NationStates Jolt Archive

[OOC: This thread contains spoilers for the recently-added issue #222. More OOC information will come at the end of the post.]

"or else there will be more-"

Felix Wainwright paused the VCR to answer a knock at the door. A member of Parliament entered, tucking a folder under her arm. She extended her other hand. "Ellen Whaley."

He nodded, shaking it. "I think we've met. Come on in."

She did, flicking on a lightswitch. "How can you see in here?"

"Well enough."

Wainwright paced to the far side of his office-it had no windows. "Is it bad?"

Whaley helped herself to a chair. "Yeah."

"Worldwide?"

"Plutoni if it's in the "world", but the way things are going out there it's hard to tell."

"Didn't they just join the WA? A little more stability?"

"Terrorism's apparently an appropriate tactic out there nowadays, freedom of expression and that."

"I see." Wainwright took off his gold-rimmed glasses and idly spun them between his fingers. He projected an air of total unconcern-one that couldn't be farther from the truth. As Whaley flipped through her folder, the phone rang on his desk, and he grabbed it. "Hello?

No, no hablo español.

I'm very sorry to hear that.

Oh. All right. Thanks for informing me.

No, I'm being briefed right now.

Thank you, yes." He hung up. "Fifty-five casualties so far in Ciudad Peralta. The Aguazul army is mobilizing right now."

"I got the briefings you asked me for-looks like another repressed indigenous group."

"Let me guess-moderate refugees here condemning the attacks?"

"Yep."

He strode back to the edge of the room. "What about the occupants?"

"Of what?"

"Tasman-whatever."

"That's a word from their indigenous language, I think-it's called something else now."

"An ally of Zwangzug? I didn't know it had any."

"I haven't gotten all the details yet."

"And what do they mean, support the occupation? If we were giving military aid to the invaders the natives would benefit."

"Mm, speaking of which, this came in, it's a petition from the recruits."

"We have an army?" Wainwright raised his eyebrows, mildly amused, as he flicked the paper into the recycling bin.

"Apparently."

"Well then. Any violence in wherever it is?"

"Time dilation and all, the news is still coming in."

He nodded gravely. "Keep me posted. I don't think any of them are really willing to discuss things peacefully, but...we have to hope."

[OOC: Basically, this is a thread for reactions to the terrorist attacks that are probably happening worldwide, whether just in your own nation or RPed with others. I tried to leave enough room for other people to add information, but feel free to contradict me: the multiverse is a big place.

Have fun!]

"Ms. Whaley?" said a considerably collected voice on the member of Parliament's telephone. "I would like to ask you which of two possibilities you, personally, consider more probable."

"Fire away," she cynically replied.

"The first is that that there has been another terrorist car bomb, several more deaths, many more injuries, and another saliva-ridden demand."

"The-"

"The second is that the space-time continuum has rather cruelly sent me several weeks backwards-I believe there is a popular injunction to engage in such violations of the laws of physics for a second time?"

"They're Lilliputians, Wainwright."

"Come again?"

"Lilliputians this time around. If we were time-traveling it would have still been Tasmanians."

"Ah. Thank you."

Wainwright rose from his chair in the hospital waiting room. He hadn't been exactly sure why he'd come, but apparently it was good for the national morale.

What nation? he asked himself, not for the first time.

Impulsively, he climbed a flight of stairs to another ward, knocking on a door. "May I come in?" he asked the nurse that greeted him.

It took her a moment to recognize him. "Oh! Yes."

He wandered between the incubators. One placard caught his eye: the baby had been born on the day of the first bombing. She had come early, not due until that day.

Louise Arkady, he read.

His predecessors had striven for the same things he worked for: "posterity". What did that mean? All the bureaucracy, all for this child they'd never meet, who shared nothing but the accident of location? Surely not so she could feel proud of them?

No, they had a far more powerful motivation. So she could avoid shame.

I hope I'm doing this right.