NationStates Jolt Archive

Port Likiev had stood since the dawn of the century as the principle seaport for the Alberian province, standing as the largest city and maritime center on the northern coast of Generia. The city had existed since the time when the Alberian peoples were masters of the continent, far before other interlopers had forced them to their current homelands on and around the vast stretch of arctic wasteland, known far and wide as the Alberian steppe, a hazardous place that many thought to be as deadly as a long infected wound. In modern times, the port served the Generian Crown as the Alberian provincial Aorta, and from it was exercised the might of the Imperial crown over the locals.

The locals, as any of them would tell you, were Alberian. They were Generians in the sense that they were the subjects of the Emperor and dwelt within the borders of the Empire, but ethnically, and culturally, they were a distinct and separate people. They shared particular features, particular dress in their communities, and particular customs. They, like the African Americans of the United States, were also responsible for the great majority of cultural innovation within the greater “Generian” culture. Though no self-respecting ethnic Generian would ever admit to it, the fashion of the past century and a half had more or less been dictated by the Alberian people, and without their innovations artistically, specifically musically, jazz, blues, and rock and roll, as Generia knew it, would not exist.

They were a persecuted people, and had been since the moment the first boatloads of the warlike, seafaring barbarians had landed on the banks of the Inkanan channel, and began spreading across the continent. As The Generic Empire developed into the bureaucratic monarchy it would be known as until its death, the persecution of the Alberians became more organized, to the point of the creation of a special department during the Generian Medieval period dedicated to the cleansing of the Alberian ethnicity. To the Generians, who in examination will surely stand as the only traditionally warlike and bloodthirsty people on the CAD continent, the Alberians were worthless and inferior.

Of course, they stole as much from them as they could get their hands on, usurping the very bureaucratic system and social organizational principles which eventually defined the Generic Empire in addition to cultural and artistic aspects, but still, many would define these innovations as destined to be inherited by the ethnically pure, as it was.

So it was that in the first decade of the new century, and with the last of the Kreschnev dynasty, the final three genocides which would be called the “Alberian Wars” were waged around the region of the inhospitable Alberian steppe, and the spine of the proud Alberian people was broken. It was not the end of the people themselves, but with the last conflict, and the destruction of the great Alberian stronghold of Forit Iev, the rebellious fire that had spurred the province to reject its absorption from the beginning seemed to simmer and be extinguished for good.

From this point, some of the survivors of the great holocaust chose to spread out into the Empire which had killed their creed and their ancestors, and which had since declared them its subjects. The majority, however, retained their places in the lands around the steppe which had been called the “Alberian Lands,” and which would come to be known as the province of Alberia.

They continued as they had for years, though under the yoke of the Generian bureaucracy, which slowly loosened over time, allowing the culture a degree of breathing room and which permitted the third and fourth generations since the last war to grow up almost completely unmolested by Imperial autocracy. Many young Alberians chose to join the armed forces, as they were by any standard one of the most egalitarian bodies in the known world, permitting the possibility for meritocratic advancement to any who chose to brave the hardships of basic training, and who surrendered their youth to the Emperor and his generals. There was still a great deal of tension and prejudice, especially outside of the Alberian province itself, but as the Buchianan provincial wars turned the target of racism to the Buchianan people, there was peace in the northern reaches of the Empire.

However, it has been said that history repeats itself, and when it comes down to the end, everything ends where it began.

Port Likiev was, on this day, as it had always been: bustling with activity. Ships rested at anchor in the harbor, shops were packed by men and women in bearskin coats trying to both stay warm in the below freezing temperatures, and spend their hard earned money on every necessity and singular oddity humanity could offer. Armed military police huddled around the exhaust pipes of their armored vans, smoking, talking, and not paying much attention to anything while tread-truck caravans of nomads from the steppe moved in and out, down and up the major thoroughfares.

It was Saturday, and it was snowing.


Ivan Alijev stood huddled against a brick wall, over a manhole cover from which warm steam poured fourth. He rubbed his gloved hands together, and pulled his long coat tighter around him. Across the street, a butcher eyed him warily, the same one who had kicked him out for loitering in his shop a few minutes before.

“Ivan!”

He looked up to see a familiar face: the green eyed complexion of an old friend, Alek Alberovic. He cracked a chapped smile and moved over to embrace the newcomer.

“It’s been too long, Ivan.”

Ivan nodded, too cold to form a coherent sentence. Alek backed away, and threw up his arms.

“What are you doing out here in this kind of weather?”

Ivan nodded in the direction of the butcher, who sneered as he met his gaze.

“Him?” Alek said as he gestured over his shoulder.

“Come on, we’ll show that ****.”

Alek took off with a determined stride, as Ivan followed him, a little reluctant but too cold to voice any of his germinating sentiments.

They walked into the shop, and the butcher promptly barreled around the meat counter, extending an arm and speaking with a thick, possibly Freudian, accent.

“I already told your friend. You can’t wait in here. You either buy something or get out!”

Ivan looked over at Alek and motioned to the door. Alek offered a half smirk and turned to the shopkeeper.

“Nonsense, good man. We’re here on business.”

The shopkeeper was wary, but backed off a little.

“What do you want to buy?”

“Well, what’s fresh today?”

The butcher went back around the counter, and slid open the door to the case.

“We got Steppe elk, just brought in by some nomad hunters a few hours ago, in a good selection of chop and slice. We got Alberian bearmeat, in steak.”

Alek appeared interested, his gloved hand over his mouth as he nodded intently.

“Let’s have a look at the bearmeat.”

The butcher sighed impatiently and took out a smallish steak which he placed on the countertop. As soon as he did so, Alek’s hand shot away from his chin and grasped the butcher’s arm, pulling it out across the countertop. The shopkeeper, who was himself a rather large man, fought against it, a look of shock on his features, but could not free himself.

“On second though, I’m not in the mood for steak. Do you sell it sliced, deli style?”

“Wha-?”

“Do you slice it? Slice it real thin? And roast it and put it on a grilled bun like they do down the road at that little Jewish deli?”
The shopkeeper’s eyes were wider now, if it was even possible.

“N-n-no. We don’t do that hear.”

In a single, lightning quick motion alek produced a straight razor from his coat pocket and brought it over one of the butcher’s blood-stained, latex gloved hands.

“Then maybe I’ll just slice off one of your fingers, myself. What do you think Ivan?”

Alek’s eyes went back to Ivan, who was nervously looking around. A few spectators had already gathered in the road.

“Come on, Alek. Let’s go.”

“Nonsense. This guy hasn’t given me what I came in hear for.”

The crowd was growing larger by the second, and had caught the attention of a pair of armed, black clad police officers, who began making their way across the street.

The butcher was still trembling.

“Please, please! You can have whatever you want! Everything in my shop! 20% off!”

Alek pressed the razor against the man’s index finger. The officers had nearly reached the door.

“Free! Free! Everything free!”

--------

Police Sergeant Mikhail Gorudachev violently pushed in the door, hands on the semi-auto in his belt holster.

“What’s going on here?” asked his partner, a large brown haired man, previously from the city of Sofia who had such an authoritative air that it was often joked he could turn a pimp into a priest with a single look.

There were three men in the butcher’s shop, two toughs clad in long fur coats, the third the shopkeeper. One of the men in the coats looked apprehensive, and the shopkeeper was flat out shaking, but the taller of the two jacketed men was as cold as the ice outside.

“Nothing, officer. My cousin and I were just picking up a little something for tonight. Dinner party, you know?”

Gorudachev kept his hand on the pistol as the man reached into his coat and produced a small, white paper package, blood dripping from the corners.

“Open it up.”

The man put it on the counter and slowly undid the string tie, revealing a fine cut of Alberian deermeat. Keeping his gaze on the two, Gorudachev’s companion nodded slowly.

“Alright, get out of here then, if you’re done.”

The man refolded his package, and the two left the shop, one of the two offering a nod to Gorudachev. The officers turned to go, leaving a silent, shaking shopkeeper. Gorudachev thought he caught a glimpse of a fingertip poking out of the man’s coat pocket at an awkward angle, but he dismissed it.

“Every day it’s somethin’ round here,” his companion muttered. “Fucking reds can’t kept even the smallest amount of shit straight, even on their own fucking turf.”

Gorudachev was silent, burying his mouth and nose in his police-issue coat to keep warm.

“I mean, don’t you agree? You’ve been working this beat for 4 years. All you ever see is pimps, gangsters, bums, and the fucking nomads stealing from each other and bumping each other off. Load of fucking barbarians if you ask me.”

Nobody asked you, you pretentious ****.

“What? You say something?”

“No.”

“Well, you agree don’t you? You’ve gotta agree. You’re from Generia City. You see how those fuckers behave, even outside their own province. Greedy, scummy bastards, the lot of ‘em.”

Gorudachev reached into his coat pocket and produced a cigarette.

--------------

“That was close, Alek.”

“Not even. Trust me. I’ve been fucking the cops ever since I could talk and walk a straight line. Those two were bums. I mean, they’re all bums, but those two were the cream of the bum crop. Regular grade A fuck-ups.”

Ivan permitted himself a laugh as the two stepped down into the warmth of the subway station.

“But seriously, how’ve you been getting on cousin? It’s not like I’ve seen you in a year. What’re you doing for money?”

Ivan blew into his hands and brushed the ice from his hair.

“I’m keeping a couple of jobs. Been working as a delivery driver for some army guys down at the post, and at night I’m keeping a shift at a warehouse by the water.”

Alek scoffed.

“Jesus, Ivan. You went to fucking school and you’re working a fucking night shift for some army fuckers?”

“That’s all the work there is these days. A diploma doesn’t mean shit in this city. All the guys from Sofia are coming in and taking the company jobs, and they’ve all got corporate degrees and government scholarships from the Alexians.”

“The A-holes, you mean. Fucking Imperial bastards keeping good red boys out of a job. You know something? You’re smart Ivan. You’re lucky like that, getting born smart and all. You know that? You deserve better than that minimum wage shaft they’re giving you.”

Alek paused to light a cigarette, and continued as he took the first puff.

“There’s nothing I can do,” said Ivan.

Alek took a long drag and continued.

“Listen, I won’t leave my brother out in the cold. I can help you out. I know this guy. Actually, I work with him. He’s been keeping me from starving for a few years. I’ll fix you up.”

Ivan looked wary.

“What’s the work?”

“You’ll see. I’ll take you to see him. Tomorrow, we’ll go see him. It’s a sweet cut. For a cousin of mine, it’s a real sweet cut. But come on, the meat’s gonna get frozen.”

“It’s already frozen,” Ivan said, cracking a smile.

“Yeah, well. More frozen than it is already, you little punk. You know what I meant.”

The two laughed and walked off.

http://usera.imagecave.com/mobrule132001/GINNLogoImproved.bmp.jpg

Presents: News On The Hour

“Good evening, fellow citizens of the Empire. Casualty reports are still coming in from this afternoon’s bombing of the Orev Hotel in the city of Likiev, as emergency personnel struggle to put out the raging flames that have consumed 3 blocks of the middle class South Kreschnev residential district due to what authorities are claiming to be a series of gas lines severed by the blast. The district itself has been cordoned off since shortly after the blast as police struggle to control the flow of curious onlooker-

“Police! Get on the fucking floor!”

The anchorman’s voice was drowned out as the door exploded inward as a team of five black clad officers of the special police initiative poured into the grimy apartment. The sounds of footsteps above and below were thunderously audible. A group of three women and a young man threw themselves, or were thrown onto the dusty floor, placing their hands behind their heads. The youngest of the three women began sobbing.

“Shut that bitch up!”

One of the officers broke out a truncheon and smashed it into the small of the woman’s back, she shrieked, but fell silent at the threat of another blow. A sixth officer appeared in the door and spoke rapidly in Generian.

“Search the apartment, but we’re out of room in the vans, so if you find anything suspicious, kill them.”

“Yes, sir.”

The officers tore through the small room, going through cupboards, trunks, the oven. One of them, a sergeant, paused and looked through the window at the street below. Sirens were flashing and the long slow wail of the alarm sounded throughout the district. Contrary to what the news report had said, the South Kreschnev residential district was far from “middle class,” dominated by old, communist era tenements and slum housing. The Orev hotel, however, had been the gleaming jewel above it all, guarded night and day by special police forces and frequented often by government bureaucrats and Sofian rock stars alike. Now, it was a patch of rabid smoke and flame a dozen blocks off, clearly visible over a low section of shoddy duplex hous-

The sergeant’s sight suddenly went white, and he found himself falling to the floor as the sound of a manic crash reverberated in the chambers of his head. Somewhere far off he heard shouting, and gunshots.

”The bastard shot the sergeant! Kill him!”

“He’s already dead.”

“What do we do? Sergeant! Sergeant Kirkev!”[/I]

He blinked and moved his leaden hand to the small of his back, touching blood that matted his uniform.

“Hang in there, sergeant. Get someone up here!”

The lights pounded against his eyes and his ears rang out a cacophonous 4 movement symphony. The women were screaming. He saw the man standing above him for the first time, just in time to catch him turn and draw a pistol. He fired what sounded like 2 times, but what could just as easily have been 30, and there was silence. He couldn’t tell if the world had stopped or if it was just his heart.

-------------

“What the fuck do we do!? What the fuck did you do!”

“It was just a fucking pipe bomb! I don’t fucking know, it’s not supposed to fucking do that!”

The tires screeched as the beat up GM-81 sedan swung around a corner. Ivan Alijev hung on for dear life as his brother swung the wheel, barely keeping the car on the road.

“Do you fucking see that?!”

He turned back, watching the flames sweep up the side of the Orev Hotel, which seemed even more beautiful alight, but which he knew was in the middle of its death throes.

“I- it must have been a gas leak or something!”

Alek was sweating, shaking, pale as a ghost.

“Where the fuck are we gonna go!?”

Alek frantically scanned the road ahead.

“Here,” he said as he violently swung the car into a wide alley, screeching to a halt behind a squat brick building. He got out, and Ivan followed suit.

“My apartment’s a few blocks from here,” Alek said, pacing in a circle, almost dazedly.

“What are we supposed to do?”

“How the fuck should I know!”

“You’re the one who fucking got us into this! You and you’re boss.”

“He’s not my fucking boss! We’re partners.”

“You’re motherfucking terrorists!”

Alek grabbed Ivan around the jacket collar and then, a look of shock at his own action, released him and stepped back.

“It was just a pipe bomb. We were just supposed to scare those corporate fuckers on the third floor. There was a board meeting, it was- It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”

He turned back on Ivan, eyes wild like an accused man.

“It was an accident!”

Ivan approached his cousin slowly, reached out his hand to put it on his shoulder, but it was batted away. He spoke calmly.

“The whole building’s up in smoke, Alek. Accident or not, that’s bad. Listen, I know you don’t want to tell me, but you and that guy are both on the rap sheets. You’ve got revolutionary ties. Whether you like it or not. I heard what that guy said, Alek, about Ismeria, running guns for the BLA. I’m not an idiot.”

Alek inhaled heavily.

“Yeah, it’s true. Look, I didn’t mean for it to end up like this. It was just an excuse to get you paid. You weren’t supposed to be a part of this. I’m sorry for that.”

Alek’s face went white again, as if he was realizing something for the first time.

“Yuri’s dead. Jesus Christ. They shot him.”

Ivan looked over his shoulder.

“Listen, we can’t stay here. My apartment’s a few blocks away. We’ll get my car and some supplies and take off. My bet is this city’ll be locked down in less than a half hour, so we gotta scram.”

“Where the fuck are we gonna go?”

“Where’s the last place they’ll look for a couple of guys who just blew up a building?”

(Work in progress)

"Fuckin' hell man, them Red bastards shot Kirkev? My great-granddaddy didn't burn down their tents f'r nothin'."

Captain Nikos Tjushyov calmly rubbed his hands together. He wasn't about to let this become a massacre.

"Take it easy Lieutenant, Kirkev's gonna be fine."

"Take it easy? Fuck that Captain, Kirkev's one of my best. And some punk puts a cap in him. I'm gonna fuckin' kill all them Reds."

"Lieutenant Rodesky, calm down. That's a direct order."

The police station was warm and fluorescent lit with squeaky linoleum floors. In a cheap way, it was a cozy building, a welcome reprieve from the frigid outside. Not many could stay outside. Port Likiev was so far above the Arctic Circle that your piss would freeze midstream. It never got above freezing, even in July.

"Coffee, Lieutenant?" Tjushyov held up a stainless steel thermos and two mugs.

"Thanks Captain."

The coffee was cheap as the police station. Probably a Zarbian brew. Its bitter warmth comforted Lieutenant Rodesky as it flowed down his throat.

"We found this in the apartment."

Lieutenant Rodesky pulled out a ziplocked evidence bag from under his coat. In it was a handgun.

Captain Tjushyov blinked in surprise.

"That's some serious fuckin' steel Lieutenant. How the hell they get their hands on an L-23?"

"Don't know Captain. It's not even a Doomie knockoff either. What we got here is a match grade fuckin' piece, straight from MP. Probably costs a couple grand."

"More than a month's wages for your average cargo hauler. Where they gettin' the cash?"

"No fuckin' idea. Could be a status symbol." Lieutenant Rodesky shrugged.

"Find out, you're in charge of the investigation now."

"What about the piece?"

"Keep it Lieutenant, it's yours."

"Yes sir."

Lieutenant Rodesky picked himself out of the chair and walked out of the room.

His cellphone went off in the hallway.

"Rodesky--Yeah, I'll be right down."

The holding cells were far less comfortable than the police station above it. With their bare concrete floors, poor drainage, and even worse ventilation, they took the blue ribbon in imperfectly maintained, yet rugged utilitarianism. Behind a rusty door were the savage grunts of physical exertion.

Tied to a chair was Christoph Markev. He wasn't in good shape. His eyes were swollen shut, and there were shallow cuts all over his face and shaven head. His lower lip was split open. Blood and saliva slowly dribbled down the front of his torn silk shirt and pooled in his lap.

"Lieutenant, this piece of shit's been supplying weapons to the Alberians."

Port Belgrade, Generia, 2 Weeks Earlier

He stepped off of the café terrace, onto the long avenue that ran parallel to the vast harbor. It was late October, but the past few days had had the feel of an Indian Summer. This morning had brought back the familiar biting scent of the approaching Generian winter, however, and even as the sun shed its late afternoon rays, a stiff breeze smacking of salt water and snowstorms blew over the anchored vessels in the harbor.

He slipped each hand into a fur lined leather glove, buttoning the front of a light overcoat to keep out the chill as he joined the crowds marching along the harbor side street. A pair of expensive imported Pwnage designer shades kept the bright sun from brown eyes, and his eyes from those of the passers-by as he studied them, instantly memorizing the details of each new face that whipped past him like the stiffening breeze.

His walk was an even, casual gait as he reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a small cigarette case, placing one of the Freudian-rolled filtered smokes between his lips. His eyes did not stop darting back and forth behind the glasses as he raised a stainless steel lighter to the tip of the cigarette and took a deep draw. Exhaling, he slowed, coming to a halt in front of a bus stop sign. Almost immediately, one of the long, gray, soiled public transport buses pulled up, and he stepped on board, filing to the back. He took a seat beside an elderly man, obviously homeless, who sat with his head on his chest, snoring loudly.

The brakes squealed a few minutes later, and the homeless man slowly opened his eyes, shot the new passenger an agitated look, scuttled to his feet, and shuffled off down the aisle towards the front of the bus. The newcomer looked down at the newly emptied seat, noticing a small, ragged scarf. He picked it up, and as the bus came to a half a few blocks later, got to his feet and moved up to the front.

“You forgot this.”

The homeless man grunted and took the scarf, not looking at the man who offered it to him. The man shrugged, and stepped off of the bus, onto the street, in front of a series of low brick town-homes. He slipped his hand into his pocket as he approached the front door of one of the homes, letting his fingers brush against the small, flat plastic object that had been taped to the underside of the scarf. Removing his hand, along with a house key, he unlocked his front door and entered the home.

He flipped on a light, illuminating a small, though comfortably furnished living room, and proceeded towards a desk where a notebook computer sat. Removing the small plastic object, he plugged it into the USB port and had a seat.

A series of close to a dozen photographs of 4 particular individuals made up the majority of the drive’s contents. There was also a short text file.

Ilek – compiled this last night. Apologies for not being able to deliver it to you in a more secure fashion, but they’re monitoring everything we send and receive, and if we were to meet in person, the confidentiality of our business might be compromised.

GIIS is still not 100% on getting an outsider involved (even if you did take a paycheck from them for years) but the bureaucrats in the Agency would live out their pensions debating things if there weren’t still a few of us committed to actually getting the job done. Remember, though, that you aren’t working for us. This is a private job for all intents and purposes, and so therefore, it’s best that it doesn’t look like a job at all. If something goes wrong, it’s my neck as well as yours.

I know you’ve read the other files I’ve sent to you, but here are a couple of notes on the targets themselves:

Adan Alejandro –

Ismerian. He used to run a shipping company out of Phantasmo, but that got closed down once the Freudian authorities figured out he was using it as a cover to run armaments to the Ismerian revolutionaries during the second war. Managed to avoid arrest by fleeing over the Borman border, and eventually made his way into Generia. Operated an underground weapons supplier in Sofia before moving to Alberia. Last anyone knew, he’d bought a few cargo freighters under false names and was importing expensive foreign guns via PL.

Christoph Markev –

A Borman-Alberian mutt. Interesting tidbit: father was the Borman Emperor Bhalk’s personal monkey trainer. Married the daughter of an Alberian bishop. He’s been a big figure in the Port Belgrade underworld for years, and rumor has it he’s responsible for getting 30% of the Southside street gangs’ weapons into their hands. He’s a good businessman, but doesn’t have the world’s best discretion, and is a little short on common sense in some cases.

Apolinary Byzic –

He’s a local boy. Grew up outside of Sofia. He’s the son of the late CEO of L-B Importers Ltd., and when the old man died, he inherited all of daddy’s money. Hasn’t worked a day in his life, but he’s a prominent investor. The guy’s made more money than Midas, and is always looking for new enterprises. Recently he’s taken to playing shadow politics, and I guess he thinks revolution might be a good business venture. No wonder they want him in on this.

“Andrzej” –

The one and only. If you read the rap sheets when you were still at the Agency, you know that the northern syndicate bosses have been calling themselves “Andrzej for years. Like every other one before, this one’s a ghost. There’s nothing on his real identity, where he comes from, past jobs, or what he’s trying to do. All we know is that he’s pulling together one of the weirdest assortments of crooks and underworld shoguns we’ve ever seen. That, and we know he’s going to be at this meeting. This may be the only chance we’ve got to get him, and right now it’s more important to cut him off early than to find out who he is, so make sure he goes down with the others.



Every name on this list we’ve confirmed is going to be at the meeting two weeks from now, at 4PM, in the conference room on the fifth floor of the Orev Hotel. Be there, and make sure that none of them walk away from the table.

You’re the best this department ever had, and if anyone can handle this, it’s you. Don’t screw up.

-Dorota

He furrowed his brow as he scanned the document, and finally sure that he was satisfied, closed the computer. Sitting back in his chair, he closed his eyes.

tag

2 hours prior to the bombing

Governor Ante Diesovic was a businessman. If something was profitable, then it was to be exploited. He had found himself very fortunate to have been appointed the governor of the Alberian province shortly after the final war, and now, in his late 60’s, he was a wealthy man for it. He had invented the practice of introducing a lower form of the corporate education that was instituted throughout Generia into Alberia, this for the purpose of training a purely labor-based workforce, and in turn placing the brightest Generian minds over these workers as industry chieftains and government bureaucrats. It was a stroke of genius in his eye, that had allowed him to quickly siphon profit from the resource rich region, home to 86% of the Generian oil reserves, and massive mineral deposits that fueled the Imperial economy. To his mind, there was only one thing he had to do to stay on top: keep the Alberians in the dark.

Today, he basked in his wealth, sitting idly in a large Jacuzzi, a fine hand-rolled Buchianan cigar in his hand, overlooking the grandeur of Lewskov, the provincial capital, from the deck of his gubernatorial palace that sat on the side of a small mountain. He had used his personal gains to finance this grand manor, finding that the old governor’s mansion, in the center of the city below, was far too much in the midst of the common Alberian people. Not wanting to “get his hands dirty”, as he put it himself, he had chosen to remove himself and a great deal of the provincial government to this location on the city’s outskirts. Filling his cellars with imported wine, his humidor with fine cigars, and his bed with underage Alberians of both sexes, he slowly drained the province coffers while living like a king.

As he sipped the cigar, the breeze carried the smoke to mingle with the frosty breath of several armed guards who stood nearby. One of the heavy wooden doors that led to the terrace opened and a well dressed attendant walked briskly out into the cold air. Governor Diesovic adopted an air of annoyance as the attendant stopped at the edge of the Jacuzzi and offered a deep bow.

“What is it?”

“Your lordship, there is a man here to see you.”

Diesovic inhaled the hot vapor and spoke with a sigh.

“Tell him I have no appointments today, and to come back after he schedules one.”

The attendant shifted nervously.

“Erm, your lordship, I think you had best see him. He looks important..”

Diesovic nearly jumped out of the water, eyes alight with rage.

“Do I pay you to think? Do I pay you to give me your fucking opinions!?”

Storming out of the Jacuzzi, he marched over to the man and gave him a hearty slap across the face. The attendant trembled but did not move.

“I’ll tell him myself, incompetent bastard,” the Governor muttered angrily. Seizing a towel from the outstretched hands of a servant, he wrapped it around himself and walked through the doors into a posh living room. There stood a man, his back to the door, eyes fixed on a bust of Emperor Alexei I that occupied the mantelpiece.

“Can’t you se-“

The man whirled around, and fixed on the Governor a pair of dark, green eyes. The stare was so ferociously cold that Diesovic stopped dead in mid sentence, transfixed.

“Governor Diesovic. I come on behalf of Lord Varus, who is currently on business in Kregaia and thus cannot be present himself.”

Though his eyes were his dominant feature, and overshadowed all else, he had a close cropped head of black hair and a sharp nose. His narrow low set mouth and low cheek bones gave him a somewhat aged look, although he could not have been more than 30. His features worked together to betray his pure Generian blood.

Without speaking or breaking his gaze, the man motioned at one of the many armchairs scattered about the room, and in a dreamlike state, unable to take his eyes away from those of the man’s (no matter how much he longed to), Diesovic slowly took his seat. The man moved closer to the Governor, but remained standing. As he drew upon him, Diesovic felt the primal urge to inch away. He wanted to run from something in this man, something cold, something, evil.

“Lord Varus has dispatched me here to discuss a series of issues that have recently come to his attention, and that of several other key figures in the Imperial government, whose interests I serve, the first being the several discrepancies in the financial records of this provincial government.”

Diesovic began to sweat, though he would have shivered in the drafty room, wearing nothing but a towel and drenched to the bone.

“As you are no doubt aware, your service to Emperor Alexei, and your loyalty to Emperor Antonius, his son, have been duly recognized by His Majesty, Kazatmiru, and as such, your budget has not only been maintained, but your provincial government has been issued several additional grants from the Emperor himself, for the purpose of creating an Alberian Special Police Initiative, a Provincial Guard, and backing the corporate interests that have taken up residence in Port Likiev. Those grants were issued five years ago, and while they have seen these funds depleted, Lord Varus and Emperor Kazatmiru are rather perplexed as to why there exists only a skeleton unit of Special Police, most of which are imported Sofian officers, and no trace of a Provincial Guard, not to mention the Port facilities at Port Likiev are in drastic need of expansion and overhaul.”

Diesovic swallowed heavily.

“I-we-we’ve been working on it. It..takes time.”

“Lord Varus also notes that in the years following the institution of the special grants, you’ve managed to construct this very lovely new governor’s palace, and have added to it several times.”

“I-“

The man raised the palm of his hand, and the governor quickly closed his mouth as the man turned and paced towards a large window overlooking the city.

“The Emperor is concerned, Mr. Diesovic, because while you may not be able to see it from here, despite the wonderful view, there has been an increase in illegal and subversive activity in this city as well as several other.”

He turned his head slightly to look at Diesovic.

“Are you aware that Port Likiev has become the world’s largest transfer point for both Ismerian heroin as well as counterfeit Freudian assault rifles?”

Diesovic managed to muster the courage to give a response.

“We have been taking steps to curtail this, and have seized several shipments already.”

The man acted as if he hadn’t heard the reply, and turned his attention back to the view through the window.

“There have been several recent high profile meetings between very prominent leaders in the Alberian and Generian criminal underworlds. My colleagues at a certain government initiative responsible to the Emperor have been monitoring these, along with several other transactions, and have seen little in the way of interference from provincial security forces. This, as you of course would suspect, is liable to concern certain members of the government, as it is not complete madness to suspect members of the local government would be in league with the underworld kingpins in question.”

The man turned quickly. His tone had grown even icier, if it was indeed possible.

Diesovic had regained his voice, and now jumped to his feet, indigence written all over his face.

“That’s madness! I have served this Empire with pride for nearly 40 years, and you have the balls to insinuate-“

“Sit down, Governor.”

The man’s words were like a cannonball hitting Deisovic, and he regained his seat, though his expression was still one of rage.

“I, nor any other member of the Imperial government, are making any insinuations. We are simply bringing to note several observations. Now, Lord Varus has instructed me to inform you that, far from accusing you of treasonous deeds (the punishment for which would be, of course, immediate execution), he is going to offer you the honor and privilege of personally seeing to it that the Alberian syndicates in question are not only disrupted, but rooted out and destroyed within a period of six months.”

Diesovic couldn’t believe it.

“Six months?”

“He is advancing to the provincial government an additional sum of 4 billion Genera for this purpose, as well as making available to you the full data resources of the Imperial Intelligence Department. He is certain you will succeed, as he is equally certain that you know the price of failure. The Emperor is not one to be disappointed, and Lord Varus will do everything in his power to prevent him from becoming so, even if it means removing counterproductive bureaucrats.”

The man’s eyes were boring through Diesovic, and his horrifically calm tone was enough to freeze and shatter a man’s soul.

“Do you understand this message?”

“I do,” replied the governor, automatically.

“Good. Then I will leave you to your business. I, and my colleagues will be monitoring your progress. Should it be necessary, we will contact you personally, but it is likely, and preferred, that you will never hear from me again.”

The man nodded, before turning and walking out into the hall, his footsteps fading into the distance, echoing in the governor’s mind, beside the cold and terrifying words he had spoken.

“Ljubomir, bring me the phone,” the governor said, dazedly. The servant left and returned a moment later, handing Diesovic a telephone. Diesovic ushered him out with a wave of his hand, and was left alone in the large, cold room, still clad in the damp towel. He punched in an 8 digit number, and let the phone ring.

“Governor Diesovic. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

It was a cultured voice with a strong northern accent.

“We’ve got to talk, Andrzej.”

“Today, there’s a meeting. The Hotel Orev. Come alone if you want to talk.”

The line clicked dead, and Diesovic sat back in his chair. He closed his eyes and sighed heavily.

The chair was comfortable. The room was warm, perfectly lit, and tastefully decorated. The cigar was excellent, as was the bourbon in his hand. There was a beautiful woman waiting on him.

Why the fuck was he so angry?

Lord Volscian stared at the man opposite him, a corpulent, red-nosed fool who dripped decadence from every pore. It wasn't the luxury; Volscian had such things in his estates back in the Empire. No, there was some fine distinction between a man of taste and a vain idiot. The Generian looked at him expectantly, and Volscian replied absently, his attention on other matters.

"Not at all, my lord. The Succession Wars are simply a twinge of a historical trend; in the Empire, with so much power in the hands of the Sacred Emperor, one must expect a struggle to control the Iron Throne. Recent news speaks of some disturbances here, as well, my lord."

The Generian aristocrat, the High Lord Accountant of the Realm, smiled patronizingly and reached for a pastry, responding as he did so, "Passing disturbances. As you say, a twinge, though in this case simply ignorant louts making trouble." He shoved the pastry into his mouth, chewing disgustingly, and Volscian smiled blandly as his eyes radiated hatred.

I'll watch the video on the Internet when they shoot you in the back of the fucking head, infidel.

***

When he got back to his suite, set up for him by the Embassy staff, there was a message taped to his TV; there was probably a contact working in the hotel somewhere. It didn't matter. Lord Volscian picked it up and read it, then burned it with his lighter.

Contact for you at Embassy, imperative meet now.

The aristocrat sighed, irritated at the inconvenience. However, the Generian connection was a strong one. Lord Volscian might be a member of the Sacred Emperor's inner court, but he feared, and rightly so, the Divine One's wrath should any part of his mission here go awry. And so, fifteen minutes later, there he was, in the Kregaian Embassy, standing at the front desk.

"Can I help you?"

"My name is Lord Volscian. I have an appointment with the Lord Ambassador."

"Of course, my Lord. One moment...yes, you are cleared. Anton there will escort you," the receptionist said, gesturing at an Imperial Guardsman. Volscian nodded slightly and followed the guard up several floors, through elaborate halls displaying the architecture and art of their homeland, at last reaching a door guarded by a pair of Imperial Guardsmen, who saluted and let Volscian through.

The Ambassador to Generia stood there, looking very tired, and next to him stood an unfamiliar man wearing the uniform of a colonel. Volscian looked from one to the other, as if seeking some kind of explanation, but the ambassador forestalled him.

"Lord Volscian, your assignment here has changed."

As the stranger stepped forward and began to speak, Volscian felt a sense of anticipation, mingled with doubt...truly there was more going on in Generia than met the eye.

Ilek stepped into the dim lit of the back alley Likiev restaurant. The hearty smell of simmering bearmeat mingled with the salt odor of the wharf outside. He walked up to the Maitre D’, but before he could say anything, he was pointed towards the back, a single booth illuminated by a flickering wax candle and a small lamp dangling above. He walked slowly towards the booth, and took his seat across from a pretty young woman; a strawberry blond with flashing blue eyes. She seemed to be studying him as she sipped on a glass of water. Smoke trailed from the end of a cigarette balancing on the edge of a stone ash tray.

Ilek removed his heavy coat, avoiding her gaze via a pair of dark sunglasses.

“You’re early.”

“I’m on time.”

He reached into his pocket and removed a pack of cigarettes, taking one and placing it between his lips. He looked around the restaurant warily as he fumbled in his pocket for a lighter.

“Are you sure this place is secure?”

“It’s the best I could do on short notice. Here.”

She slid her lighter across to him, and he lit his cigarette. She leaned across the table.

“What’s this about anyway? You know we’re not supposed to have any contact until the job is done.”

Ilek sat back in his seat, and blew a cloud of smoke from his nostrils.

“Your intel is wrong.”

With an indignant look, the woman sat up.

“We spent 4 months compiling that information,” she said in a hushed manner, though forcefully.

“Doesn’t change the fact that it’s wrong.”

She chuckled dryly.

“The meeting’s been compromised, Dorota.”

“What do you mean it’s been compromised? How do you know this?”

He took another drag on his cigarette.

“The police flagged Markev. Andrzej’s getting skittish. He’s not going to take the chance.”

“How do you know this?”

A waiter appeared at the side of the table, but the woman waved him away.

“The SPI aren’t the most discreet people in the world. When they flag a guy, word tends to get around. It probably won’t be long ‘til they pick him up, but if they know what we know, they’ll wait until after 4PM a week from now.”

“The time of the meeting?”

He paused for a minute to think, sipping the cigarette, and letting the smoke drift about his nostrils, hovering in a wreath around his forehead.

“I know how these big time syndicate bosses think. I know how they operate. They don’t like mixing things up too much, especially when they know the police are involved. This Andrzej’s smart.”

The woman leaned across the table again, doubt written across her beautiful features.

“Ilek, everything depends on this meeting taking place.”

“I know,” he replied contemplatively. “But we can’t get SPI to unflag Markev, and I can’t take them out individually, because the moment one of these guys goes down, the rest will scatter.”

He fell silent, thinking, before he began again, slowly.

“The Orev hotel is neutral territory. The Likiev syndicates and the international cartels have been using it for years, agreeing to keep it owned by a third party. It’s the only place in the city he can use, without making the others uncomfortable. The meeting has to happen there.”

“So, what? He’ll change the time, the date?”

“He can’t. It’d take too long, and if this meeting is about what I think it is, then he doesn’t have any time to waste. The noose on the syndicates is tightening. Not just SPI, but the people at Imperial Intelligence are starting to put the pressure on. If Andrzej’s got the kind of influence to pull together the guys he’s pulling together, then he’s definitely a big time syndicate player, and he’s no doubt feeling that pressure. No, the meeting’s going to happen.”

“Are you certain?”

“It has to. They’ll be there.”

“Fine. Then you’ll be there too. Don’t forget how important this contract is, Ilek. If this doesn’t go according to plan, we’re never going to get another shot.”

Ilek took the last drag on his cigarette and crushed it into the ash tray. He put on his sunglasses, his coat, and got to his feet. Without a glance back he walked out of the restaurant, into the darkness of the wharf and the bustle of the city.

-------------

“There he is. Looks like they’re done talking.”

The rapid clicking of a digital camera was audible in the quiet of the small second story motel room, across the street from the nondescript wharf-side restaurant. The man the camera was focused on got into the back of a cab and was gone into the night.

“And her?”

“Here she comes.”

A pretty young woman stepped out of the restaurant, and shot a quick glance at the room’s darkened window. A speaker on the desk by the camera crackled to life, and a woman’s voice came over the airwaves.

“Everything’s still on schedule. We’re good to go.”

“Excellent work, Dorota.”

Alojz Czetov slept with a gun under his pillow. It was standard Cartel fare: a hard hitting Pwnage-made GCPD issue L-26 chambered for the .45 “Generian” cartridge. It was a piece of hardware that could turn a crook’s torso into Swiss cheese or rip right through a cop’s vest, and it didn’t distinguish between the two. In the hands of someone that could handle its power, it was lethal, and outside of the Generia City Police Department, it was far from standard issue fare. The Generian and Alberian underworlds, however, favored this particular killing machine, and along with knockoff GIR-47s, and DAC-91s, it was the most prevalent illegal firearm in the country.

Czetov himself was possibly as lethal as the sleek silver death machine that was currently separated from his right temple by a quarter inch of down feather. He was the epitome of the Likiev gangster: smack-talking, street-smart, and would paint a Picasso with a man’s gray matter without a second’s thought. He was ruthless, but that was standard fare. What separated him from the run of the mill syndicate types was the huge portion of common sense the Almighty had doled out to him at birth, and an eye, if not for grand schemes, for the straightest and most personally lucrative course of action.

He was a businessman, but not like some of the others. He didn’t have their knack for numbers. He wasn’t a butcher either. If the cops could have tagged him for them, he would only have been found to have committed a total of 8 murders in his entire 12 year tenure in the Likiev underworld. Comparably speaking, this was almost ludicrous. He was smart enough to know who to kill, when to kill them, when to do it himself, and when to get someone else to do it for him. Though one would think such a sixth sense would run second nature in the mafia types, it was surprisingly uncommon.

Czetov dealt in favors. He didn’t make his money through murder or extortion, but instead through providing to paying customers certain items that were prohibited to them. For example, if someone wanted the latest and the greatest Pwnage controlled substance, firearm, or teenaged prostitute, Czetov could arrange to have such things located, brought into the country if necessary, and if money was the issue, knocked down to a more manageable price, all without losing a dime on his end.

It also helped that he was also a contact man. He had contacts, and if you wanted to follow the lead and get contacts yourself, you went through him. He knew everyone: cops, robbers, gamblers, hookers. Everyone from Gloria on the street corner to your old uncle Dmitri, and he wasn’t afraid to share the knowledge, so long as you treated him with a little respect; which is to say you paid him.

Being a contact man and a businessman meant that he was often busy with his contacts. This particular night, 11PM on a Wednesday, was no exception.

The ringing of the phone shook him from his sleep and promptly thereafter dug into his cranium like the wrong end of a hatchet wielded by an inbred. Fumbling for the lightswitch, he knocked the receiver off the hook and grabbed for it, placing it heavily against his ear.

“Who is it? What the fuck do you want?”

He located the lightswitch as his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, and to the state of near-sobriety, but by then it wasn’t necessary.

“It’s Yuri, Mr. Czetov.”

Czetov grunted. He glanced over at the sleeping feminine form on the other side of the bed and wondered why it was still there and hadn’t yet left with the contents of his wallet.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve got a couple of guys looking for some work. You remember Alek?”

Czetov thought for a minute, breathing heavily in the dark room.

“Tall guy?”

“He did some work with me down in Port Belgrade last winter. Reliable guy. Little overdramatic with the whole badass gangster thing.”

“It’s ringing a bell.”

“Well, he’s got a cousin. Kid named Ivan. Kid’s working a couple minimum wage deals on the lower northeast, and he’s looking to make some real money. Alek’s a little low on cash too, and I figure since he was a reliable guy in Port Belgrade we could get him and his cousin something to do, you know?”

Czetov closed his eyes and massaged his eyelids.

“Couldn’t this wait until tomorrow?”

“Shit, I fucking woke you up, didn’t I? Or, fuck, were you with someone? Look, I’m sorr-“

“Shut up, Yuri.”

He shut up.

“Bring these guys by tomorrow. I’m in town, I’ll take a look at ‘em. There’s some stuff I need to get done by the end of the week, errand boy work. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Yeah, sure thing, Mr. Czetov.”

The line clicked dead. Czetov fell back against the headboard and sighed again. He looked down and noticed the woman had moved and was looking at him. Frustration exploded in his eyes.

“What you waiting for? Get outta here!”

The girl scrambled out from under the sheets, fumbled for her clothes, and rushed out the door.

“I’m surrounded by fucking idiots..”

---------

“Guy probably thinks we’re all a bunch of fucking idiots.”

Yuri hung up the phone and turned to face the two men who were standing in the small, bare office in the dockyard warehouse where he held court as an employee of Alojz Czetov.

“Come on by tomorrow. He says he might have somethin’ for you.”

Yuri walked over and sat down at the desk, looking up and seeing the two men still standing there, he said with exasperation: “go on, get outta here! Christ, fuckin’ morons act like they’re waitin’ for me to suck their dicks..”

Ivan and Alek turned and walked out into the near empty warehouse. It was dark, and the few fluorescent lights that actually worked did little to drive away the gloom. They were used to it, however, like the majority of Port Likiev’s residents who dwelt in total darkness for several months out of the year, and endless sunshine for several others.

As they walked towards the small side door that led out into the yards, Ivan turned to his cousin.

“No one’s gonna be pulling a gun on me doing this shit, are they?”

Alek chuckled.

“Why, you don’t think you can handle it?”

Ivan fell silent and kept walking. A few minutes later Alek spoke up again.

“It’s easy work. Czetov’s not a guy you want to fuck with, but he’s not a gangster like those east side butchers. We had it worse growing up where we did. These guys are blue collar boys. Truck drivers and teamsters.”

Ivan nodded silently and kept any other reservations to himself as they walked off into the night.

In the distance a police siren wailed. SPI. Most city dwellers could tell by the sirens. They were different from the ones on regular cop cruisers; a high pitched scream as opposed to a steady wail, and they were usually followed by gunfire.

Sure enough, a few distant pops sounded, melding into the grumble of resting machinery and the groan of a large freighter resting at anchor alongside the dock. It was a beautiful night, really. Calm. The stars were out in force, a sliver of a moon not bright enough to obscure the singular lights that dotted the velvet screen that seemed as deep as it was vast.

Alberia was one of few places where you could occasionally see stars in a city. Industry had come relatively recently, and had come in force even later, with the Generian occupation and the migration of the corporate honchos from places like Generia City and Port Belgrade. Soon, the stars would become nothing but the illusory metaphors they were elsewhere in the nation and the world, but for now, Ivan took the time to admire the scene, without thinking too much about it. Life was hard, but occasionally it wasn’t very complicated.

On Black Thursday, November 1st, Ilek Damjanovic loaded a fresh clip into his L-23 automatic, put on his coat, and stepped out into the clear, cold gray of early morning. At 5 AM, the city of Port Likiev was just coming to life, and the streets were not yet packed with traffic. Climbing into his old Freudian import, he turned the ignition and set off for the southside residential districts and the towering specter of the Orev Hotel.

At the same time a man by the name of Christoph Markev was being escorted out of an interrogation chamber in a police precinct on the city’s lower eastside. He was holding a handkerchief to his nose and the officer on his right was nursing a bruised hand. Markev looked irritated.

“How am I supposed to fucking explain a fucking bleeding nose, you fucking twat?”

“You’re not used to the sea air. Gives you fucking nose bleeds. How the fuck should I know, asshole? You’re the career snitch, here.”

Markev whirled on the man, dropping the handkerchief and raising his fist to strike him, but was restrained by a pair of very large black-clad special police officers.

“I’m no fuckin’ snitch. You remember that, asshole, or you’re gonna fuckin’ regret it.”

The officer was unfazed.

“Cool it. The only reason you’re not doing 25 years is because of me. Last thing you want to do is get on my bad side.”

Markev muttered something in a guttural, Germanic tongue that passed for Bormanian.

They entered a small, soundproof room, and the two larger officers left, leaving the cop and the crook alone.

“This is it, Markev. Showtime. No wires, no phones. You’ll be on your own until we move in to make the transaction.”

“And then I’m put on a fucking plane.”

“Then you’re put on a fucking plane. Back to Jonaked, or wherever the fuck else you want to go.”

Markev reached into his coat pocket and produced a cigarette. The officer took a lighter off a desk and ignited it, before taking one of his own out of his pocket and doing the same. The two stood and smoked in silence for a few minutes before a knock came at the door. The officer dropped the smoldering butt to the floor and crushed it under his boot heel.

“Let’s go.”

He led Markev, whose nose had stopped bleeding and was only slightly bruised, out of the room where two men and a woman in civilian clothes waited.

“Ready?” asked the woman, a young, attractive blond.

“Let’s get this shit over with,” muttered Markev. The woman nodded to the officer, and the two men in civilian garb led the man down the hall, out of sight.

“Let’s hope this works,” said the officer in a low voice.

“Everything is sure to go according to plan,” replied the woman. “Our department has a lot to thank you for, Captain. I can’t tell you how much you’ve helped us out, letting us use your informant.”

“Anything we can do to put that scumbag Andrzej behind bars.”

The woman’s eyes took on a distant look, but the officer did not notice.

“This arrest will put you in a whole new league, Captain..”

“It’s for the good of the Empire. He deserves to rot in prison.”

“Perhaps prison’s too good a place for him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing, Captain.”

The woman seemed to snap out of some elusive waking dream, and with that, nodded to the officer.

“I’d best be going. I’ll see you in a few hours, Captain.”

“Good luck, Ms. Dorota.”

“Same to you.”

She turned and walked quickly down the corridor, her footsteps trailing off into the distance as she rounded the corridor.

---------------

“It’s all in place. Markev’s on his way to the meeting.”

“And our controller?”

“Dorota is a few cars behind. She’ll be in contact with us while the score goes down.”

“How’s our man?”

“Driving to the Hotel as we speak. He’ll do it perfectly, all according to plan.”

“He still thinks this is a private contract?”

“As far as he knows, Dorota is still just a friend from the agency.”

“Oblivious?”

“Completely. Just how we want it. The operation should go off without a hitch.”

“Excellent.”

-------------

She sat in the back seat of the sedan, idly watching the buildings drift slowly by in a haze of black and gray. In the distance sirens wailed, ample background for a morning such as this. Her mind was elsewhere, far from the world of the back seat of a government car, a shoulder holster strapped under her coat, an electric wire taped abrasively across her chest. She was thinking of someone else besides the grim faced driver with the Imperial Intelligence standard issue sunglasses, besides the nameless, disembodied voices she had just spoken with on her cell phone, talking about an operation that was, right now, the farthest thing from her mind.

She was thinking about a man she knew from a different time, a man who was right now driving straight into a trap that she had set, and that she would spring. A man who would take the blame for something horrible she was about to do for the nameless concepts of “Duty” and “Empire.”

Without really thinking about it, as her eyes drifted to her cell phone lying on the seat beside her, she clasped it and began dialing a number. She raised it to her ear.

“Yeah?”

“Ilek, it’s me.”

“Dorota.”

She hesitated.

“What is it? Is something wrong?”
She said nothing, wrestling with herself, and with everything decent inside of her.

“No. Markev’s on his way. The meeting will go off as planned.”

“Alright.”

“Goodbye, Ilek.”

“See you on the other side.”

The line clicked dead. She let the phone fall out of her hands and roll into the seat beside her.

-------------------

“Where the Hell are we going? I thought we were making a delivery on the lower eastside?”

“Relax, Ivan. Just keep driving.”

“Yeah, no sweat, Ivan. Yuri’s gotta run an errand in the Kreschnev district.”

Ivan kept his eyes on the road, and shut his mouth. This Yuri character had a bad sense about him. He was small, and friendly enough on the outside but there was something mean in his eyes, and distant in his mannerisms. The big van lumbered lazily down the narrow streets, making a wide corner onto the long southside highway. Through the late autumn morning fog, you could just make out the lights at the base of the massive Orev Hotel.

“She’s beautiful, ain’t she?” said Yuri, half to himself.

“That where we’re goin’?” asked Ivan. Yuri just smiled.

Sure enough, as he guided the car closer to the Hotel, Yuri instructed him to pull up a few blocks down, and park. Ivan moved to kill the ignition, but Alek’s hand stopped him.

“Better leave it running.”

Ivan eyes him suspiciously.

“What’s this about, Alek..”

Alek smiled reassuringly.

“Just making an extra stop to drop something off. Nothing to worry about.”

Yuri was already out of the car, walking in the direction of the hotel. Alek climbed out and was off, after him. Ivan sat back in his seat, and closed his eyes.

-------------

Ilek slowed down as he turned onto the southside highway. The Orev Hotel loomed up before him. The street was deserted, save for a gray van parked a few blocks down the road. He checked the front seat as he cruised by. The driver was asleep, reassuring him that it was neither a truck bomb nor a police stakeout.

He pulled into the parking garage, a cavernous expanse below the main floor of the hotel with enough room for half the cars in the city. He checked the handheld GPS locater on the seat next to him as he pulled into a spot beside a concrete pillar. Getting out, he checked the floor, and finding it empty, moved to his trunk. Opening it, he took out a large plastic suitcase, and set it between his car and the pillar. Opening it, he revealed a series of wires, and a small number pad. He punched a few buttons and closed the case.

Checking the floor again for signs of activity, and finding none, he walked towards the elevator. He took it on floor up to the lobby. In contrast to the garage, the ground floor was a buzz of activity. Well dressed men wandered about aimlessly, or moved with purpose down corridors, following signs reading “conference room.” He picked out nearly 4 dozen who were obviously armed, before proceeding down the same corridor, in the direction of the conference room.

Taking a side door off of this corridor, he entered what appeared to be a pantry of sorts, where catered meals were stored for important meetings. As promised, he found a waiter’s uniform underneath a rolling tray of breakfast delicacies. Donning the uniform, and putting his own clothes in a small, empty icebox, he rolled the tray out into the corridor and proceeded towards the conference room.

He was searched by a pair of large bodyguards, who, satisfied that he was indeed a waiter, allowed him to proceed into the room. It was packed, but only 3 men were seated. He parked the tray on the far side of the room and left quickly, returning to the pantry. He produced a cellular phone and dialed a familiar number.

“2 of them I recognized from the photographs. The 3rd I didn’t. It must be Andrzej. Markev isn’t there.”

“He’s coming up now.”

“Alright.”

“Did you set the charges?”

“Exactly as planned, beside column A5. The blast will collapse the conference room and kill everyone inside. It’s assured.”

“Excellent. Good work Ilek. Get out of there.”

He hung up the phone and placed it in his pocket, donning his own clothes and replacing the waiter’s uniform. He walked back to the elevator and got in, riding it down to the parking garage. He nodded to a tall, red-bearded man and his shorter companion as they got in. One of them was carrying a briefcase, out of keeping with his rather disheveled look, but Ilek paid little attention. At a place like the Orev hotel, one encountered all sorts of odd types.

He walked back towards his car, unlocked the door, and was about to get in when

“Ilek..”

That voice.

She stepped out from behind the concrete pillar.

“Dorota. What are you doing here?”

“Ilek, there’s something you need to know..”

He closed the door and turned to face her. She could not meet his eyes. For the first time he sensed something was wrong. Sensed something wrong with the very core of the operation, the whole thing from the beginning.

“Dorota, what’s going on..”

“It’s a setup, Ilek.”

He stepped back. The utter shock he felt invisible in his eyes. She was visibly shaken.

“What do you mean..”

“Imperial Intelligence. They staged this whole operation. It’s a hit, but it’s not for the reasons I told you. It’s a show, Ilek. Andrzej isn’t even going to be here. It’s an excuse..”

“An excuse for what?” he said slowly.

“A crackdown, Ilek. Governor Diesovic is dead. The government didn’t think he was controlling the syndicate problem, so they’re playing their aces. They’re moving in with SPI, and Imperial Intelligence. They’re going to make a clean sweep, but they need an excuse.”

“Jesus Christ..” he stepped back, putting his hand on his head. “Diesovic is dead?”

“They killed him today. Just this morning. Look, Ilek-“

“Fuck, Dorota! We’ve got to get out of here.”

He reached for the door handle.

“Ilek.”

He looked up, and saw that she was holding a gun, aimed at his heart.

“I can’t let you, Ilek.”

His expression was one of disbelief.

“I volunteered to do this, Ilek. You’ve got to take the blame for the bombing. We can’t leave the evidence..”

He stared at the gun. There was a tear in her eye as she stepped forward. Her finger gently squeezed the trigger, the hammer falling back a millimeter at a time.

“You bitch..”

“I’m sorry, Ile-“

An explosion above shook the foundation and threw them both to the floor. Ilek leapt to his feet and dived for the gun. Dorota was up almost as quick, and lunged at him, knocking him back and grabbing the weapon.

He went for her stomach, landing a heavy blow and knocking her off balance, but she managed to get a shot off, wounding him in the abdomen. He shouted out in agony and fell back on the ground as she took aim at his heart. The stairwell door opened just then and the two men from the elevator burst out, sprinting towards daylight at the entrance to the parking garage. Dorota turned her attention to them for a split-second, just long enough for Ilek to lash out with a foot and knock the gun away.

He struggled to his feet, and picked up the weapon, turning to the terrified female form standing before him. He raised the pistol, but his eyesight was wavering due to the loss of blood. He steadied his aim and prepared to fire, but she fell to the floor, and sprung open the cover of the black case. Ivan fired twice, hitting her in the back. She yelled, but slammed her hands into the mess of wires, and pulled.

“No!”

Her screams of pain faded into oblivion as they were both engulfed in a cloud of fire.

-----------------

Governor Diesovic was sweating bullets as his limo pulled into the empty parking lot a few blocks down from the Orev hotel. He reached for a drink from the bottle of Scotch in the cooler just as the door opened and a short, dark-haired man of about 40 got in. He smiled.

“Governor Diesovic. Thank you for coming on such short notice.”

“Cut to the chase Andrzej.”

“I have no intention to do otherwise. I have a meeting to go to in just a few minutes. You say you have a problem?”

“The bastards in Sofia are trying to break my balls. They’re telling me I have a month to crack the organized crime problem and build up the police force. If I don’t, well, you know what they can do.”

Andrzej listened intently, his brow furrowing. He waited a moment after Diesovic finished, before replying in a calm, soft voice.

“Governor Diesovic, haven’t I always been good to you? When have I ever refused to help you? I like to consider us friends, Governor, and friends don’t let their friends get pushed around.”

“I’m not sure you get it Andrzej. The man was from Imperial Intelligence. He was a fucking spook.”

Andrzej nodded.

“You’re certain he was II?”

“Positive. I know how those leeches look. I know how they act.”

“Yes, and I know how they think. Honestly, Diesovic, how long did you think you could play them like you’ve been playing them?”

Diesovic’s expression turned to one of complete rage.

“What the fuck are you talking about?! You fucking parasite! You’re the fucking reason I have this problem in the first place!”

Andrzej remained completely calm, removing a cigarette from a small, silver case, and lighting it with the car lighter.

“I’m the reason for the problem? No..I am the problem, Governor. You know that as well as anyone.”

Diesovic looked confused, but remained silent.

“You’ve been cutting into the agreement, Governor. You’ve been taking more than your share.”

The Governor’s expression again became enraged.

“You little rat! How dare you! Why, I should-“

“You should what? Have me arrested?”

Andrzej ejaculated a sickeningly good-natured laugh.

“No, Governor. You couldn’t do that. You sold me the police, remember? You sold it all to me. You sold your fucking soul to me. The soul of this entire rotting province.”

“What the fuck are you talking about! Driver!”

He pushed on the intercom button, but there was no response. There was fear in his eyes.

“That’s right. You sold it all to me, and then thought you could take it back, but by bit, cutting into our deal, cutting into my share. You didn’t realize, though, that it was all my share, Governor Diezovic. Every last fucking nickel. I owned it all, and you didn’t see a thing. You stupid, rotting piece of shit.[/I]

His words dripped menace, but his tone was still unchanged. The Governor’s sweats had suddenly run ice cold.

“While you were off fucking little boys I was laughing it up, Governor. I was taking your share while you thought you were cutting into mine. You see, old friend,” he said, leaning in to within an inch from Diesovic’s pale-as-death countenance, “when you make a deal with the Devil, you’d best remember that no matter what, you always end up in the same place.”

The last sounds Diesovic heard were the clear click of a revolver hammer, and a muffled shot, before white-hot searing pain followed a ball of lead up through his digestive system into his right lung, bringing an intense white ringing to his dying ears. His eyes opened wide as the short, dark haired man leaned in and kissed him gently on the forehead.

“Goodbye, Governor Diesovic.”

Andrzej opened the door to the limousine, and stepped out into the darkness of the parking lot. He took a cellular phone from his pocket and dialed a number.

“It’s done.”

“Excellent, Andrzej. Get to the Hotel. Dorota will be there waiting for you. She’ll give you the rundown on the operation before the meeting star-“

The last words were cut off by a titanic roar and the flash of a yellow fireball, coming out of the belly of the Orev Hotel.

Fin, Part I

Sofia, 7 Years Ago

“You’ll be working for a private controller on this.”

“Who?”

“You’ll know him as ‘Mr. Black.’ He’s reputable.”

“Do you know him?”

“No, but the bosses say he’s cool, so he’s cool.”

“Fair enough.

A man of 20, dressed in a new black suit and a pair of Ray-Bans sat back in his chair and sipped a beer. A cigarette sat smoldering in an ash-tray by his right hand. The room was dim, the product of bad lighting. A single naked bulb hung over the door, and a chandelier that must have been 20 years old hung from the ceiling. Every other glimpse of light was the product of a dozen lit candles on the tables of the dusty basement barroom.

He raised his watch to check the time.

“Patience, kid. He’ll be here soon enough.”

The other man was in his mid forties, fat, with a bald head and a big mustache that looked like it belonged on an Alberian Walrus.

The phone on the wall by the door began to ring. The fat guy got up and answered it.

“Yeah. He’s here. Got it.”

He hung up the phone and turned to the kid.

“Get on upstairs.”

He got up and moved up the stairs at the far end of the room. Opening a cheap wooden door, he stepped out into an empty warehouse. The light of early morning coming through grimy windows created a strange watery effect on the concrete floor. He noticed a trio of black clad men at the far end, standing next to a large black SUV, windows tinted. Two were obviously packing automatics under their coats. The third was more subtle. Probably had a ’23 in his pocket and a mini-magnum hunting knife in his sock.

He walked over, calmly, eyes hidden behind his sunglasses, L-26 automatic snug in a holster under his sport coat.

“You Ilek?”

“Yeah.”

One of the men grabbed him roughly and shoved him against the car door, and frisked him without too much thought or effort. Removing the L-26, he tossed it to the other man and turned to the subtle third. The third man nodded at the door.

“Get in, kid,” said the man who had frisked Ilek. He did so. The two men got in the front seats, and the third with the L-23 silently got into the back and took a seat beside Ilek. He went so far as to buckle his seatbelt.

The engine started up and they were off, cruising down the wide avenues of the Sofia warehouse district. Ilek suddenly wasn’t sure if these men were GIIS. They didn’t have the look. They were too big; too much brawn, not enough brains. The third could have passed for a spook, but the other two couldn’t have been more than local thugs, contracted for security purposes, or worse, big Sofia cops.

He hated Sofia cops more than most people. They had an attitude about them you couldn’t get anywhere else. It wasn’t that they were any harsher than the ones up north in Generia City. Most Generian cops were about the same in that they’d hit you soon as look at you, assuming they pegged you for a smack-talking type. No, Sofia cops had a different vibe. You could almost sense that they just didn’t care, that they had trouble distinguishing themselves from the people they busted. A lot of them had already been on the wrong side of a nightstick or an L-26 bullet, and, once they realized they couldn’t beat the cop crowd, were only too eager to “join ‘em.”

“Pull over here,” said the man in the back. The car cruised into an alleyway behind a bar with a burned out neon sign hanging over the door. The man opened the door, and gestured for Ilek to get out. He stepped out into the cool morning air, and waited for the other two men to step out of the car.

“Go in.”

The back door was open. Inside, the corridor was dim, cold, and damp, leading to an equally unwelcoming concrete staircase. The two descended into what seemed to be a storage cellar. The second man approached a large metal door, such as one that would seal an industrial refrigerator, and hammered on it. A muffled voice came from the other side.

“Yeah?”

“It’s Ilija.”

There was a rumbling of metal on stone and the door slid open, revealing yet another large, menacing looking individual. Ilija entered the room, and Ilek followed. The door guard opened a second, smaller metal door and led them into a brightly lit, well furnished room. At a large, oak desk sat a man with a neat, gray beard and a bald head, probing dark eyes studying a copy of the “Sofia Chronicle.” Ilija stepped forward.

“This is him.”

The man did not look up, but gestured at a chair before him. Ilija moved to sit down, but the man raised an eye and pointed his index finger at Ilek. Ilija checked himself and took a step back. Ilek moved forward and took a seat. The man at the desk folded his newspaper and placed it in a drawer, removing in its place a small white envelope. He slid it across the desk.

“This is your payment. It is the first and last check you will receive for this job. All is paid in full, in cash, and in advance. Any and all future jobs through me will be handled in the same way.”

His dark, empty eyes probed Ilek’s, and sent a shiver of discomfort down his spine, but he fought the instinctive desire to cringe.

“The contract is simple. Imperial Intelligence has a problem with one of their handlers. They want him eliminated. I’ve just paid you to do it.”

Ilek waited, expecting more. Law enforcement days had taught him to expect longer, rambling briefings. Nothing further came. The man simply withdrew his newspaper and continued reading where he had left off. Ilek cautiously got to his feet.

“Ilija has all of the intelligence,” said the man. Ilek walked towards the door. Ilija stepped forward, produced a folder from inside his coat, and handed it to Ilek. The two men then exited the way they had come.

Bump.

MR. BLACK COMETH!!!! Dude, this is gonna be awesome.

A cold wind whipped around the dark corners of the Sofia warehouse district, stirring up bits of litter and spinning them round to create a small paper whirlwind. The winter half moon passed out from behind its cover of gray clouds, briefly illuminating the tin roofs and blackened brick of the industrial structures stretching for acres until they were interrupted by the narrow jutting incision of the canal, empty, black, and cold now at this late hour of the night.

A single bulb hung over the door to the Czetiek and Sons warehouse, one of the older buildings in the dated, run down district. The bulb cast sparse light on a pair of figures leaning against the large, iron doors. The glow from the lit tips of two cigarettes bobbing amid the greater silhouettes did little to give shape and substance to the specters. Soon, however, a flood of light, blinding in the bitter dark, washed over the small square, surrounded by warehouse walls and rusting, wrought-iron fences. The figures, no longer silhouetted against the wall, but now against the sea of yellow light, raised their hands to cover their eyes as a long, black sedan pulled up, and came to a stop before them. The lights died with the engine, and the back doors opened. A pair of figures, similarly ambiguous, shaded amid the shadows, approached the pair.

One of the two standing by the door produced a long barreled instrument from under a long, heavy coat, and trained it on the two men who had exited the car.

One of them raised the palm of his hand, spoke quietly, in flowing, baritone Generian. The man by the door lowered his weapon and nodded to the other man, who pushed one of the heavy doors inward to a scream of iron on iron. The men got back into their car, and the engine started up again. The vehicle drove into the warehouse, and the doors were shut behind it.

Once inside the gloomily lit cavern of the storage floor, the car again stopped and the engine was shut off. The doors were opened and a total of five men stepped out, all dressed similarly in dark clothes and heavy winter coats. They looked up to the catwalk running around the walls of the building, and noticed no less than a dozen men watching them, all with automatic weapons.

“Good evening, Kristijan.”

One of the men who had stepped out of the car, noticeably smaller in stature than the other four, looked up to the rafters, from where the voice had come.

“It’s well past evening. We’re much closer to dawn.”

A low, resounding chuckle reverberated through the building. The guards had not moved, nor lowered their weapons, though they made no moves to threaten the men who stood exposed in the center of the floor.

“Whatever the case, you’ve come just on time. Things are about to begin.”

A man stepped into the light, at the top of a long iron staircase that descended to the floor. His face and figure was completely illuminated, unlike any of the warehouse’s other occupants. From his looks, he seemed to be roughly 40 years old. His head was bald and he sported a full beard of a reddish-brown color. He was a large man, and seemed well built for his apparent age. He wore a thick fur coat, much like everyone else, and now as he descended the stairs, bundled it more tightly about his sizeable frame.

He crossed the floor with grace unused to men of stature, and extended a hand to the one he called “Kristijan.” He gestured in the direction of a small office at the rear of the warehouse, better lit than the rest of the structure, and the two moved off towards it, stepping inside to find a welcome burst of heat.

“Your men were briefed?”

“Just before we departed.”

“Excellent. Sit down.”

The room was adorned with several computer monitors, each displaying an image from a night vision camera. From the look of the scene, they were positioned a few blocks to the north, at a spot where the channel bent off, and a small harbor existed for loading and unloading purposes. A small commercial vessel was positioned there now.

“How’s our man?”

“On his way. Ilija just briefed him a few hours ago.”

“The Jew? Poor boy.”

“Quite. I pity anyone who has to deal with that asshole’s cloak and dagger business.”

“Well, if he can handle Ilija, the job should be nothing to him.”

Kristijan chuckled.

“Is he up to the task?”

“6 years as a soldier with the Ismerian syndicates seem to say he is.”

“He’s Ismerian?”

“Half. On his mother’s side. Father was a lieutenant in the Generia City PD. Good cop.”

“You knew him?”

“Briefly. He helped one of my task forces bring in Geisovic, the Buchianan arms baron in the mid ‘90’s.”

“I remember that.”

“He died a few months afterwards, if I recall correctly.”

“In the line of duty?”

“No, lung cancer.”

Kristijan offered a cold acknowledgement as he removed a silver cigarette case from his pocket, and placed one between his lips.

“How did the boy get involved with the syndicates if his father was a cop?”

“He was 6 when his father passed away, according to his dossier. I imagine he never knew much about his father’s career. They lived in the Yurievo tenement district in Generia City, before it was bombed in the civil war. His mother died when he was 12, and he went to live with his uncle, who put him through school. His uncle was a capo in one of the smaller Sofia syndicates.”

“That explains it.”

“Hard to escape those kinds of family ties. He was a smart kid. Is a smart kid. Finished school, and went straight in as a button man.”

He continued watching the image of the commercial vessel on the grayed out monitor screen. Kristijan lit the cigarette suspended between his lips. The man went on speaking.

“He had a few convictions for minor offenses. Was caught in a warehouse with some illegal goods. Arms, if I remember. Or Pwnage designer drugs. Did about 2 years before he got out on parole. Was implicated as an accessory to murder, but never convicted. I suspect the judge was bribed.”

“That’s usually how it goes,” said Kristijan with a smile. The man at the monitor looked over his shoulder with a knowing smirk, before turning back to the screen and going on.

“From looking at the file, I imagine he has about a dozen hits under his belt.”

“Circumstantial evidence, eh?”

“In this town, that’s usually the only kind of evidence you can go on.”

Kristijan chuckled again.

“Too true. At least Imperial Intelligence doesn’t bother with that kind of red tape.”

“Has its drawbacks though. I mean, look at us now. It’s exactly because of that lack of red tape that we have to knock this guy off.”

“Well, trafficking in underage Pacitalian girls is a hanging offense. We’re simply enforcing the law among our own. No one’s above it.”

He smiled as he said this. The man at the monitor kept his eyes on the screen.

“It’s too easy to get away with. I’m all for clearing out the bureaucracy, but it sure gives us more work to do when there’s no clear-cut anti-corruption provisions besides a dark alley and a .45.”

“Well, tonight it’s an old freighter and an L-26.”

At this, the man at the monitor smiled.

“Here comes our boy.”

On one of the monitors, a black sedan could be seen pulling discreetly into place, the freighter visible a few blocks up. A silhouette carrying what looked like a briefcase stepped out of the driver’s seat and walked quickly out of sight.

“And here comes Mr. Nyietev.”

A caravan of 2 sedans and a limousine pulled up in front of the freighter, and a dozen armed men stepped out. One of them proceeded quickly towards the gangplank, and ascended to the deck of the freighter, before disappearing out of sight through a door.

“And now we wait.”

Ilek shivered against the cold wind blowing off the still waters of the harbor. A moonless night always bred a special kind of chill. At least he wouldn’t have to be out in it long if everything went according to plan.

In the distance the freighter sat at anchor, almost completely motionless in the night. He could barely detect a number of silhouettes moving around at the base of the gangplank. He came within a block of them, and disappeared behind the wall of a warehouse. He moved more quickly now, his limbs aching that sullen ache with the combination of physical exertion and bitter cold. He rounded the corner of the building and came to face a dark, empty doorway. He dashed into the natural refrigeration of the old warehouse, but ignoring the cold, ascended a stairwell to a catwalk suspended from the ceiling.

He moved to a window, facing away from the freighter and crouched down, opening the briefcase and removing the various pieces of a high powered precision rifle. Assembling them, he rested the barrel on the soot covered window sill and put the scope to his eye. A flash of headlights could be seen as a sedan rounded a corner at the entrance to the dockyards. In his ear, a voice came through with a good measure of static.

“Ilek, this is your controller. Your target, Mr. Yekov, the accountant, is on his way.”

“He’s in a car,” whispered Ilek.

“Don’t worry about that.”

The car covered another 100 yards, coming to within 40 of the open window, before it shuttered and stopped, and frantic, hushed voices could be heard as the doors opened and four men stepped out, all armed. In an instant, they all noiselessly dropped to the ground.

Ilek put the crosshairs on the middle of the car’s windshield, and pulled the trigger. The glass shattered, and Ilek was given an instant’s view of a terrified face, before he pulled the trigger again and it disintegrated in a red mist.

“Good work, Ilek. Now get down there and get the briefcase.”

In a matter of seconds, the rifle disintegrated into its base parts and was replaced in the case, which was left sitting at the window. Ilek moved quickly, carefully down to the ground floor and out into the warehouse yard. He came to the car, and found the bodies already being removed by a group of surly, black clad individuals. The car was being pushed out of sight. One of the men approached Ilek and handed him a briefcase, formerly belonging to the man whom Ilek had shot. Ilek accepted the case and with nothing more than a near imperceptible nod, the man was gone into the night, along with the bodies and the rest of the team.

Ilek knelt down and opened the case, revealing several stacks of Genera in large bills. Removing a pen from his pocket, he rotated the cap and placed it under one such stack. Closing the case, he proceeded towards the frigate. As he drew near, the silhouettes came into clearer focus. They were all armed, and he could tell they were training their weapons on him. One of the men approached him, and raised his hand for him to halt. He did so.

The man looked him up and down.

“Where’s your car?”

“We were stopped at the entrance. I had to proceed by foot.”

The man was silent, seeming to consider this, before nodding in the direction of the gangplank. He was stopped again, and frisked by a pair of guards. He was asked to open the briefcase, which he did without hesitation. Following this, he was escorted up to the ship’s deck.

Escorted through a door, he was led up to the bridge of the freighter, and into a small office-like suite, where a man in a gray suit, sporting a long, unkempt goatee waited, standing behind a desk.

“Mr. Yekov, I presume?”

Ilek knew this man. He was an Imperial Intelligence handler by the name of Sergei Nyietev. According to his briefing he had gotten involved in some shady business with the Ismerian Cartel, facilitating the kidnapping and human trafficking rackets through which they thrived. He had apparently made a great deal of money over the affair, and Ilek suspected his pending termination was due more to jealousy among his fellow intelligence officers than any great moral calling. This was the way II worked, as far as Ilek understood it.

Ilek nodded, and stepped forward. The man behind the desk gestured at Ilek’s escort to leave. The door closed behind him, and Ilek placed the briefcase on the table, opened it and turned it towards Nyietev. The man smiled, and called out for the guard to return.

“Mr. Yekov will no doubt want to make his selection now. Show him to the cargo hold.”

Ilek smiled and nodded at Nyietev, before following the guard out of the room, leaving the doomed officer to count his money. They wound their way through a corridor, came to a stairwell, and without a moment’s hesitation, Ilek grabbed the guard’s head and snapped his neck. He tossed the corpse over the railing, letting it plunge down the dark stairwell until a second later a dull, satisfying thud resounded from below.

Ilek removed a cell phone from his coat pocket, punched in a six digit number, and waited. There was a muffled explosion from down the hall, followed instantaneously by shouts of panic throughout the vessel. Ilek rushed down the stairwell, and bent over the dead guard’s corpse. He reached into the jacket and pulled out an L-26 pistol.

“Ilek, there’s a lot of activity down there. What’s the status?”

“He’s dead.”

“We’re moving in. Get out of there.”

“I’m going to the hold.”

“Fine. We’ll send a team to secure the contraband.”

Ilek cautiously opened the door, and found himself in a long, dimly lit corridor. On either side, doors ran into the various compartments of the freight hold. He moved quickly towards the end of the hall, and turned to one of the doors. He turned the heavy wheel, and pushed it open. Inside, huddled against the back corner of the wall was a naked human form. He slowly stepped inside, checking over his shoulder. The silhouette’s green eyes glowed in the darkness, like those of a cornered housecat. Ilek put the gun in the waist of his pants, and knelt down before a young girl.

“It’s alright,” he said softly. Upstairs, gunfire had erupted and the frantic noise reverberated about the ship.

“Your name?”

The girl’s stare did not break, and she hesitated a moment before answering a sturdy voice.

“Dorota.”

Sergeant Mikhail Gorudachev could not believe his eyes as he stared up at the towering inferno. All 37 stories of the Orev hotel, drooling flame all over themselves and vomiting forth thick black smoke. He stood awestruck in the street, four blocks up, utterly transfixed by the open door of his armored police cruiser.

“Snap the fuck out of it Mikhail!” came the bellow of his large Sofian partner, sergeant Perun Strislav.

Bastard reds are bombing the shit out of us, and you’re just fucking standing there-

He grabbed the shotgun from the trunk of the cruiser and rushed off in the direction of the flames. Mikhail remained, ignoring the thunder around him and the gathering crowd of onlookers and security forces. It barely registered when a stone hit the back of his helmet and a slur of cussing came at his back from an Alberian youth, just as he failed to notice when one of his compatriots tackled the young man and beat his face into a bleeding mess with the butt of his nightstick.

It was chaos in a beautiful, symphonic sort of way; everything orbiting tranquilly around the mesmerizing stability of the 37 story torch blazing before them all. He began to step forward when a strong arm grabbed his and whipped him around. An Alberian officer in full riot gear thrust a bulletproof shield into his hands and told him to get a position on the line “before the reds got in among them and got a head start on the skull-cracking.” Gorudachev took the shield, commenting to himself how odd it was that the Alberian man would use such a derogatory term for his own people.

He looked around for Strislav, but couldn’t find him, so he jogged towards the line of men in riot gear that was assembling, squaring off with an ever-growing crowd. He had seen pictures of scenes like this in the Sofia press, always wondered what it was like in person. He’d imagined more noise. There didn’t seem to be enough noise-

“Disperse!” lousy fucking red bastards- “disperse!”

Sergeant Strislav swung freely with his nightstick, felt it collide with a surprisingly resilient human skull, noted the satisfying crack, and swung again. He could barely see through the condensation that had accumulated on his visor, and he used his free hand to push it back, gaining a clear view of the blaze in the corner of his eye. He felt something not unlike a sack of baseballs collide with his back, and whipped around. He grabbed the Alberian youth and threw him into the receptive arms of two Alberian police lieutenants, who threw him to the ground and slapped a pair of cuffs on his hands and feet.

“Good work, sergeant!”

“More where that one came from!”

He whirled, and at that moment was showered in a hail of black ash as the scream of a dying swan drilled into his ears. The wrenching, churning of melting metal, superheated beyond its capacity was all around him, in his ears, in his head. He could not fight the wave, and charged with it, into the line of black armored riot police, nightstick barred against the surging mass of Alberian horror, and rage.

Gorudachev was hit full force in the back by some hurtling colossus, and fell face flat on the concrete. He rolled, losing his helmet to the foot of a terrified, enraged, bloodsoaked, bloodthirsty human being wearing an Alberian banner around his head. Gorudachev scrambled to his feet, and watched as that banner tumbled to the ground with its bearer. He was 16.

Gorudached knelt down, and pulled the Alberian youth to his feet, half-dazedly, before getting up and wandering back through a gap in the line of officers.

“Sergeant! Sergeant!”

He could barely hear, but he turned to see a paramedic standing in front of him.

“Are you alright? Are you hurt?” the man repeated.

“I’m fine.”

“Your helmet.”

“What?”

“Your helmet! It’s gone.”

Gorudachev touched the bare hair that covered his scalp and discovered that the paramedic had spoken truthfully.

“I guess it is.”

He turned and wandered in the direction of the tower of flame, but stopped as his foot landed on the back of a bound prisoner. He couldn’t hear the shouts anymore, just the tormented thrashings and prayers of the torch as it toppled into itself, and collapsed, a spark in the wind.

“The Orev Hotel collapsed this afternoon following what has been tentatively identified as the detonation of an explosive device. The apparent explosion ruptured several gas lines running under and around the car park situated below the building’s lobby, and the resulting inferno lasted a total of 35 minutes before the structure finally succumbed…”

Ivan turned his face from the scene on the television in the far corner of the train station terminal. Dozens of people, alberians and generians alike, had crowded around it, faces wrought with concern and disbelief at the scenes of carnage before them. He walked slowly, trying his best to control things one normally didn’t need to think about: his breathing, his pace, the slight tremor in his hands.

Alek sat with his head down, pretending to sleep on a bench away from the rest of the crowd. Ivan shook his shoulder.

“Come on. Let’s get on before they do.”

He motioned with his eyes in the direction of a pair of heavily armed Provincial transit cops. They seemed unusually calm considering that the worst terrorist attack in nearly 2 decades had just occurred, giving the two men even more cause to hurry.

They passed with ease through two layers of security checkpoints, and out onto the rail platform. The provincial government had briefly suspended all rail traffic, but were now allowing a certain number of non-Alberians who had bought tickets priot to the attack to depart. Those in charge of the railways were obviously not familiar with the well known fact that nearly every Alberian aged 17 or older owned a set of false ethnic Generian identification papers.

They slipped onto the train and found their seats in a middle car, sitting apart from each other to avert suspicion. The train began to fill slowly with the same pale-faced, anxious looking sorts who had crowded the terminal. They were mostly Generian, with a few red beards in between: bureaucrats and businessmen in the province temporarily, taking their turns shuffling the paper mountains that were the beating heart of the occupational institution.

An attractive blond took the seat beside Ivan. He studied her from the corner of his eye, pretending to read a newspaper he had found on the seat. Judging from her figure, the long legs, long, tight-fitting skirt, substantial bust, she was the mistress of some Imperial official, or, less likely, his wife. The was something different about her, though, about her eyes. They lacked the concern that showed so obviously in those of every other passenger, bar two. Either she knew nothing, and had no reason to worry, or knew everything, and therefore knew that it was futile to fret over what was out of her control.

Ivan glanced away as he detected the crack of a smile. Evidently his gaze had strayed too far. She turned to look at him, and he allowed his eyes to meet hers, though his face was set as a stone.

“That’s yesterday’s paper.”

He glanced down, and realized it was. He felt his throat tighten.

“I-didn’t realize.”

She laughed a little.

“It’s ok. Everyone’s been like that all day.” She saw the rather distant look in his eyes, and added softly, as an afterthought, almost: “because of the bombing.”

The screech of the breaks and the train began to move. Ivan turned his gaze out the window, watched as the station gave way to the gray and graffiti of the railway depot. The woman beside him was silent.

Ivan felt his eyelids grow heavy, and he sank back in the seat. Five minutes had barely passed before he drifted into the dreamless sleep of exhaustion.

He was startled into wakefulness by a gentle touch on his wrist. He looked down to see the woman’s hand slowly withdraw. Her eyes were closed and her head rested peacefully against the back of the seat. He was about to close his eyes again when an officer of the transit authority appeared in the doorway. His heart sped up. He looked over at the woman, desperation in his eyes, but she still seemed as relaxed as before. He began to turn around, to search the rear of the car for Alek, but again he felt her hand, this time gripping his wrist quite firmly.

“Don’t draw attention to yourself,” she said, her melodic voice almost sickeningly relaxed. The officer entered the car, walking slowly down the aisle, studying the faces of everyone he passed. The electric lights lining the car cast odd shadows on his face, and those of the other passengers. As the woman withdrew her hand, he turned his face towards the window, watching the nothingness, the inky blackness of the plains that extended as far as the eye could see. The Alberian borderlands. The knots on the noose.

The cop kept coming, and Ivan tried to control his breathing. He could feel him getting closer, feel the hook sinking deeper into his heart, feeling as if he were about to explode. He wondered if Alek was seeing the same thing, wondered if he was even still there.

[I]What if they already got him,” he thought to himself, a thought which quickly became a desperate one. His underarms were soaked, and yet all he could hear was the beating of his heart contrasting shrilly with the measured pace of the woman’s breathing.

Suddenly it seemed to make sense. It hit him all at once. It was her. She’d found them out. Alek must already be caught. They could be sweating him down right this moment. He’d break, or die, and then what would Ivan do? He glanced towards her. Eyes closed. Measured breath. She was a machine. Provincial Police. SPI. Imperial Intelligence. Or worse.

He wanted to get up, barrel over her, out through the back of the car. He could make it. Sprint to the end of the train. Jump. Escape. Every man for himself.

But he was paralyzed and the muffled footsteps of the cop on the carpet kept coming, in time with the steady rise and fall of the woman’s breasts.

The officer was there, was on them now. It was done.

He didn’t stop. He kept going.

Ivan began to heave a sigh of relief, began to rationalize away his fears, seemingly dead now, when he heard the footsteps come back. He looked up and his heart stopped. The officer had halted beside their seats, was studying his face. He waited for the woman to snap the cuffs on him.

But wait.

No. Something else entirely.

The officer placed a firm hand on her shoulder, bent down and spoke in a harsh whisper, into her ear. Her expression did not change. Her breathing and her heartbeat were still steady as she got to her feet, and as Ivan watched, disbelieving his own eyes, as she was led out of the car.

He turned around. Alek was nowhere to be seen. The reason was revealed to him momentarily as the subject of his search plopped down in the seat beside him. He was sweating bullets. Alek leaned in and spoke quickly in Alberian.

“Something’s wrong.”

Ivan looked from one end of the train to the other. Nothing. He turned back to Alek.

“Did you see that?”

“Yeah, and get this. I went up a few cars, trying to find a place to get a drink, and a pair of cops were leading off another guy.”

Ivan turned his face briefly towards the window. They were still moving. He turned back to Alek.

“Was he Alberian?”

“Didn’t look like it. Dark skin. Like, Spanish looking almost.”

“Ismerian?”

“Might have been?”

Alek looked up and down the car. It was nearly empty. A few people sleeping here and there. He whispered again to Ivan.

“We’ve got to get off this train.”

“Alek, we-“

“Something’s going down. I can feel it. Something really big is going down, and we’ve gotta get out before it does.”

The tone of his voice overruled any argument.

“How?”

“Station up ahead. I heard the conductor mention it to someone. It’s near the border. We’ll slip off when we start to slow down.”

Ivan inhaled deeply. Alek’s eyes were full of frustration.

“Listen, if something’s going down, it’ll go down at that station. Come on. We’ve gotta go.”

Alek was up and moving quickly towards the back of the car. He was obviously trying very hard to restrain himself from running. Ivan was soon on his heels, and the two men made it into the next car, this one also empty.

They moved down three more before Alek stopped him in the junction between the cars, beside the door, through which could barely be seen the ghastly silhouettes of distant hills and mountains, and ahead the scarce lighting of a border station.

The train was slowing down.

“They’ll unlock the doors a few hundred yards before we stop, and we can pry it open. Then, we jump.”

Ivan didn’t argue since he had no other ideas. Sure enough, as the lights drew closer, the hiss of the hydraulics could be heard. Alek forced his fingers into narrow gaps on the bottom and the side of the door, and pried with all of his strength. The door slid with some resistance, but eventually locked into place. The whip of cold wind scorched the faces of the two men as they took their places, one behind the other, Ivan in front.

“Now!”

Ivan felt a push from behind, and curled up a second before the hard ground slammed into his side. He felt his bones rattle in his body as he rolled over and over, coming to a halt at the bottom of a small gulch.

He recuperated enough to look around, and made out Alek’s form in the darkness a few yards away. He struggled against dizziness and extreme ache, getting to his feet, and stumbling over to Alek, who did likewise.

“What now?”

Alek looked around.

“The border’s a few miles that way. If I’m right, they’ll have this whole section sealed off in a few hours if they don’t already. We can still make it, though, I think, but we have to go now.”

Ivan nodded, and noticed for the first time the overpowering cold that had set in. The touch of Indian summer that had marked the past few days had been driven away by a fierce gale coming in off the north sea. He plunged his hands into his coat pocket, and felt the tips of his right hand fingers disturbed by a foreign object. He removed his hand to find in it a scrap of cocktail napkin, some characters written on it, which he could not make out in the night.

He looked up. Alek was already moving. He removed a lighted and held it above the scrap, flicking it to illuminate the letters.

A cold gust whipped over the naked plain, howling like a demon.

OOC: bump, reply coming

Lord Volscian glanced around, feeling the cold wind tug at his coat. Sofia was not a warm place at this time of year, but then, he'd been raised in Batorine, the only real city in the Kregaian northlands; his blood went back there, back many centuries, before the barbarians were finally exterminated, and compared to that, Sofia was nothing.

Just thinking about it brought images, visions he had imagined decades ago in history class: the wild northerners before the walls of Korronis itself, the closest it had ever come to falling; the centuries of endless war, wars that had brought the strong to power and thrown down the weak, had almost shattered the Imperium where foreigners had failed. That blood, the blood of the skull-taking Dothraki, the sadistic Sarmatians, and a hundred other tribes, ran in his blood. But his ancestors would hang their heads in shame if they could see him now...in a cloak-and-dagger rendezvous with a man who knew nothing of honor.

He heard a whisper, almost too faint to hear, and called softly, "Are you there?"

His contact stepped from the shadows, smiling ruefully. "I must be slipping."

Volscian smiled. "Good to see you again. I'll cut to the chase. Alberia is this close to sliding into total chaos, and we suspect the Ismerian Cartel is involved. I want you to go up the hierarchy, identify the kapos, and find out what they know. Use anything you can; the International has contacts in Generia, too, and they may know more than we do. I'd consider talking to them as well. When you find the people behind all this, tell me, in person, and I'll tell Generian Intelligence. I'll be in touch; we can discuss payment later. Understood?"

The assassin smiled. "Yes. I won't be seeing you." Volscian returned the smile.

"Of course not. Get going."

“What do we do with her?”

Kristijan eyed the pitiable form huddled in the corner of a holding cell, behind a layer of thick glass that was in reality a two-way mirror. She was young, but older than most of the girls they brought in off of the white slave ships; probably about 18 or 19. Her skin was too pale and her hair far too blond to belong to a foreigner, though her green eyes betrayed some unusual ethnicity. Possibly Buchianan, Freudian. Alberian, even, but it was a long shot.

The man standing beside him, dressed in the black uniform of the Special Police Initiative watched his superior, looking for an answer.

“What did he say her name was?”

“Dorova or Dorota or something,” replied the officer.

Krisitjan nodded, but said nothing further. What was unusual about her was that she seemed to show no signs of apprehension, no fear, no apparent emotional devastation that always went hand in hand with the ordeal of the young girls kidnapped on foreign shores by the Ismerians or the Buchianans and brought to Generia to work in the brothels of Sofia, and Port Belgrade, and Generia City. This one was a void, as cold as the air outside, green eyes never shutting, but scanning every detail of her temporary prison.

“Send the doctor to have a look at her. Make sure she’s not injured, and then give her some drugs to help her sleep.”

“Yes, sir.”

As the SPI officer went off in search of the doctor, Kristijan remained, staring straight into those strong green eyes that, despite the presence of the two-way mirror, he was certain were staring straight back into his.

Ilek pulled his coat tighter around himself as he stepped out of his car, into the pre-dawn gloom of the alley, and the silence of the sleeping city.

“You did a good job tonight.”

He turned around, his hand instantly going for the automatic suspended from his shoulder, concealed by his heavy coat.

“Don’t bother. It would be a waste of ammo anyway.”

He could make out the outline of a tall, slender individual, male by his voice.

“Who are you?”

“Just another one of you. That is to say, we work for the same people.”

Ilek took a step back, putting his back close to the soot covered brick of the tenement where he lived.

“I work on a contractual basis. I follow the orders of the ones putting the bread in my bank account.”

Ilek caught a flash of silver as a rogue ray from a headlight reflected off of a cigarette case the man was withdrawing from his pocket. A second later, a flash of orange from a lighter illuminated a pair of dark eyes set in a dark face.

“We all say that. It doesn’t change much,” he replied as the glowing orb of the cigarette tip floated disembodied in the dark. “My name is Kristijan.”

He took a step forward, extending a hand, but Ilek drew his pistol and pressed it into the man’s abdomen.

Kristijan’s smile was invisible in the dark.

An Ismerian if I’ve ever met one.

He stepped back, hands raised. Overhead, the sky was clearing, the oppressive darkness giving way to a grayer shade of black. In a few minutes the sun would rise.

“I’ll make it brief then.”

“I think that would be for the best,” replied Ilek, who still trained the gun on the man’s stomach.

“I work for Imperial Intelligence. Coincidentally, so do you. Those men filling your account are doing it with the people’s taxes, and are doing the same with mine.”

Ilek remained quiet, but so did the handgun.

“The man you killed was Iovos Nyietev. He was a colleague of mine. Like so many, his ambition got the better of him, and he got mixed up in messy business with the Syndicates. The agency is willing to overlook so much, but there is a limit, and sometimes it’s a very fine line.”

“How does this concern me?”

“Take it as a warning. They’ll approach you soon.”

“Who? The Syndicates?” replied Ilek with a chuckle in his voice.

“Them too, but the Agency should concern you more.”

“Why? I thought they were the good guys?”

“They are, but that doesn’t mean they’re ethical or have any concern for you beyond the range of your usefulness as an asset. Be careful. You have promise. You have contacts in the underworld that they would very much like to get to know. You can rise very quickly in this business, but there’s always someone above you. Never forget that. Sleep with both eyes open.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Words of wisdom from one Ismerian to another.”

The first finger of the dawn stretched out over the rooftops, bringing with it the mists that settled into the alleys and cloaked the streets. Ilek turned his face skyward, but when he looked down, his visitor was gone, his footsteps fading into the fog.

Ivan paused for a minute to catch his breath. It was as if he was breathing in icicles, cutting and burning as they filled his lungs. His chest heaved and his hot breath created a cloud around his ice-sweat drenched forehead. Alek had stopped a bit ahead of him, and looked back in his direction, then in the direction they had been traveling. In every direction there was nothing to be seen. The darkness seemed absolute, save for the eerie glow of a moon that failed to penetrate a heavy cloud cover. The season’s first snows in a month would be falling soon, Ivan suspected.

The border was still roughly 3 miles off. They could make it before dawn and still stand a chance of slipping over unnoticed. Otherwise they would have to double back and find a place to lay low until nightfall and a much more difficult crossing.

“Come on.”

Alek began trudging off once more, and Ivan, despite the pain in his lungs and legs, stood up and followed. He focused on the ground, and on putting one foot in front of the other, and failed to notice when Alek stopped suddenly, was caught completely off guard when his cousin’s burly hand grabbed the back of his coat and pulled him to the ground.

“Don’t move,” he whispered, and to Ivan’s puzzled expression, pointed a finger in the direction of the nearest patch of hillocks. A yellow glow was growing brighter at the top of one, and Ivan realized that they had run across a back road of sorts. The rumbling of engines grew louder with the approach of the ghastly pale light. Then, the road was bathed in brightness as a supply truck crested the hill. It was followed by another, then another. An entire Imperial supply convoy, fresh over the border.

They lay perfectly still, untouched by the headlights, watching silently, breathlessly.

“Reinforcements,” Alek said ominously.

Ivan felt the hairs stand up on his neck as a touch of light illuminated the symbol on the side of one of the last trucks. The emblem of the White Horse and Crown was used only by a single division in the entire Imperial Army: the 44th Imperial Praetorian Legion. Renowned as the Empire’s most fearsome counter-insurgency specialists, they had not set foot on Alberian soil since the ill-fated Blessed Rising of the reign of Alexei The Great, 72 years ago, where they had gained their infamous nickname: “The Hammer of the Alberians.”

As the last truck trundled off into the distance, Ivan got to his feet.

“Let’s go.”

Alek was already up and on the move.

Ahead was the border, the unbarred gateway to millions of square miles unfriendly country and desolate uncertainty. Behind them was only the silence of the steppe and sealed fate.

The boots of Colonel Belun Javic crunched in the soot stained snow as he stepped down from the back of the truck. Alberevo airbase was almost completely deserted. His Praetorian contingent would be the first full garrison the installation had hosted in nearly 40 years.

He looked around, a pair of scratched sunglasses blocking out the glare from the midday sun. He lit a cigarette and walked in the direction of a low brick structure that he hoped promised a relief from the bitter deep freeze that was already eating through his heavy winter uniform. Elsewhere, other trucks were pulling onto the tarmacs and unloading detachments of heavily armed Praetorians: the first fingers of the 44th, dispatched here to quell any uprising before it began.

Javic was joined by a younger officer, a large, dark-skinned man with a full beard and a Major’s rank. His greeting was muted by the blast of a low-flying GIF-1’s jet engines. Javic turned and motioned towards the building ahead, and the former suspended conversation as he rushed to keep up with his superior. They entered the building, and were greeted by a blast of heat and salutes from the two men on guard duty inside.

“What were you saying, Captain?”

“A few choppers have just arrived from Likiev with an assortment of diplomatic personnel the government wanted brought away from any possible danger zones. I had my men begin clearing the landing strips.”

“Very good. It’s tedious work, I know, but you’ll see action soon enough if my senses don’t fail me. These red barbarians aren’t ones to let a good excuse for revolt pass them by.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, sir, what’s the excuse? From what I hear, they’re the ones who started this situation.”

The Colonel chuckled dryly.

“It doesn’t matter who started it. We’re here, now, and that’s reason enough for the reds to get uppity. They don’t like it when the Empire puts its nose into things up north, and the fact that a few of their countrymen blew up a building isn’t going to make them take responsibility, or make them any less pissed off.”

A commotion outside suspended further conversation as the two officers rushed outside, where they watched a crowd of soldiers dragging a limp form towards them.

“What’s this about?” shouted the colonel over the noise of engines.

“Found him poking his nose around the supply dumps,” replied a lieutenant among the group of Praetorians.

The Colonel stepped forward to take a look at the barely conscious, badly bruised individual.

“Doesn’t look like an Alberian to me,” said the officer of the dark-haired man of slight stature and form. “Too small. Like a Borman, or a Paci, or something.”

He crushed his cigarette butt in the snow and promptly lit another.

“Whatever he is, we can’t have him stealing from us. He knew the risks. Take him outside the perimeter and shoot him.”

“Yes, sir.”

The colonel turned around, looking slightly pleased with himself, and made his way back to the building.

--------------------

The ice caked cruelly around the collar of Ivan’s coat, and his toes curled against his will from the vicious damp that had consumed his woolen socks. He longed for a pair of dry boots and a cigarette, but the only comfort he could find was in the imagining of these things. For miles, the icy desolation stretched under the clear cold night sky. Stars dazzled his eyes when he looked upwards. Suddenly, over the horizon, the colorful extents of the polar aurora came dancing over the fresh drifts of snow, like the twilight of some beautiful netherworld. He stopped, without noticing, and fell to his knees. In the distance, he watched a collection of wandering silhouettes seemingly floating over the drifts. His disinterested stare gave way to his overwhelming exhaustion.

His eyes closed, involuntarily, and he heard the echoe as his frozen form fell into the frozen pillow of snow. He felt himself warming, as if the ground was exhaling warm breath all over his body, and his lips curled into a twisted smile.

Suddenly, he felt himself hauled roughly up to his feet, his fantasy world was shattered, and Alek’s grave, dark eyes staring into his.

“You’ve got to keep moving. You’ll freeze if you stop.”

Alek looked off in the direction they had been moving. He could barely make out the glow of electric lights over the tops of distant hills. He wasn’t sure how long it had been since they crossed the border, leaving Alberia and entering the unfriendly realm of the northern dominions. The snow had begun falling heavily about two hours ago, and there was little chance of it letting up.

He looked back at his companion. He could see the exhaustion in his sallow, sunken cheeks and his rapidly glazing eyes. They would have to rest, or Ivan would surely not make it much further. He suddenly became aware of the numbness in his own extremities and concluded that he too, without a warm fire and rest, might not be long for this world.

“Do you see those lights? That’s Ankierkev. It’s an Imperial fishing town. I’ve been there a few times before. Good people. They like Alberians, and they don’t ask too many questions. It’s about two miles further. We’ll make for it and then rest for the night.”

Ivan nodded, as Alek put an arm around him to steady him, and the two set off.

The snow had changed to a mushy sleet when they staggered past the first buildings of the Imperial town. They hankered beneath an awning for a few minutes, catching their breath, before moving towards the inviting glow of a small hotel.

Before they walked through the door, Alek straightened his clothes and did his best to make himself look as if he had not spent the last 4 and a half hours trudging through the freezing cold. Ivan, in all his weariness, did not bother. The two entered the deserted lobby, and for a few Genera, bought a room for the night.

With the weight of all their troubles, the two collapsed into their beds, and slept the dreamless sleep of the exhausted.

Ilek checked his watch, wrinkling his brow and squinting against the bright noon sun. A cool breeze was blowing in off the harbor, where an assortment of freighters, fishing boats, and luxury yachts came and went on the calm sea. Port Belgrade was quiet, free from the usual sounds of the dockyards on a Sunday. A few people walked along the edge of the water, enjoying the fresh air of late spring. Ilek himself took a moment to walk to the railing and stare out into the distant harbor mouth. He lit a cigarette and closed his weary eyes.

“Ilek.”

He turned around, and found himself confronted by Kristijan’s broad smile and dark eyes. He extended a hand and Ilek shook it warmly, allowing his own tired features to form into a smile.

“It’s been awhile,” said Kristijan. Ilek had just returned from an extended tour of duty in the Sultan’s KLM. It had been close to four years since he had set foot on Generian soil, and six since the fateful night of Iovos Nyietev’s execution. He was a full fledged member of the Generian Imperial Intelligence Service now, and Kristijan, the dark man he had met the night after that first contract was his controller and immediate superior, as well as one of the few men he trusted enough to call a friend.

Ilek offered Kristijan a cigarette from the half crushed box in his coat pocket. He accepted one and struck a match against his shoe.

“So. What’s this about.”

Kristijan hesitated to reply. Ilek smiled.

“I assume you’re not here to give me three months vacation and a pair of tickets to south Borman.”

“I’m afraid not,” came the good natured reply.

“Well?”

Kristijan gestured towards the path along the waterside, occupied only by a few young couples.

“Walk with me.”

The two set off at a casual pace. Kristijan continued after a moment.

“Do you remember your first operation?”

“Iovos Nyietev. How could I forget?”

Kristijan paused reflectively.

“Do you remember the girl?”

Ilek answered calmly. “Yes. Her name was-”

“Dorota.”

“Yes.”

“What about her? Did you know her?”

“Yes. In fact I did. I do.”

“Oh?”

“She was an orphan. An Alberian-Generian mix. Kidnapped. The Syndicates wanted her for a slave girl.”

“I remember that much,” replied Ilek.

“Well, after you found her, I- the government took her in. She was 17 at the time.”

Ilek frowned. He knew where this was going. Kristijan noted the anxiety written on his brow.

“She was a volunteer, Ilek. There’s nothing sinister here. Trust me.”

Ilek remained silent, listening.

“She signed on with SPI two years later, while you were on duty overseas.”

“You handed a 19 year old girl over to the agencies?”

“I told you, Ilek, it was her own choice. I didn’t hand her over to anyone.”

“You told me yourself, that same night, never to trust them.”

“And I don’t,” came the exasperated reply. “I don’t. But she was better off with them than out on the street. She’s got more potential than anyone I’ve ever seen. The girl is a machine, Ilek. She’s born for this..”

Ilek took a long drag on his cigarette before flicking the butt over the railing where it sizzled and extinguished itself in the lapping waters below.

“How does this concern me?” said Ilek, a stormy undertone in his voice.

“GIIS has been watching her. She finished her first tour with SPI about two months ago.”

“Where was she serving?”

“Alberia.”

“Red country..”

“She did well, for a recruit. Very well. GIIS wants to take her on.”

“Will she go?”

“I don’t see why not. She’s a big fish in a small pond just working law enforcement with the special police initiative.”

“Again, I fail to see how this concerns me.”

“They want you to train her, Ilek. Take her under your wing.”

It fell in his ears like the banging of a gong. He turned his head towards the sea and suddenly stopped walking.

“No, Kristijan.”

“Well why the hell not?”

He turned a gloomy look towards his friend.

“You know as well as I do what this job does to people. What this agency does to people. To you and me, Kristijan. Look at us!”

He almost laughed as he said it. His once black hair was getting a tinge of gray on the edges and his eyes sunk ever lower into the black circles beneath them. Kristijan’s eyes were grim as ever.

“It’s your job, Ilek, and you’re damn good at it. The only reason I’m even suggesting this is because she’s so much- so much like you. You’re cut from the same fucking mold, Ilek.”

“I’m quitting. My tour’s over in two months, and I’m getting out. Retiring.”

Kristijan laughed openly, humorlessly at this.

“You believe yourself?”

“Absolutely. I’ve had my fill of it, and I’m getting out while I still have ten fingers and a conscience I can go to sleep with every night.”

Kristijan nodded nostalgically. He was quiet as he stepped over and leaned against the railing, letting the salty breeze fill his nostrils. Ilek leaned against the same railing, his back to the water, his eyes gazing at the blue sky and a flock of gulls flying overhead.

“I know you don’t hate this as much as you’d like to tell yourself you do,” Kristijan said quietly to his friend, and to himself somewhat too. “We all have to pretend we buy into it, tell ourselves that we’d do anything to get out.”

He looked over at Ilek. The man’s eyes were distant, but he knew he was listening, and went on.

“But, why is it then that nobody ever does get out? Even when we retire and go home, we’re still here, mentally at least. Some call it a form of institutionalization, brainwashing maybe, but I think it has to be something more. I think, deep down, it’s an addiction. We love the rush. We love the power. We love to know we’re pulling the strings. It’s survival, Ilek. We’re addicted to surviving.”

The two men were silent. A few yards away a couple laughed innocently. The man threw his lover against the rail and kissed her as she half-struggled in childish glee.

Then, suddenly, Ilek pushed himself to his feet, coming off the rail, and took off, walking briskly away from the sea, towards the heart of the city. Kristijan turned and watched him.

“Think about it, Ilek. The girl can learn from you,” he called. “She’ll live longer,” he added in a soft voice before turning back towards the ocean.

"Lord Volscian, I am sent here by the authority of His Excellency Lucius Kressh, Head of the Intelligence Division. His Excellency understands that the rising chaos in Alberia is more than simply another war of resentment, and that undermining forces are at work in Generia. A lack of stability in so close a neighbor and so valued an ally endangers Imperial interests throughout the CAD, as well as all Kregaians living in Generia..."

The whole meeting had been highly irregular. The Ambassador to Generia, one of the most coveted positions in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, standing aside for a colonel? That had made sense after Kressh's name had been dropped, but it didn't seem right. For starters, it wasn't an official government communique. That alone had confused him.

"You, Lord Volscian, must temporarily forfeit your diplomatic status. A man matching your description working here at the Embassy will be boarding a flight back to Mon Serat International Airport tomorrow, to create the impression that you have left Generia. Excuses for your departure have been made to the appropriate Generian officials. You, in the meantime, will attempt to gather more information about the Alberian separatists." The colonel leaned forward. "You may wonder why you have been chosen instead of an Intelligence Division operative. I confess, I too have no explanation; His Excellency did not explain himself. Therefore do not expect him to; simply perform your task. Do you understand your instructions?"

The only answer had been yes. Saying no would have put him on Kressh's blacklist, a fate no sane man would accept. Besides, Lord Volscian had been here for months. He knew Generia.

Didn't he?

***

Volscian entered the bar and cast a disapproving glance around. The wind howled outside, while inside there was the drone of conversation, the clack of the cues and balls at a pool game, and the scratchy sounds of an old Generian classic rock record. Volscian took a seat on a hard stool in front of the bar, calling to the bartender, "Krzelyn Black Label."

Unfortunately for him, he mangled the pronunciation. A stout man clutching a large mug of beer turned an angry, bleary gaze his way and growled "Foreigner, huh?"

Volscian looked back calmly and replied, "Mmhm," casually picked up his drink, and took a gulp, never taking his eyes off the Generian's. The other man sneered and growled, "Wut country?" Volscian smiled and proclaimed "Kregaian Empire." The other man snarled.

Volscian narrowed his eyes. "You have a problem?"

Things had gone downhill from there.

"Yeah, I fucking do!" the big man had bellowed abruptly. "You fuckers strut around on your island, making fucking HUMAN SACRIFICES! You piss devotion to your fucking emperor in the mornings! You sit around waiting for someone to piss you off and you go and fuck them up! Well I've got news for you bastards, the whole fucking world hates you, from Generia on down!"

Volscian had taken exception to this rank blasphemy, of course. He'd thrown the first punch, breaking the man's nose; and it had led to him lying where he was now, facefirst in a mound of snow. The Kregaian lord stood slowly, after contemplating slow and painful deaths for each and every blaspheming son of a bitch in that filthy establishment, and gazed out at the windy town of East Kroviev. Apparently he had a lot to learn about Generia before even grasping the foundations of the Alberian rebellion.

It was going to be a long night...

Ivan awoke suddenly, bolting up in his bed and nearly knocking his cousin against the wall. His shirt was soaked with sweat and his wide eyes strained to see in the pitch black room.

“Calm down,” whispered Alek. “It’s me.”

Ivan continued breathing heavily, and rubbed his eyes until they began to adjust. His sleep had been restless, and full of strange dreams that had faded instantly when he awoke. However, a single image remained burned into his mind as clearly as if he were still dreaming it: the face of the blond woman on the train. Her eyes had been so calm as she was led away, her breathing so light it had been as though she were drowning.

Alek shook his shoulder again.

“Come on, get dressed. It’s 5AM. We’ve got to move.”

Ivan slowly got out of bed and slipped on his pants and jacket from the night before. Both were still somewhat damp from the previous night’s trek through the tundra. He turned to Alek, who sat by the dim glow of the lamp, looking at a map of the foothill region that lay beyond the border.

“Where are we going?” asked Ivan.

“I asked at the desk a few minutes ago. They told me we can hire a car to take us as far as Ilkievo, about 60 miles to the southeast. It’s on the Lew river, so I figure from there we can get on a boat to take us all the way down to Sofia. We’ll avoid the trains that way, and most of the major highways.”

“Sofia? Why would we want to go there? It’s the fucking capital.”

“Right, so it’s the last place they’d look for us. Plus, even if they were looking, I doubt they’d have a shot at finding us.”

“In their own front yard?”

“Sofia’s no one’s front yard. It might as well be a different planet. The only people calling the shots there are the gangs and the corporations, and they’re too busy with each other to worry about a couple of runaway Alberians. Plus I know a few people who can take us in, and help us lay low until things quiet down back home.”

“How long do you think it’ll be?”

“Depends. You see those troop trucks when we were passing over the border?”

“Of course.”

“Imperial shock troops. If the Empire’s looking to go to war over this-“

“War?” interrupted Ivan, disbelieving. “With who?”

Alek chuckled.

“With us. With Alberia.”

Ivan fell into a grave silence. Alek laughed coldly.

“What? You don’t think they’ll let this slide, do you?”

Ivan remained silent, staring down at the floor.

“Listen, they’ll go in, cut off a few heads, shift things around a bit, and then everything’ll be back to normal and we can go home.”

Ivan was still. His head whirled. He had known that the incident had been serious, and posed a mortal danger to their own lives, but he had not considered the impacts on the entire Alberian people. He knew his cousin was right. The incident had been a catalyst. Things were in motion, and he had no idea how to stop them.

Alek was already on his feet, strapping his watch on his wrist and heading for the door.

“Come on. We’ve got to go hire that car before someone else does.”

Ivan quietly got to his feet and followed Alek out into the hall.

Alek was sleeping in the back of the truck, a small rugged piece of machinery that had seen one too many northern winters and was driven by a man who had come to resemble his conveyance. There was a frost on the fields that fell to each side as they drove through the wide desolation of north central Generia, a region with a rare history of peace amidst the turmoil of the Imperial continent. The snow clouds had not yet come this far south, but the bitter winds sifted through cracks in the windshield and chilled Ivan’s sleepless bones.

It had been nearly 10 hours since his rude awakening that morning, and the sun hung high overhead. The driver, who spoke an odd dialect of the Generian language, professed to have lived on the Alberian border for his entire life, sharing a family history of six generations. He had seen the soldiers come and go in and out of Alberia, and had heard stories of the wars there. For him, he claimed, politics was no concern, neither was ethnicity. “The color of one’s beard,” he had told the two cousins, meant little to anyone except the Emperor. Ivan hoped he meant it, but moreso, he hoped that his appearance did not give away his ethnicity as clearly as the driver would have him believe.

Slowly, the old truck moved over the long, empty roads crisscrossing the Imperial heartland, drawing closer to that small river port where, if Alek’s predictions were correct, they could pay for a trip down river, into Sofia and the belly of the beast. Safety and salvation, he promised. Ivan prayed.

It was somewhere around that very town, Ilkievo, in the oblast of Kupansk, 250 miles from the north sea coast, when they fell upon the two refugees like wolves in winter. Generian police had, unbeknownst to them, set up a wide cordon that, while not intended to catch those responsible for the crisis in Likiev, was designed to handle the fallout.

Ivan had finally collapsed once more into sleep, against the door of the car. When he awoke, however, he found that he was alone. The vehicle had been apparently ditched in a muddy bank by the side of the road, and the old driver was nowhere in sight. Checking the trunk. He found that the same was true for Alek. Panic hit him, and he threw open the door, stepping out into the frosty air.

The sky was purpling with an early dusk, and the slightest trace of impending snowfall was evident in the air. Ivan looked around. There was no sight of anything. He cried out the name of his cousin, but found no answer. He checked his pockets, forgetting that he had had very little worth stealing in them to begin with, and found them as he had left them. There was nothing. Nothing but the dead silence of late fall.

He stepped out into the middle of the road, his face red with windburn and his heart racing. Despair was on him, in his heart and reflected in his eyes. His arms hung limp at his sides. Hopeless, and freezing, he hobbled back to the car, and got into the driver’s seat. The key was gone. He sank back, and simply slipped out of time.

He was brought to his senses by a distant noise. As it grew louder, he placed it as that of a motor, and looking up, he could see the glinting of the setting sun on the hood of a car coming over the horizon. He got out, and dazedly stepped out into the middle of the road. As he raised his hand, perhaps to hail the arrival of some form of company, a noise much nearer usurped his attention.

“Ivan, it’s no use. We’re caught.”

He whirled, fists raised, and saw standing beside the car the forlorn figure of Alek beside that of a masked man in green general issue Imperial army fatigues. Parked in the center of a field a few hundred yards over was an armored personnel carrier. The heavy machine gun was trained directly on him.

He thought he was dreaming until he inhaled the exhaust from the formerly distant vehicle, which turned out to in fact be an army transport truck. The blow of a police baton against the back of his leg brought him back into full awareness.

As he was handcuffed and hog tied, thrown into the rear of the drafty, filthy vehicle beside his cousin, he almost wept. He didn’t know why. The rational center of his brain told him that the authorities had absolutely no evidence on either of them for any crime whatsoever, save perhaps traveling without proper papers, but in light of things, this was minor. Still, coupled with the full weight of what had happened the morning before, the consequences thereof that were just now sinking in, and the broken face of the strong Alberian man lying across from him, he found it hard to keep his resolve from vanishing.

The truck started off.

“He sold us out..”

Ivan opened his eyes and looked over at his cousin, whose face lay within inches of a lump of what looked like manure.

“The driver. He sold us out.”

It was monotone. His cousin said it as if it were the evening’s weather.

“He went to the authorities, told them he had Alberians in his car, and sold us out. Simple as picking up his groceries.”

Ivan’s stare was blank. He was silent.

“I tried to go after him when I found out he was missing, but it was too late. They had a cordon. A roadblock. How did he know..”

Ivan tried to roll onto his back, into a more comfortable position. Failing, he simply adjusted the placement of his head on the metal floor.

“Why did he wait 70 miles before turning us in?” he asked, flatly.

Alek did not seem to hear him. Ivan noted the distant look in his eyes.

“He sold us out..”

Ivan closed his eyes again.

When he again opened them, the truck had stopped. Alek still lay across from him. He could hear a commotion outside. The doors of the vehicle were thrown open, and the white light from lampposts nearly blinded him. A soldier, silhouetted against the blinding light, grabbed him by his ankles and hauled him out of the truck, onto his feet, after doing the same with his cousin. As his eyes adjusted, he found himself standing in the middle of a sizeable concrete square. There were dozens of similar trucks, and other civilians similarly bound, with soldiers keeping watch.

One of the Generians bent down and undid the ropes around his ankles and those of Alek, before forcing them into a group of other apparent detainees. Ivan looked to the ground and wanted a cigarette. The air was still full of a biting cold, and several others, soldiers and captives alike, shivered against a dull wind.

A few minutes, and Ivan and Alek were shepherded with the others through a sort of checkpoint, whereupon they were loaded once more into trucks, this time unbound.

Ivan sat back against the side of the vehicle as it began to move, and once more closed his eyes. Alek however, who had taken a seat beside him, kicked his leg, urging him to stay alert.

There were about 4 others in the back of the truck, and it was by no means crowded. All were Alberian. Ivan could not help but notice the fact that one of them was staring at him. He tried not to pay attention as the vehicle turned off of the concrete, onto what felt like a dirt road.

They stopped after some time. Ivan looked up, and found that the man who had been staring at him had redirected his attention to the floor of the vehicle. The doors were thrown open, and again the 6 men were driven out into a dirt courtyard, illuminated by floodlights. There were others here, prisoners being shepherded by soldiers in groups of a dozen or so. There were three or four buildings, two two-story wooden longhouses and two smaller concrete structures. A high fence surrounded the yard they were currently in.

The soldiers didn’t need to speak a word to them, but thrusted their rifles into their backs and with a kick here and there directed them towards the nearer of the two longhouses.

The 6 men fell in with about 20 others as they entered the building. There they were filed into a room, made to strip down to their underwear, and pass under a series of showerheads, which drenched them to the bone and had them shivering in the icy room on the other side for several minutes. Their clothes were returned to them and without much ceremony, they were registered and sent back into the yard. The whole of this exercise was finished in under ten minutes.

For anyone familiar with an Imperial detention facility, this would have seemed sloppy and not up to the usual standard of Imperial prisoner processing, but the haste with which the camp had been established and the speed with which it was being filled left a number of holes in the efficiency of the system. For the moment, this one was commander by an Imperial army Captain, who was much more concerned with entertaining himself with one of the newly arrived female prisoners than ensuring the proper processing of the others. It was a mistake that he would not have long to regret.

Ivan and Alek, along with a crowd of unfamiliar faces, were sent to the second longhouse, where they were divided irregularly and sent to various large holding cells; in effect large, unfurnished rooms with a single door that bolted shut. They were not supervised.

Ivan made his way to the corner of the room. Alek followed him, and the two slumped down against the wooden walls and settled in to wait. Both were more tired than they were frightened. Perhaps the gravity of their situation had not yet sunk in. Perhaps they had simply come to terms with it. Regardless, they awaited more the coming of sleep than their eventual fate.

However, as it happened they were denied respite for their exhaustion. The man who had been staring at Ivan in the truck was now in conversation with a tall, bearded man, and after a few moments, the two came over, and stood over the cousins. Ivan looked up with uninterested eyes.

“Him?” asked the bearded man in Alberian.

“Both,” replied the other.

“You’re sure?”

“I saw it with my own eyes.”

Both of their faces were grim, but there was no malicious intent evident in their eyes. Alek’s back straightened as they squatted down before them. The bearded man looked both Ivan and Alek in the eyes before speaking.

“My friend here says he saw you in Port Likiev, two days ago.”

Alek glanced over at Ivan, his eyes searching for a reply.

“He must be mistaken,” mumbled Ivan, turning his eyes downward.

“No. He is fairly certain. This man is not a liar.”

Alek was getting visibly uncomfortable.

“I’ve never seen him,” Ivan said, eyes still turned downwards.

“That’s not what I said,” replied the bearded man. “I said he saw you.”

Ivan looked up now, and met the eyes of his interrogator. He looked over at the other man, as if searching for recognition, before turning back to the bearded man.

“No. I don’t know him.”

The bearded man and his companion stood up. Then, violently, he bent down and grabbed Ivan by the collar of his coat, and lifted him up, drawing the stares of a few other prisoners. The man leaned in close.

“You don’t know me, so I can forgive you for not knowing better than to lie to me. However, my forgiveness, like my patience, has its limits.”

Ivan squinted against the spit coming from the man’s mouth, inches from his own face. Alek was on his feet by now, deciding whether to attack the man or his compatriot. A glare from the bearded man, however, prompted restraint in him. Turning back to Ivan, he again addressed him.

“Now, tell me. What were you doing in Port Likiev two days ago?”

The bearded man’s companion, who was a skinny man with an ugly face and a jutting jaw leaned in now, and spoke. His voice was a wet grinding, and carried with it as much spittle as that of his companion.

“It was about the same time as the bombing, yes? Do you know what I am talking about?”

Ivan was silent. His feet were leaving the ground. The skinny man slapped him across the face and leaned in closer.

“Answer us. Why were you there?”

Ivan could tell he was about to snap. He wished he could answer them, and return his feet to the floor, but he simply did not know what to say.

The bearded man growled.

“You’ve tried my patience enough. One last chance.”

Ivan saw the glint of a small blade in the skinny man’s hand from the corner of his eye, and felt its tip press gently against his wrist.

“Why we-“

An explosion outside sent everyone stumbling, scurrying back and forth, clutching their ears, or seeking shelter in the shelterless room. Ivan was thrown to the ground. From his position on the floor he saw Alek jump back to his feet and drive, with the accompaniment of a sickening crack, his heel into the throat of the beard. Before he could process what was happening, he was being dragged to his feet, and his cousin was ushering him towards the far wall, away from the door.

The popping outside, it occurred to Ivan, was separate from the ringing in his ears, and was in fact the sound of gunfire. A second explosion filled the room with smoke and flame, and in the chaos, Ivan was shoved into the middle of it by Alek.

He found himself in the middle of a large room, near the door to the yard outside. He could see soldiers rushing about, firing now and then at figures darting back and forth behind trucks and rubble. Alek dragged him down behind a desk. He watched as a soldier was riddled with bullets and collapsed in the doorway. In a moment, a silhouetted figure was standing over him, weapon leveled.

Ivan and Alek slowly stood up, hands raised. The figure stepped into the light, and instantly Ivan recognized her. The blond hair, and the long legs that nothing could disguise. He had seen her carried away, seen her later in his dreams, and now she was lowering her weapon.

“Don’t worry. The Alberian People’s Liberation Army is here to free you.”

Ivan was dazed. Alek looked over towards him, then to the door from where they had come. Stumbling out, choking on the smoke and blinded was the skinny man. As he stepped into full view, it was clear that his shirt was soaked in blood. The woman, a look of shock on her eyes, rushed over to his side. Setting her weapon down, she helped him to a sitting position. There was a long gash across the side of his neck. In his hand was the knife from before, covered in his own blood accidentally.

“Sergei!”

He looked up at her, pleading for respite or release, and then at the two men. His eyes settled on Ivan and he raised the knife as if accusing him, but before he could utter a sound, his arm fell limp, and he was dead.

The woman stood up slowly, her face stern at the grotesque site. She turned back to Alek and Ivan, and picked up her weapon.

“You’d better hurry. We blew a hole in the west gate. It’s right out there. Get out before more troops show up.”

Not wanting to waste time, they were out the door, Ivan taking one more look at his blond liberator.

The floodlights outside had been shout out and most of the world was plunged into darkness, save for the sporadic muzzle flashes marking the positions of Imperial soldiers and their attackers, indistinguishable in the shroud. As promised, the wrought iron gate had been blown off, and the two Alberians rushed through. Ivan took a look back, and saw flames beginning to lick at the roof of the first longhouse, and at the windows of one of the smaller buildings.

He turned back and saw in front of him the fast approaching tree line, and salvation. With all of his remaining strength, he ran, Alek beside him. They were nearly into the cover of the forest when Ivan heard the air crack by his ear, sensing a bullet whizzing past. He dove for the trees, and covered his head. When he turned over and looked back, he could see his cousin lying motionless on the ground. In the distance a silhouette lowered its rifle, and turned to walk away. An instant later, the explosion of a grenade blew it away into the smoke, and Ivan was alone.

"Brother and brother, two icebergs, each envying the other..."
-"Samarians", a Kregaian poem

Full of hatred for each and every Generian son of a bitch, Lord Volscian gingerly prodded his jaw, where he'd received a powerful blow after being grabbed by every lowlife in the bar outside which he now stood. He'd been hurled unceremoniously outside into the snow; a humiliating experience for Volscian. His family was ancient, he had enough money to buy the entirety of East Kroviev, and if this had been in Kregaia, the Imperial Guard would be here within hours, arresting the inhabitants and killing those who resisted.

He strode through the falling snow, through the alley onto a side street of the town, all Kregaia's centuries of pride holding his head high despite the bruise swelling into life on his jaw. Bar rats, he thought, fiends and heathens who would spend eternity screaming for deliverance from the awful truth of the Nine Hells. Volscian contented himself meditating on the torments awaiting them; they would be sent to the Fourth Hell, of course, reserved for the infidels, ruled over by the sadistic specter of Moloch, the Prince of Cruelty. And when Volscian bowed before the gods himself, he would look down upon the fools from the halls of paradise.

He needed a place to stay. Striding up the steps of the nearest house, he pounded on the door, reaching for his wallet. After perhaps fifteen seconds, the door opened a crack and an eye peered through cautiously.

"Yes?"

Volscian pulled out two hundred genera, the Generian currency, and waved them in front of the eye. "I need a place to stay tonight. I'll pay you well for it."

The door swung open, revealing an old man dressed in a nightgown, whose hair was pure white but whose eyes still sparkled with a keen intelligence. He smiled and waved the money away. "I haven't got long, son. Two hundred isn't going to save me from that. Come in," he said, motioning impatiently, "I don't want to stand in the cold any more than you do. Come on in." Volscian's nostrils flared a bit at entering such a...plebeian home, but it would do for the night until he could continue his tour through Alberia.

"Coffee?"

"Excuse me?"

"Coffee. Would you like some?"

Volscian's lips thinned in irritation. "No. No thank you."

The old man shuffled into his living room, glancing at the battered television he had sitting on a table. Noticing that Volscian was looking around distastefully, he cackled, "Not what you're used to, eh? You're Kregaian. I can tell. Spent a lot of time there, years and years ago, and I know the look you people have."

"'You people'?" Lord Volscian replied, a note of anger sounding in his voice. "What does that mean?"

The old man laughed again. "Sit down, young man. Sit down. All your money, lineage, faith, and hatred shouldn't stop you listening to the ramblings of a mad old man. Indulge me. Have a seat and let me tell you a few things about Kregaia..."

Intrigued in spite of himself, the aristocrat settled down in another chair, his intense gaze boring into that of the old Generian and there meeting its match. A worthy old man, this he thought, and listened.

"Kregaia has...problems," the old man began, sipping his coffee. "In Generia we call it the ugly stepchild of the CAD. For a lot of reasons...nobody likes you overseas, to be honest with you. The Doomani might...they'd understand you; they're the only culture as crazy as you in, well, in the world." Volscian scowled; what this old fool called 'crazy' had made the Imperium a world power centuries ago.

"Let's start with your society. You've got a nobility consisting of impossibly rich semi-relatives of the emperor; you've got billions of commoners who, for the most part, do fairly well for themselves...however, suddenly the Inquisition swoops in and purges a whole neighborhood because somebody was a closet Christian. Or you sleep with a lord's wife by mistake and get executed. And strangely, all the people just ignore this; even the nicest Kregaians will just shake their heads sadly and say, 'Well, they had it coming.' Your entire nation is a marvel of indoctrination. The people are just about left to themselves, although you watch them like hawks, but if they put a toe out of line, you swoop down and make an example...and they don't mind. They'll keep paying their taxes and praying to all the right gods, even though you just executed their brother, because they feel like it's the right thing to do.

"And yet, your people are so tormented. They won't admit it to themselves, and your Imperium controls it adequately that it doesn't burst into revolution every year, but it's there. Wonder why you have the Ministry of Pleasure? Why the arenas, the brothels, the games? Why people get so full of hatred for whomever you're at war with? It's because that psychological damage that you by repressing them has to go somewhere, and psychology in Kregaia is limited to the rich. So you channel it into bread and circuses, and war as well. And so you have an omnipresent government that, if it wants to, can close its hand and do whatever it wants to its citizens, who will still remain happy because you've reoriented their concept of right and wrong to: 'The Imperium is always, always right.' You control your citizenry utterly, in a way that the Kraven Corporation or Generia or even Automagfreek could ever dream of."

The old man wheezed with laughter, lighting a cigarette and puffing on it, while Volscian, in spite of himself, listened intently.

"How about your religion? Pure poison. It's-"

"Excuse me!" Volscian barked. "That is a deadly insult-"

"Whoever you are, I can't stop you from killing me. You're a strong-looking man, and I've not got much life left in these old bones. But tell me: how honorable would it be to murder an old man, who'd offered you sanctuary, who couldn't defend himself, all because you couldn't handle the fact that he questioned your religion?"

And to this, Lord Volscian had no answer.

"All right. Like I said, your religion is pretty twisted. At the very least, it justifies the execution of countless prisoners that you'd have to support otherwise. But that's not the real reason it's there. Seventeen centuries ago, when Typhon founded the Imperium, he denied the Roman gods and set up the 'Seven True Gods'. Your little pantheon. And why do you think he did that? For starters, the myth about Typhon ascending to heaven and becoming the seventh god gives divine authority to all his successors. As does the presence of any gods at all; seventeen centuries ago, one of you told the people he had divine power, and they bought it. Since then, you haven't dropped that claim, and it keeps your emperors propped up in the Iron Throne.

"But do you know what else it does? It justifies your lust for war; it charges your warriors with holy rage before they go into battle, which incidentally is one of the main reasons why you've never lost a war. Shame about that; you'd all be a lot more easy to get along with if you lost that 'we're invincible' attitude...where was I? Yes. War. Look at the names of your gods, to begin with. The Destroyer. The Torturer. The Dragon. Hardly names for champions of peace, hmm? The Imperium is built around war, without war it will collapse into heresy and strife, and this pantheon gives you an excuse to be conquering, conquering, conquering. All in all it's rather unstable; if you stop conquering, your people will lose their outlet for all that repressed anger, and they'll rebel; if you lose a war, your people will be shocked and weak. It's quite a game, young man, and the Imperium can't keep it up forever.

"There's one last thing. The Sacred Emperor. The position of absolute strength in the Imperium. I understand that the Imperium basically runs itself until he says different, right? The Ministries do their jobs, and every day the Inner Court meets, gives the emperor the info he needs, then waits for any special commands. But you'll notice, young man, that if you look at the emperors that have done 'well' (that is, hated democracy, ruled absolutely, and slaughtered infidels wherever they found them), pretty much all of them are insane? All different kinds of psychosis, but the symptoms are pretty similar. I like to call it "Emperor's Syndrome". Schizophrenia, psychosis, massive anger management issues, bipolar disorder, paranoia...this combines with the cultural hatred of, well, everything, and often genius-level intelligence. Your Sacred Emperor Lucifer is a classic example. Brilliant politician and tactician, sadistic, looks like he's got multiple personalities...he doesn't have long, believe me. Point is, the Kregaian Sacred Emperor is a whole new archetype, one which poses more of a threat to civilization than any other individual or government on the planet.

"Whew..." the old man sighed, taking a long drag on his cigarette. "If I can summarize, here, your government indoctrinates its citizens at an early age and represses them ruthlessly; consciously, they don't mind and support the government, but subconsciously they are boiling with hatred, so you give that hatred an outlet through sex, violence, and war. They justify the repression and the war through religion, and your leaders are most powerful when they're insane and violent...and that's about the size of it." Cackling, the old man watched Volscian as he puffed.

The Kregaian sat, stunned, as he pored over the barrage of ideas. Ideas that were powerful, were revolutionary...were true.

“Is that her?” asked Ilek, as he dropped a cigarette under his heel. Behind the window, in a cell-like room with a single chair and desk, sat a young woman. She was looking straight at him, but could not see his face. Kristijan nodded in reply.

“She’s young.”

“22. As old as any of the new SPI recruits.”

“Still young.”

Ilek studied her features. She was beautiful. The Ismerian kidnappers had picked her for her tan skin and long dark hair, still mesmerizing now after a few years in the services.

“Well, Ilek?”

He nodded as he reached into his pocket for another cigarette.

“I’ll train her.”

Kristijan smiled.

“Let’s go meet her then.”

He opened the door to the cell. Ilek took a last look through the window, before he followed Kristijan inside.

Fin, part 2