NationStates Jolt Archive

Conway Airlines Flight Number 37 leaves Kurora, McKagan. One of the normal McKagan business-level jets that make infrequent runs to various states for the obvious needs the corporations who hold contracts with Conway may have; this one is unlike no other. It's making a flight into the capitol of Kahanistan - fitting the needs of several corporations. One being CSHR - one of McKagan's news giants.

CSHR had a long standing reputation as being one of the corporations that would send reporters to almost anywhere without any real regret. It also had a few rumors trailing behind its name. One being that it had been infiltrated to its very heart by the McKagan government. Most never gave those rumors any thought - but they were true. The McKagan government had secretly helped the corporation stay alive through a near-collapse. Now the corporation aided the McKagan intelligence community in getting places where the MCID couldn't.

These places included the target of Agent Christy Beem. She was posing as an editor of a CSHR investigative reporting team interested in uncovering the "rumors" surrounding the massive underground Kahanistani piping system that kept their major cities and farms supplied.

The Cute Bunny Burger Corporation was operating inside Kahanistan. The first waves of the McKagan hair-grunge subculture to infiltrate the McKagan government had created a secret list of nations "important" to McKagan culture. For some reason Kahanistan had made it onto this list. The large presense of an "anti society" there, in the form of the CBBC, had forced action on the part of the McKagan government.

Christy Beem, a short teenaged girl who some would describe as looking "emo," was the unlikely vanguard in this action.

With fairly common knowlege that that Ministry of Health's Archives were fairly open to the public. This meant that everyone could learn about the pipe network - no one would expect a surgical attack from that avenue.

All the material in mind, Agent Beem got off the plane. She'd arranged for a rental car to be left at the airport. It was midday, she'd head straight towards the archives from here.

A Kahanistanian rental car awaited at the airport. The driver, like taxi drivers throughout the world, spoke Arabic. Only in Kahanistan, Arabic was one of four official languages, and the driver also spoke English.

The driver had only taken it to the airport, and was to show Beem the car.

"You look funny," said the driver, a 50-ish man with a thick Jordanian accent and a heavy beard. "So, what brings you to Kahanistan?" He was just making small talk, and didn't expect a long conversation.

"I've got to research some things of cultural relevance for a newspaper back in McKagan."

-

Beem was soon on her way. She knew where the archives were - she just didn't know how to get there. She had a navigation system installed on her PDA, however - and the trip would be made simple.

Inside the car she fixed her hair back into a short ponytail and put her sunglasses on. In the upper right hand corner of them was a small CSHR logo. What no one would realize was the hidden camera in them. A cliche spy move that no one ever expected.

The car moved slowly through the city streets, and soon enough she arrived at the archives.

Without much time spent waiting, she looked for an entrance. Before long she'd be done with her objective.

The Health Ministry was easy to find, and there were several entrances along each side of the building. Inside were huge volumes of documents, some decades old, some only days old.

Each folder contained copies of documents in four different languages, but only the English versions of the relevant documents would likely attract the agent's interest. The building had only a few lightly armed security guards in it, and many of them were in the office lounge.

There would be little to interfere with Beem's search of the complex.

Beem walked into one of the discreet side entrances to begin her search. She had suddenly been pushed into such a large collection - it would take her a few minutes to orientate herself. The obvious idea was that she should search for the section containing engineering or infrastructure information. Such a large unit would sure have alot of material relating for it.

Beem wondered if she'd run upon a librarian-type person. She also had a certain wish that the archives were computerized. She kept her eyes open for either of the two.

Today, she thought, I am glad I decided to wear walking shoes.

As luck would have it, there were several hundred terminals all over the building complex. There were also reference desks in the area, with various staff attending them.

The engineering department was on the thirty-sixth floor, and a huge elevator system was near the northern entrance.

The computer terminals would have information relating to civil defense, biological weapons preparedness, water supplies, and general civilian infrastructure.

It took a while for the sheer size of the library to dawn on Beem. She hadn't expected it to be this large. She'd knew she'd probably spend several hours here - especially if she managed to get interested in something not part of the mission objective.

She eventually found her way to a computer terminal. After taking a moment to look around the operating system, she took out her notepad to make notes of just where things were. She looked up the information on the water supplies, civilian infrastructure, and biological filtration information and tactics. Civil defense also took priority on her list of things to locate - as she'd feel personally responsible of people died on a mission she helped recon for.

After taking notes of the floor numbers and any other location help provided by the computer system she headed off for her first target. Information regarding the huge piping system.

The terminal revealed that each major city was supplied by five or more separate pipes leading from one or both of the massive canals which irrigated Kahanistan. Najaster itself had twelve pipes leading to it. These pipes were 400 to 800 meters below ground, making them immune to all but the strongest nuclear earth-penetrating bunker busters. They snaked all over the country, as if to confuse enemy special forces who might be thinking of using them as covert entry points.

Other pipes led to military bases, most of which had only one or two pipes supplying them. Still others of the two to three hundred water pipes led to farms in the middle of the desert, the source of the artificial oases which enabled the Middle Eastern nation to construct farms. Yet more pipes apparently went nowhere, leading to the other canal, into solid rock, or in circles, possibly to confuse anyone who would try to sneak into the country through them.

At the end of the pipes were massive filters, which caught vast quantities of salt, sludge, and excrement from the various animals which defecated in the water. The filters were fine enough to block the entry of most chemical and biological weapons from the reservoirs and drinking water. Civilian water taps also had backup filters as the final line of defense, explaining why Kahanistan had such a large defense budget but had so little in military hardware to show for it.

The best way to attack a CBBC farm would be to simply enter the proper pipe, possibly from a submarine with scuba-equipped operatives, and cut through the filter at the other end. Cutting off a city's water supply would be more difficult, the cities were supplied by multiple pipes, and any one of them could supply the entire city. If by some evil miracle all the pipes were blown, they also had several months' worth of water in the reservoirs. What the Health Ministry did not disclose was the existence of alarm systems in the pipes leading to the cities, which would call in soldiers from 50 kilometers away if triggered, dooming to failure any attempt to sabotage the pipe system.

However, the farms were relatively unprotected...

Beem made note of nearly all the numbers in relation to how many pipes there were and how they were layed out to support cities and defeat intruders. It was only now she grasped the sheer size of the pipe network that the DART's would be operating in based upon her intelligence gathered in this mission.

Now she understood just why she'd been told this mission was so important. Apparently McKagan GPS systems were having trouble in tests as such deep areas.

After paying specific attention to brief talk of filters - she put her notepad away, closed the session off on the computer, and left the station: but only after looking up her next destination - cartography. She needed actual, specific maps of the objective. She knew that the MISA would never give a go to such a mission without a high degree of intelligence. Beem, being a personal supporter and member of the hair-grunge subculture, fully supported the mission. That's why she couldn't let herself get sloppy and leave something out.

After locating just where the maps were held - she walked off towards the second destination.

The cartography department was easy to find, in the Health Ministry it was fairly small and stuck out like a sore thumb. It was fairly high up, on the 75th floor, but much easier to navigate than most of the other departments.

The pipe layout was very difficult to find, it was all over the complex and would take hours to piece together. It revealed the disturbingly complex construction of the irrigation system of the nation and some history on it. The construction had started shortly after the end of the Freekish invasion, and had continued through the Pwnage bombardment, which had shaped the eventual form the network would take.

The maps together pinpointed the locations of all 276 pipes, including the 34 dead ends. However, a DART team in the field might not know which pipe they were looking into... they would look very similar in close.

The data led to the conclusion that an incursion through the pipes would be extremely difficult and dangerous.

Beem had known that the map wouldn't be on a single piece of notebook paper. She was ready to spend alot of time looking. Quality in recon was the main objective for her. She wasn't about to make a mistake.

Soon enough the girl began making rounds and gathering the various maps. Carrying the previous ones she had picked up under her arm, it was only a matter of time until she had everything and could begin making copies before heading home.

Photocopiers and computer terminals were liberally distributed throughout the complex. Anyone with plenty of time could photocopy the maps and other documents on which the relevant civil defense information was printed without raising even the slightest suspicion, they would appear to be researchers or the numerous university students who were writing reports on the network for engineering or architecture classes. The copiers did not even need coins, though they could only hold a few hundred sheets of paper at one time.

Beem has a fairly liberal plan for assembling a complete map. First she would research a specific area. After finding a map of that area, she made a copy of it. On her copy she made several numbered coordinates and its relations to each surrounding map. This made it very simple to put the map back together once she got back home.

After roughly 3 hours, Beem had completed a map (according to her stat sheet) that matched the same specs she had discovered earlier. She put the photocopies in a foldier. He mission was accomplished. Now all she had to do was get home.

She walked to the elevator and started downward. It was only a few moments until she'd be out of the archives and back on the streets.

Not an iota of suspicion was aroused by the agent carrying out the copies of documents. One of the guards saw her with a load of papers, and assumed she was a student.

"Good luck on your project."

Outside, the rental car was still there. Only time would tell what Beem would do with the data on the pipes...

Beem got in the rental car and drove off - straight back towards the airport. The corporate flight she came in on would still be there.

A few minutes later she walked onto the flight and took her seat in the rear of the first class cabin. Only a few more people came to the cabin before the plane left the nation on a return flight.

-----

One week later Beem sat in a large conference room on Larson Island, in the Bay of Kurora. Named after Captain Daniel Larson of the RMV Stryker, the Captain who had saved the crew of a Halberdgardian destroyer attacked by planes launched from Saharistan - the island now housed a McKagan Imperial Security Agency compound.

"Yes, this map is factual. Our agent gathered enough photocopied data about the numbers of pipes to verify that we have assembled this larger copy correctly," the McKagan Central Intelligence Division Lieutenant said on the large screen at the head of the table.

----

Two weeks after Christy Beem returned from her mission to Kahanistan her data was about to be put into an actual, physical action. Near each of the canals that the Kahanistani pipe network pull water from a single Sultan Class SSN sat near crush depth. The ultra-quiet submarine class had a very great sheet of accomplishments against some of the best equipped militaries of the world. It was unlikely that a military that spent most of its funding on infrastructure could defeat one of these SSN's easily.

The two submarines had both been loaded with extra technical staff to complete this mission. Several missiles had been removed on each SSN to allow for the placement of roughly a dozen Unmanned Underwater Vehicles each.

These UUV's were top of the line McKagan technologies. Made out of fiberglass - they were electically powered with an ungodly long battery life and excellent speed and manuverbility - not to mention obstacle avoidance. They'd be able to reach their targets within 24 hours. Continued communications deep within the pipes weren't a problem - as each UUV could lay down multiple beacons to help enhance the signature from their mothership.

After the launch of the UUV's - it was only a matter of time until they'd be on their targets. The special utilities they had been armed with were sitting patiently in the small compartment.

Electronic intelligence was a low priority for the Kahanistanian Navy at these depths. The pipes were defended against special forces intrusion, and nobody had considered that covert operatives would use drones.

As a result, the drones would not be detected unless they entered the pipes supplying cities and triggered alarms, or the pipes supplying military bases, which were guarded by scuba-equipped Imperial Marines and Seawolf-class hunter-killer submarines inside the pipes.

The hardest part appeared to be over...

Twelve hours into the operation, nothing of importance had happened. The intelligence gathered by Beem seemed to be up to date an accurate. She would definately be getting a promotion for such accurate work.

A few of the drones had been having manuverbility issues inside the pipes. One, controlled by a low ranking officer, had taken a turn in one of the tricky pipes a little too tight and then over-shot the exit and almost slammed into the wall on the other side. It had managed to get stopped, though, and suffered no damage minus having most of the rubber bumper on its right side worn off and some low scale heat damage to the propulsion which had to run hard in full reverse for a few moments. It would be able to continue on, though.

The time for completion had been scheduled for 48 hours - but that was only for the hardest assignments. Some farms were closer to shore than others and would be attacked much sooner.

One of the drones had a quick drip and as nearing its destination. As it entered the final stretch to its target (the filter,) it started to slow drastically. It finally came to a stop in almost the perfect center of the filter.

Then the shape of the drone started to change. A long arm opened up and push straight forward into the filter. The end of the arm opened and allowed a short pole to slide forth. At the end of the pole was a syringe. Suddenly the arm pushed forward again. The syringe slid through the filter.

Over the next hour, nearly six liters of the RTN-89c would be injected into the water supply - past the filter. RTN-89c was a new virus in the McKagan Imperial Security Agency's arsonel. It was 70% harder to track than mad cow disease and virtually impossible to kill off. That was for a reason. The virus wasn't designed to kill. It helped MISA fit into the new Economic Warfare Doctrine that the McKagan Senate had passed.

Spreading and reproducing once it contacted water - the virus would be much larger once it made it to the farm. No symptoms were visable til after a target had been infected for roughly 15 days. In this amount of time the invisable virus built itself up inside the animal. Once the animal was killed the virus could (and would) continue to thrive for a long period of time, only losing its ability to remain invisable in its next form. This meant that the virus would still be near to impossible to detect while in the meat - but once someone ATE the meat, it would be much more visable after a shorter time.

The mortality rate wasn't that bad. Most of the time it simply brought on terrible cramps, headaches, and vomiting for several days and then passed. It WAS possible for someone to die from it: but unlikely it would inflict that sort of damage upon a huge number of people.

One first injection was complete. Only 134 to go.

Two days later

Former Mystery Max President Max Granwell picked up a newspaper. He had left the mental hospital after recovering from his depression, and was now furious with the board for selling him out. He looked over the front page.

---

Najaster, Kahanistan (AP) - A mysterious illness has struck several thousand Kahanistanians who ate at CBBC outlets in the country. 21 have died so far and 77 are currently being treated in area ICU wards in critical condition.

The Ministry of Health is cooperating with CBBC to identify the source of the illness. The Health Minister has ruled out contamination by employees defecating in the meat, which earlier sickened over 650 customers.

"The symptoms of the illness do not match those of fecal-borne pathogens," said Dr. Mohammed Kareem al-Qadala, the Minister of Health. "We are currently investigating the possibility that the animals themselves may be infected with a pathogen."

The recent events are likely to further harm the prospects of CBBC in Kahanistan.

Michelle Norris,
Kahanistan People's Choice

Only a few days after the operation had completed, the two MTDF submarines had left the theatre and were on their way back to friendly port in Saharistan. The mission had been accomplished. Chances that the CBBC would survive in Kahanistan were now almost completely gone. The only thing left to do was wait and hope that the Kahanistani population decides for themselves that eating at CBBC outlets is too dangerous.

Who would guard a dumpster, especially a dumpster filled with possibly dangerous food? That was the gangster's reasons as they dived through CBBC dumpsters in search of meat, perhaps the ones contaminated, hopefully they'll get a viable pathogen, the Red Mafia was always on the lookout for a good score.

The Sensible Economist, Page 12

Malicious Meals from CBBC? I think not.

Editor's Note: This is an op-ed piece and in no way reflects the beliefs or ideals of The Sensible Economist.

With a rash of food poisoning episodes and a recent epidemic of a new seemingly non coliform disease in Kahanistan, how viable can the Cute Bunny Burger Corporation's resturants be?

Already many have closed, including 2 in Leafanistan over food poisoning scares and lack of customers. While the CBBC has reassured consumers that these are isolated incidents the sheer number of them and consistency of its episodes seems almost intelligently planned.

While this phrasing seems to lend value to creationism, we believe somebody besides God is up to something. In our neighbor McKagan the unusually strong youth grunge movement killed dozens as it drove out CBBC, but could this be part of a larger operation by youth terrorists? I believe not, the lack of government interference in a simple youth movement, and seemingly government support for the terrorist youth make it plasuable that a government is involved.

The CBBC has come under fire for its seemingly monopolistic practices and its militarism including rumours of black market gun deals to arm guards and employees in foreign countries. Perhaps those unsympathetic to this corporation are unleashing something deadly upon those who feast at its resturants.

Many including the author find that this idea is absolutely ludicrous but entirely plausably considering the strength of some of the operations against CBBC. It is the opinion of this author that the epidemic of food poisoning outbreaks from CBBC resturants and lack of concurrent outbreaks at similar establishments means a direct attack against them. But is it worth it to slaughter innocents trying to get a cheap meal, perhaps a Joe Dawson just trying to get his kids to shut up, Lixin Wo a bum with nothing else to eat, or just Jenny Ledwidge from down the lane spending her allowance. How can anyone be deluded enough to believe that the death of these people is worth it, just to put a dent in someone's fiscal dreams? I lay awake at night hoping, dreaming that what I believe is wrong, but based on the evidence, I may just be right. Only the large resources of a government are capable of launching such an epidemic. So Biological Warfare against those who want a Cute Bunny Burger?

Have we left the age of reason and descended into insanity, similar to that of the Red Brigade which slaughtered thousands for their ideals, or the Global Jihad movement which murdered millions in the end for their 'God', but this time sponsored by 'righteous' governments. Those with violent anti-CBBC rethoric are just as evil as the Red Brigade, just as evil as Global Jihad, and are just serial killers, but this time with well spoken words and a fancy suit.

I probably won't be the last to accuse McKagan and other governments like theirs of complacency and possibly direct actions against CBBC via terrorist attacks on the populace. If I die an unnatural death, assume they have gotten me, perhaps my death will not be in vain. If you'll excuse me, I must purchase a rather large insurance policy.

By: Alice Gunther, owner and proprietor of a Cute Bunny Burger Corporation Franchise in Konica City.

McKagan Government Fights Media Paranoia

[CSHR, Kurora] -- With the recent outbreak of an unidentified virus in Kahanistan driving up paranoia about the safety of meat and fast food in general, one must ask themself why McKagan gets blame for every incident surrounding the CBBC. It has became apparent that there is a vast international conspiracy to not only hide the health risks of cheap industrial meat, but to assault the credit of the McKagan government. To be a nation which has brought freedom and economic upturn to at least half-a-dozen nations and helped even more deal with terrorists: McKagan sure seems to have alot of enemies. Perhaps there's a level of jealousy that the McKagan government has held itself together without a civl war or wide scale social panic for the existance of the nation? Perhaps yet another Christian conspiracy against the blatantly antheist McKagan government is in swing again?

Recently we were given unhindered access to several McKagan Government Officials who we spent a total of 18 hours in interviews with.

The comments we recieved at the McKagan Imperial State Department were more official and low-key than we would have liked, but still within the scale of what we expected. "May the Democratic Imperium of McKagan be the first nation to offer condolences to the nation of Kahanistan for whatever has been going on there. Right now we cannot comment directly to Kahanistan to any great extent simply because that government hasn't released many details as to the details of the investigation."

When we questioned them about their reaction to the harsh, uncalled for, and blatantly unresearched comments directed at this nation from Leafanistan: they remained low-key. "We don't know how the crack reporters out of Leafanistan can come to such conclusions about McKagan. Right now there hasn't even been enough details released to determine just what the infection circulating through the food supply is."


After some conversation and more in depth reporting at the State Department, we walked across the street to the McKagan Tactical Defense Force's headquarters.

"Let me get this straight... McKagan is killing people because we don't like their food? This is fucking retarded. Those damn CBBC people have such ego's. They can't accept the fact that someone might not like their food. There's also signs of unrest within their own structure. I know that the MTDF has a great reputation and success record, but I don't know if we could carry out an attack that large without either inside help or someone finding out."

After a few minutes of looking at the pistols in the Generals collection, we moved on to his opinion of where the agent could have came from if it wasn't a naturally occuring substance.

"Well, I don't really know. I'm not making speculation because the Kahanistani government hasn't released details, but I know that there's plenty of biological agents and people willing to deploy them on the market. There's millions of nations in the world today. Many of them aren't as singular and organized as McKagan. There's also plenty of states out there that were once superpowers, like Leafanistan for example, who collapsed due to corruption. It's a known fact in military circles that Leafanistan once had a huge surplus of biological and chemical weapons. They also have an overactive Mafia that the government neglects to deal against. It would take very little to lift a good surplus out of there. And not just Leafanistan. There's plenty of nations out there like this."

At this point we were enjoying chatting with the 2 Star General, but we needed to get across town to meet with several agents who claimed to have information on the disappearance of a pork shipment off the coast of McKagan last week. We had time for one last question. We decided to make it a good one.

"What do you think about allgations McKagan was part of this from a place like LEAFANISTAN?"

"I find it more than hilarious that someone can link McKagan to this. We've had a full... what, 2 sentences from the Kahanistani government? They're filling in so much information to try and hit it big and get some coverage that they just look unprofessional in the first place. It's nothing more than a corporate scheme, really. I heard that the State Department had put out a memo that we're not supposed to talk about foreign media very much. I don't really care. It's laughable and I won't take it that serious. Tell them they can ask for economic assistance if they really need it. McKagan has a history of helping Leafanistan."

[OOC: Leafanistan, let's do the media war/stuff on the other thread, Kahanistan, if I wanted to have McKagan offer to send investigators, which thread would you want me to do it in?]

This thread will be fine. BTW, is there a link to this thread from the main CBBC thread? I'm subscribed to both, but I like to minimize the number of subscriptions.

This thread will be fine. BTW, is there a link to this thread from the main CBBC thread? I'm subscribed to both, but I like to minimize the number of subscriptions.

[I don't think so. Feel free to do it if you want, though.]