NationStates Jolt Archive


DNN Special Series: A Day in the Life of a Vanguard

Damford
14-08-2008, 03:11
OOC: Feel free to have other news networks, governments, web ratings websites or whatever comment. If you want a part, feel free to ask, but I'm not sure if there's going to be any parts available.

IC:
Damford News Network Regional Headquarters
Intorino
Damford

Janice Burnside walked down the florescent-lit hallway towards the conference room, where the daily briefs were held for the higher-ups in the Network. She had blond hair pulled back into a business-like ponytail, and a dark blue pantsuit complimented her ocean-blue eyes. She wore low-profile heels and no wedding band graced her flawless hand. It was clear that she was a career woman; any sort of romance that had accidentally come her way she had shunned; she told herself that it was for the best of the romantic interest, whom she surmised she would have no time for. The truth was - and she might have known this, deep down - she just didn't have the interest in love that she'd had as a teenager. Not anymore.

But all of this never even crossed her mind as she opened the brushed-aluminum handle to the faux-wood door, and stepped into the conference room, flooded by the morning sun streaming through the window. It cast shadows against the wall, turning inverted Styrofoam coffee cups into monolithic, quarter-finished pyramids.

She took her accustomed seat on the side of the good-sized table. She waited patiently for the last two reporters to arrive, upon whose entrance morning briefs were passed around. Her Regional Station Chief, a Chip Drysdale (Janice considered this the quintessential reporter's name), yawned and stretched at the head of the table, and began running through today's news.

Janice took a quick scan of the dossier while he was talking (she felt he read too slow). Nothing on the first page particularly jumped out at her, save an allegation of human trafficking against a local politician. She filed that one away for later. When she turned the page, however, she was visibly surprised.

The title for the first story of the second page was proclaimed in big, bold letters. Undercover in Port Valt - An Expose on Damfordine Fish Poaching. Under it, instead of the usual line proclaiming the story open to the first taker, read Assigned: Janice Burnside. She looked up at Drysdale, who was still droning on about the slave trader. Janice wasn't sure what to make of this story - her naturally inquisitive mind wanted to interrupt him and ask since when stories were assigned to specific reporters, and why he hated her so much that he would give her such a pedestrian one. But professional courtesy had gotten her this far - she could wait. And so she did, even when Drysdale completely skipped the item in question, earning him several more inquisitive stares.

The Station Chief finished the dossier and dismissed the meeting. "Janice," he said, as they all pushed their chairs in, "I gotta talk to you about that story."

She was expecting this. Chip waited for the room to clear before closing the door. "So, yeah, I got notice from New Pre that you were to have this one. Funny thing is, they didn't come to us, which is usually the case with these things. To be perfectly blunt, we didn't go to them either," he said, shifting his feet minutely and flicking his gaze up to the ceiling. "The only people who are really going to know about this are you, me, and some guys up there," he gestured in the relative direction of New Pre, the location of the DNN headquarters and capital of Damford. When he failed to elaborate further, Janice spoke.

"To be honest, Chip, I don't know what's so earth-shaking about fish poaching. What exactly are you telling me to do?"

Chip's lips formed a tight line, and he looked away as if thinking for a moment. He made a barely perceptive nod of his head, as if he had decided something of grave importance. "This isn't about fish poaching. This is much bigger than that."

Janice raised an eyebrow, inviting Chip to explain more.

"It's like this. We've been getting leads - here and there, this and that - for months about some weird stuff going on in the DDF-"

"The Damfordine Defense Forces? What does the army have to do with fish?" interrupted Janice.

"I told you, this isn't about fish. This has nothing to do with fish. Like, whatsoever. You're going to enlist in the army."

Janice couldn't help but laugh outright. Her, a career newswoman, with her name probably recognized around South Damford, enlisting in the army? She thought for a second maybe this was Chip's sick way of firing her, but he seemed serious.

Chip continued. "There's been rumbings - everything from light stuff like hazing, excessive punishments and the like, to real serious crap. I'm talking training missions that target Damfordine citizens. Executions of foreign drug runners. Rendition."

Now it was Janice's turn to look at the wall. She knew what was coming next.

"So, in effect, you're going to find out if any of this crap is true," Chip finished.

"But people know me, Chip. I'm not exactly Jane Nobody from Donshaltsburg. I'd stick out like a sore thumb in the Army. I'm not a soldier - a Vanguard." she furnished, using the name for soldiers of the DDF.

"They know Janice Burnside," Chip replied, smiling now. "But they don't know Grace Stevensdottir." He pulled a file from his briefcase and handed it to Janice. It contained several items. Among them were a birth certificate, passport, and Government ID for a Grace Stevensdottir. Also included was a picture of a woman who looked strikingly like Janice, albeit a bit less well-kept. Her dirty blonde hair was strewn across her face. There were dark circles below her deep blue eyes. Janice could put her back together, given a few hundred dollars and a day in Downtown Intorino.

"So what's..." she looked at the papers again, "...Ms. Stevensdottir going to do while I'm being her?" She looked patronizingly at Chip.

His reply came bluntly, and nonchalantly. "She died two days ago in Donshaltsburg General. Brain aneurysm. They seem to sneak up on people like that. I have a friend in the morgue. Her body's gone, and there's no record of her."

"Who was she?"

"A day laborer. It's Donshaltsburg - not exactly Midtown New Pre."

"What about her family? Husband? Friends? Someone's got to ask about her."

"She just immigrated. No family, no ties. Just an incredible resemblance to you."

Janice looked at the photo again. Yes, the similarity was striking. Very much so.

"So are you going to do this?" prompted Chip. "You're under no obligation to. It's just a pain in the ass to have to do all this shit again."

Janice thought for a moment. Her reply was faraway, in a voice she didn't recognize as her own. "Yeah. Yeah, I'll do it."
Damford
14-08-2008, 04:23
Recruiting Office
North Donshaltsburg Military Training Base
Donshaltsburg Area
Damford

Grace Stevensdottir (read: Janice Burnside) picked up her cloth sack and walked to the front of the bus. She was aware of several sets of eyes catching quick glimpses of her backside. This failed to bother her anymore - such was her dedication to her job. Normally, she would have been either flattered or made very uncomfortable. Now, it was just another fact of life.

She stepped off the bus and pulled up her jeans slightly. She shook her newly-dyed hair out, allowing it to fall askew on her face. She wasn't made up, but then again she wasn't dirty. She had the look of a determined person, one who was dead set on improving her position in the class struggle. She had the look of the immigrant.

She flashed her ID card to the guard at the gate, who waved her through without a second thought. She made a mental note of that. Janice had read her papers a bit more throughly before arriving here - her papers showed that she was a naturalized Damfordine citizen, and a widow. Chip's rationale had been that people rarely ask questions of a widow. Janice thought it would be hard to fake, but the damage was done. She strode down the sidewalk in the base, taking in the surroundings and the trimmings. A Damfordine flag flew high over what she assumed was the administration building. A squad of camouflage-clad soldiers drilled in a parking lot. A huge flatbed truck transported a massive war machine (she would later identify it as a Nakil-1 Main Battle Tank) to places unknown.

She suddenly realized that it was a very hot day. Janice unzipped her faded Donshaltsburg Chargers Basketball hoodie. Seeing a sign for Recruitment posted in the grass next to the sidewalk, she shortly arrived at a low-slung, unassuming building and pushed open the door.

The first thing that greeted her was a welcome blast of cool air, rushing over her body and re-aligning her senses. The next thing was a conspicuous absence of any recruits in the waiting area. The chairs were numerous and mildly comfortable-looking, but the prospective occupants seemed to have been warned of their implications. Janice strode up to the glass registration window. A lithe black woman in camouflage was absent-mindedly playing Solitaire on a computer. Janice tapped the glass, and the woman looked up, a bit embarrassed.

"Hi, I'm sorry, can I help you?" said the woman, sliding open the window and smiling.

Janice smiled back. "Well, um," she looked up at the ceiling for a moment. "I'd like to join the Army."

The woman was only mildly surprised. "Well, that's excellent to hear. Why don't you come on back-" she got up and opened the door next to the window "-and we'll get you started?"

Janice walked over to the door and followed the woman, who introduced herself as Staff Sergeant Delores Graves, down the hallway into a separate, sparsely furnished room. The sergeant withdrew a few sheets of paper from a file cabinet, and sat down behind a desk. Janice took a seat on the opposite side. She laid her papers on the desk - a foreign birth certificate, Damfordine passport, and immigration documentation (identifying her as a naturalized citizen). Graves entered the applicable information into a computer. After a series of 'Mhm's and 'Yup's, she handed Janice a double-sided sheet of paper. On it was the title, Military Profession Aptitude Battery.

"This is your MPAR," explained the sergeant.

Janice already knew the answers.
Damford
18-08-2008, 00:32
Recruiting Office
North Donshaltsburg Military Training Base
Donshaltsburg Area
Damford

"Well, shit," said the Sergeant after Janice had completed the test, and she had pulled up the results on the computer.

"What?" asked Janice, a bit too quickly - with just the hint of a falter in her voice. Did she forget something? Did she not forget something, and did the Sergeant regard this as suspicious in and of itself? Had she been found out?

The Sergeant eyed her for a second, looking her up and down. Janice felt immediately self-conscious, and tucked her hair behind an ear. Immediately, she admonished herself. This had been a nervous tic of her former (was it really former?) life. The Sergeant wrinkled her nose at this too.

There's something wrong. There is something definitely not right about you, thought Graves. Nevertheless, it wasn't in her job description to question the computer (a situation she found deplorable) so she handed the results over to whom she presumed to be Grace.


PROPERTY OF THE DAMFORDINE DEFENSE FORCES
OFFICE OF RECRUITMENT
MILITARY PROFESSION APTITUDE BATTERY
BATCH 01-8814C
RESULTS

Name: GRACE STEVENSDOTTIR
Sex: F
Age: 27

Aptitudes:


Physical: 092
Mental: 104
Comfort: 006
Culinary: 040
Medical: 089
Combat: 101
Tactical: 092
Strategic: 093
Clerical: 012

The above document 'DOCUMENT' is property of solely the Republic of Damford government. DOCUMENT may not be copied or reproduced in any way, aurally, videographically, photographically, or otherwise. Any unauthorized reproduction of DOCUMENT without the express permission of the Republic of Damford's ruling bodies.


"You have two areas that are unscorable," said Graves, pointing out the two areas that were above 100. She eyed Grace again, with an eyebrow raised, clearly conveying her disbelief of the results. How could such a wisp of a girl have returned these results?

"So... what does this mean?" asked Grace (Janice had begun to think of herself in this alter-ego), slowly, feigning incomprehension.

"Basically, in human speak, you've got the run of what you want to go into. Of course," the Sergeant tapped out some keystrokes, "I'm to suggest... oh, well, I'm not to suggest anything. You were unscorable in two areas, so you don't have a choice. It's a shame, really, you're obligated now to join the Vanguard Elite."

"Obligated? And what's a Vanguard Elite?"

"By law..." started the sergeant, making further manipulations of her keyboard, "you are 'held by the Damfordine government to train in the Vanguard Elite military program, at the termination of which you will either be selected a Vanguard Elite or honorably discharged from the Damfordine Defense Forces. Refusal to be trained in the Vanguard Elite program will result in a court martial, with a mandatory minimum sentence of six months in a military detention center.'"

"Wait, how the hell can they court martial me? I'm not even in the army yet!" replied Grace. The panic was only half-acting now. Janice had no idea of this law when she had accepted the assignment.

"Actually, you are. You were registered before you started the test."

Grace sat back in her chair and exhaled. She held her hands in her lap. She looked at them, but they didn't offer her answers. They were silent. Her tools of journalism, and, if she went along with this, of death.

"I kind of need an answer," said the sergeant. On her screen, a slowly blinking red button winked incessantly at her. It would call the MPs, provided this Grace refused the job.

I have to put this in the story, thought Janice.

"Where do I go?"