hate them. Late night music, loud-partying, and large tips to waiters made them look like whacked-out, yet benign foreign tourists – with the same sort of benign air about them as an aged senile old lady with a fortune which you’re going to inherent. Sure, she’s nice – but you can’t help but wish she’d croak.

In the meanwhile, the Allanean travel company back home began to sell tickets for a guided tour of Iansisle’s capital. Interestingly enough, while they have warned the Iansisle ministry of foreign affairs they’ll be bringing twenty tourists and a guide, only eighteen tickets were actually up for sale.

'Michael' and 'Sandra' were indeed correct: the entire left wing of the National Assembly, Madders and de Fenne at their head, was soon stirred into a frenzy. The letters were traced back through the mail service as best they could be; however, by the time they noticed that the letters were following the line of the Mans, Daldon, and Penton, the Allanean train had already pulled in to Ianapalis.

Unfortunately, however, rich foreigners were something unusual on the Shield. And, as something unusual, they attracted the notice of the agents of the republic. Harry Dove, a rather dumpy little man who had been interested in the couple for the entire train ride, followed them as they exited to the platform in Bincher Station in western Ianapalis. His brown eyes peered keenly through a pair of glasses as he casually followed them through the crowd.

Surprisingly enough, the two fake journalists paid the ‘tail’ very little notice as they went along their business. The first thing they did was to go and book an hotel room in a medium-quality (if you believed the guides) hotel in downtown Ianapolis. And then they did what journalists were supposed to do: they photographed sights, wrote innocuous articles about the people and mindsets of the nation, and mailed them back to Allanea. In short, they lived a rather innocous life for the next few days.



In the meanwhile, Allanean tourists were descending from an airplane in the Ianapolis airport. Most of them were ordinary tourists – if you make allowance for the extravagance of Allanean dress, the loud, flamboyant habits, and the clouds of cigarette smoke rising from those people. They drank extremely strong iced tea which they themselves brought in steel bottles like the ones soldiers used, and they were titanically rude to everybody and everything.



Two people stood out. One was an older man, dressed in the usual three-piece suit, leaning on a cane – but wearing the kind of wide-brimmed hat only Allaneans (and movie cowboys) wear. The other was a fellow in a Hawaii shirt and shorts, smoking a pipe, and bearing strange cut marks on his knees and elbows – the marks of a long-time suspensionist. Officially, they were a professor of history and his best student. As soon as they could, they broke off from the guided tour and headed for the National Archives. Strangely, the tour guide pretended not to notice.