NationStates Jolt Archive

This is the IC thread section. There are a list of characters, and the plot is known, and will follow the mounting chaos within North Storn as its situation deteriorates. Certain elements used are intellectual property of Medea (wherever you are). Anyone wishing to take control of members of the cast are welcome to ask me via telegram. There will be conflict. And, oh, yes, there will be blood.

Abigail Wyman pulled her hair. Not gently, as one might when trying to work out a knot, but harder than she probably should. It hurt. But that was good. It diverted her attention from the mounting frustration she felt at the complete lack of progress she was making.

One of the ghouls moved above her left shoulder, camera clicking, and the flash momentarily dazzled her. Again.

“Would you quit it, Jeff? You know, as well as I do, that you don’t have to hover over my shoulder to take your pictures.”

Jeff, a balding and rake-thin man, grinned at her, showing a mouth missing a couple of teeth.

“Nah, but if I didn’t take photos from there I wouldn’t annoy you. Can’t have that, eh?”

She shook her head, wordlessly. The guy gave her the creeps.

Not half as much as the string of murders she was investigating. Four bodies in as many days. And not a hint of suspicion cast anywhere. Which wasn’t to say that the circumstances weren’t suspicious. Because they were. Unless someone was seriously suggesting that these four victims had randomly decided that carving a large, y-shaped incisions in their own torsos, then cutting out every one of their major organs, would be good for a laugh.

She stood, and walked back to her car, just outside the policing officer cordon, cup of coffee in hand.

One of her colleagues, an older fellow named Grant Lethbridge, motioned her over.

“Morning Abby.”

“Grant.”

“’Nother one?”

“Yeah. Same as before. All files deleted, body cleaned out. We know he’s a corporate worker, but someone who knows their stuff has worked their way into our system, again might I add, and erased the data. Grant, I’ve been howling about this since the first one turned up, why hasn’t the boss done anything about it?”

Grant didn’t answer immediately, but took a couple of puffs from his cigarette, blowing out the smoke into the cool Northport morning air.

“Abby, if you want my advice… which if you’re smart you probably don’t…”

Abby chuckled, breaking his train of thought. Grant waved his hands, lit cigarette moving dangerously close to the man’s brown trench coat.

“Oh, come on. Look at me. I’m two days short of retirement, and still only on what, the same salary as you? Ha. Nah, if you’ve got any brain at all in that pretty head of yours, you’ll ignore everything I say, and make your own mind up.”

Abby frowned, and pondered the veteran detective’s words.

“For argument's, sake, go on.”

Looking marginally incredulous, although Abby couldn’t tell if it was mock or otherwise, Grant went on.

“Nothing in the papers. We know they know. Look.”

He pointed at the gaggle of reporters snapping shots just beyond the cordon.

“Nothing from the higher ups, who have been told, repeatedly, that corporate records, and even our own records, are being deleted. Records about victims just... disappearing from the database. Tell me that isn’t a cause for concern.”

He paused again, and beckoned for Abigail to follow him. He went over to the corpse, shooing away another pair of crime scene photographers, then reached into his trench coat pocket and removed a pair of surgical gloves.

“What’s more, these aren’t bums. Not just any corporates either, I’ll bet. Working for the majors. Genotech, Ur-Allon, Datadyne… one of those. That is obvious from this..."

His gloved hand tapped the teeth of the poor unfortunate that lay at the centre of the current situation.

“Only the big corporates have dental plans this good. So why is it that all their usually so painstakingly accurate medical records about their employees have suddenly become so patchy?”

He lowered his voice and leaned in closer.

“So if you want my advice, stay out of it. The boss didn’t tell you to handle it. No one has given it to you. Stay away. Nothing good will come of this, girlie. Nothing."

His eyes shifted from her face to her hands.

"Now I’m gonna get me one of those fine looking coffees. Where’s it from?”

Abby scowled at the man, then relaxed. He was only going to be doing this crappy job for another two days. She could see where he was coming from.

“Same place as always, dufus. The place next to the station.”

Grant cocked his head mock quizzically.

“A what? A station? Where’s that?”

An empty polystyrene cup sailed through the air, ballistic trajectory ending at the detective’s head. His female companion was already halfway into her car, intent upon returning to the station and digging more into what had become of the four sorry people who had once worked for the corporate giants that were the true power within North Storn.

Mulgrave hated flying. He hated not being in control of whatever it was that held him up, hated that his life was utterly and completely in someone else’s hands.

And to make matters worse, the only flight from Bredubar, capital of the Lyran Protectorate, to Northport, capital-by-fiat of North Storn was a jam-packed Air Erukush flight, stopping over in Varessa City.

And not only were Erukushis, by and large, nearly two feet shorter than their Lyran counterparts, but Mulgrave was big, even for a Lyran. At six feet, eleven inches, he was a good three inches taller than the Lyran standard, and an inch shy of two feet taller than the diminutive Erukushis. And given the perpetually cash-strapped nature of Erukush generally, he felt every cramped inch of the crowded aircraft’s too-small seating.

It was that very cash-strapped situation, however, which made Air Erukush the only airline that was still flying anywhere near the troubled Storn Archipelago. Isolationist Varessa had, after nearly two centuries of being the world’s most technologically sophisticated and non-judgemental arms exporter, finally determined that regional instability was becoming a direct threat to their interests.

The Lyran soldier rubbed the bridge of his nose, and gazed over the shoulder of the scantily clad Varessan woman next to him, and out of the plane’s window. He could feel a headache building behind his eyes, and knew from experience that it would be a highly unpleasant one.

The Lyran government had sent him into North Storn, hoping to take advantage of the region’s unique security crisis. Varessa’s sudden change of its long-stable policy had sent ripples of near panic through militaries around the world. Varessa was the sleeping giant. Multi-billion strong population. Strong, stable, democratic central government. Internationally powerful economy. A well known and respected international citizen. And for years seemingly completely oblivious to its own enormous and growing power.

Many were of the opinion that Varessa’s changing international stance was a good thing. Not least in Varessa itself, where many of its own citizens had been urging a moral interventionist stance for years. Exactly what had made the government of Chancellor Drake decide to intervene in the Upper Virginian situation was unknown.

Remarkable also was the complete absence of complaint from Excalbia. The Holy Empire of Excalbia was Upper Virginia’s chief adversary, and the normal arbitrator by force of events in the region. No one trusted Lyras enough, not that Mulgrave was at all surprised. Lyras had established itself as something of an international pariah since the great coup, seventy years ago.

But since Varessa’s new found adventurism, nations all over the world were scrambling to find a high-power, combat-proven and effective supplier of top-end military hardware.

The Protectorate of Lyras fit the bill quite handily. As the worlds only true military state, Lyrans were, although not popular, well regarded as being the benchmark for most things military.

This was why Richard Mulgrave, a lieutenant colonel and one of the most travelled members of the Lyran Army, had been selected to handle this unusual but quite possibly highly lucrative contract negotiation in North Storn.

North Storn wasn’t really a state, Mulgrave mused. It was more a named area of land that was internationally recognised as being a non-state. A state had to have the monopoly on legitimate use of force within its prescribed boundaries. North Storn did not have a government in any recognisable sense at all, let alone the monopoly on force. Not that Lyras cared. All the Protectorate was interested in was the fact that one of the super-corporations that together made North Storn’s pseudo-government had panicked when Varessan tanks rolled into Upper Virginia, and had asked for a Lyran delegation to provide details in conference about what may be done to ensure better security for North Storn.

North Storn’s super-corporations had money. Lots of it. And for that reason, Lyras was more than willing to satisfy their urge to panic.

Tim poked his head up from below the low concrete wall, and out across Northport Docks.

Four quick blue flashes, then one white.

Tim flashed three reds back.

One more white in return.

Right on time. For once. Which was good, he thought as he walked up to his van. The moonless night was near freezing.

The van started as it was supposed to, old engine turning over as if it were still brand new, and he backed the van up to the dock, feeling the bumps as the wheels rolled over the creaking wooden planks. Tim started to sweat, despite the cold. He wasn’t using the lights, and the whole area was, of course, unlit. It’d be just his luck to back the van into the bloody water.

But he didn’t, and the van came to a halt several metres from the end of the wharf. He stepped out, grateful again for his beanie as the frigid north wind came roaring in over the water. That wind came straight down from the arctic, and dropped Northport’s average annual temperature by nearly ten degrees.

Three men stood by a sleek grey launch, which sat low in the water. One of them, closest to the land, waved, and spoke, voice low so it wouldn’t carry.

“That you, Tim?”

Tim breathed a sigh of relief. The enduring fear that the co-operative had been infiltrated by the corporates had not come to pass, not tonight anyway. He’d recognise Mike’s voice over a crackly radio in a blizzard with earplugs in.

“Yep.”

Tim moved to open up the back of the van, and the three others began to unload boxes onto the damp wharf, while the other man – Mike – chuckled at him.

“Still a man of few words, eh? Damn right, mate. Open yer mouth here, an’ half yer teeth will freeze. At least zoggin’ minus four out there, and pretty choppy out past the heads. Damn near lost the lot over the side.”

Mike laughed at his own half-joke, and swivelled the first box into the open back of the van, sliding the box as far forward as it would go.

The rest of the unloading went on in silence. Concealment was too close to the forefront of their collective minds.

They’d reached the last crate, and Tim was about to head around to the front of the van, when Mike’s voice brought him up.

“Oh, eh, one more thing.”

“Mmmmmmm?”

As if on que, a woman of indeterminate age, in an ankle-length loose skirt and flowing blouse pulled herself out of the boat, looking positively tiny in the obviously borrowed heavy jacket she was wearing.

Tim turned and looked at Mike square on, and it didn’t take a psychologist to work out what the driver was asking.

“Tim, meet Sara Collins. She’s a volunteer from Transeden, and an expert on organic farming and self-sufficient agricultural practices. She asked to come over and help the co-op over here to get its supplies flowing. We figured you could use the hand.”

Tim raised his left eyebrow, bushy blonde hair creeping up towards his spiked up hair line.

“Cool.”

Sara nodded at him, then spoke for the first time, hint of an Irish accent showing.

“Pleasure to meet you. Now, no offence, but I’m freezing. The lads didn’t tell me it’d be quite so cold out there. So, Tim, I’ll be in the van.”

Tim’s head swivelled back to Mike, who grinned.

“A feisty one, that one. Hearts in the right place, though. You take care of yourself, now.”

Tim nodded once. Mike didn’t have to elaborate on the warning. Rumours of what was happening in North Storn were definitely appearing throughout the region. Some of the more wealthy Varessans and Fehnmaris were actually coming to North Storn to take advantage of it. Tim was regularly revolted by the degree to which greed and self-interest could blind people to immorality.

“Regards to the free world.”

Mike laughed loudly, making Tim wince, and making one of the other men in the boat look a little worried, as echoes came bouncing back over the water.

“Damn right, mate.”

Mike jumped back off the wharf, and into the boat, pulling the line in as he did so.

“See you next time.”

Tim didn’t wait for the boat to move off, but got back into the van, finding that Sara had already turned it on, and fired up the heating.

“How long does it take for this old rustbucket to heat up?”

He regarded her curiously, and grinned slightly.

“Always too long.”

She smiled, then her smiled turned into a scowl as Tim cocked a 9mm pistol, and held it towards her, butt first.

“You men are all the same. Violence solves everything, doesn’t it. Pull out your guns at the first sign of trouble, eh? Hasn’t it ever occurred to any of you that there are other ways? That making people see these alternatives, and put down their weapons, is the only answer?! If we use weapons, so will they, and the problems will escalate. Violence will lead to violence, and more and more people will die. Surely we’re better than that? Aren’t we different? Don’t the ideals of the co-operative prevent our recourse to violence? We can’t lose focus. You think we’re smuggling in organic food because we prefer the taste, and like the ambience of Northport Harbour? If we’re going to fight the corporate monsters, then we need to keep that at the forefront of our minds, by offering an alternative lifestyle, by catering to what people really want, rather than the sham, consumerist and empty life that the suits offer. We've all worked hard to model resistance, and it's helped people in the co-op network preserve their independence. And now you thrust a gun into my hand? Are we monsters as well?!?!”

Tim withdrew the proferred firearm, and thought for a couple of seconds. Then he offered it again.

“This is North Storn. People try to steal your insides.”

Silence reigned.

Sara took the pistol.