The Second Take

“Is Assmachestan responsible for the recent activity in LusciousLocks and Styx and are you an Assmachestani agent?”

[…]

“Yes.”

All very ironic considering in just over a week the nilbmahian army would frame Foggistan as the culprit and two-thirds of the countries in the multinational force would declare war on apparently the wrong nation. But jacob didn’t know this. But the magistrate probably did.

“I trust that you, mr. martin, are bright enough to see through the phantom Assmachestan cast by the Foggistani propaganda in the myths of Planet Breckinridge. Unfortunately, most are not so perceptive. Anyways, you’ll be finding more about Assmachestan regardless of what I tell you so I’ll just leave that to you. And I trust I don’t need to detail your suffering if you let this slip. Good night mr. martin.”

It was a huge break through for jacob. He left the corrison hotel and returned home at 3:27 am to celebrate with a bottle of scotch. Sure, Assmachestan was an enigma but now, finally now, he knew what puzzle he was trying to unravel. Where was his friend winfry when he needed him?

_______________________________________________________

elizabeth wasn’t sure what to think anymore but that didn’t stop her from thinking. The news of the atrocity of Lokton shocked her just as much as the rest of the world. Foggistan really did seem to be caught red-handed this time but they denied responsibility so vehemently that it would be foolish if they really were behind the massacre. But maybe that was exactly the game they were playing. Foggistan screamed foul play, with hints of almost pleading unnatural for the superpower. They refused to acknowledge any of the declarations of war made against them and they argued that only a terrorist group would have the motivation for the recent events in LusciousLocks and the moon of Styx. And that’s what kept the jury out for elizabeth: why would Foggistan siege LusciousLocks? What was in it for them? And why LusciousLocks? Surely this wasn’t the smoothest way to increased power in Coralende. And the other nations of Coralende, even with their secret services working overtime, must have been just as confused as she was because no nation had shot more than words against Foggistan. It was a dramatic stand still between the block bully and handful of smaller kids. A few others, like nilbmah, watched from on top the fence.

Whatever was going on in LusciousLocks was certainly connected somehow to the recent events in nilbmah. elizabeth was almost sure of it. So it was good that the blood-shed restriction prevented nilbmah from declaring war until the restriction got repealed. At least, probably it was.

That was her problem. All this confusion had thrown her resistance movement into an existential crisis. Before, with the censorship and the curfew and everything, it seemed so obvious that the people of nilbmah were being had. But now, now with the news from Lockton and that accursed mr. martin and his wretched propaganda press, the whole nation seemed so united and fervent. It had been decades if not centuries since nilbmah had such drive. It was harder to see how resistance to this renewed enthusiasm would help her nation. And what if Foggistan really was making a grab for Coralende? Then, heave forbid, she would be on the wrong side! So in spite of herself, elizabeth got picked up by the current of nationalism. For two and a fourth days she did nothing related to the resistance, which for a type A-for-always-getting-things-done personality like elizabeth was a diagnosis for clinical depression. Then she found out about isabel englewood.

But elizabeth wasn’t thinking about all that at the moment. How could she? Just then she was fighting claustrophobia as she crawling through an airtight air vent in the nilbmah military base. And worst of all she was 1 minute and 42 seconds off schedule.

The information from the drives stolen from the palace of the politburo allowed the resistance, which had begun to condense around elizabeth, to pinpoint where to steal weapons. This was their first theft and the explosives from this job would help them acquire even greater supplies in the future. There was a lot riding on this unicycle, which made the 1 minute and 42 seconds all the more distressing.

After a week of monitoring the facility, the plan was as follows: Two members of the resistance, equipped with uniforms and forged basic access badges, would enter the building during the morning rush hour. They would then spend the morning walking to and from different bathrooms until 11:45 am. Then alexi marden would enter the office of jackalin gifner, a senior officer of programming who was scheduled to be on vacation. From ms. gifner’s computer, alexi would access the inventory records and add 2 more cases of self-launching thermo-detonators to last Tuesday’s training module. And then at 11:47 am when the 4th, 5th, and 6th regiments had completely transitioned to lunch and would have no business in the ward III armory, susan mart would remove 2 cases of self-launching thermo-detonators and slide them into the room’s northern air vent. Then later that night, at 8:30 pm, elizabeth would enter the facility with the night cleaning staff, go to the ladies’ room and enter the air vents, which were mapped out in the blueprints they found on the drives from the palace. She would have 30 minutes to get the detonators and climb through the vents to the roof. At 9:15 pm, when the base’s magno-illius reactor began to recycle, an illius disk that was “carelessly” left unlocked by one of the technicians, susan mart, would shut down all secondary power (including all lights). This would black out the entire facility for 1 minute while the emergency secondary power booted up. This minute of darkness would be enough time for elizabeth to jump off the 9 story roof with a recreation glider and sail over the fence into the nearby brush without being caught by the sentinel towers. But if she were just a minute late or even worse 1 minute and 42 seconds late, by the time she got on the roof the lights would be back on.

She already had the detonators. And they were actually much lighter than she expected. She could make up the time. She just needed to stay calm. Breath, slowly.

She had lost time while tying the cases to her leg so that she could drag them along behind her as she crawled through the air vents. Tying knots around both cases with only three slivers of light and zero elbow room gulped up more time than she anticipated.

She was making up the time though. After 10 minutes of crawling, her body had figured out how to move in such cramped quarters without constantly jabbing itself and the walls. She was in the final stretch to the roof. All she had to do was climb two flights up through the air shaft. It was actually easier than it seemed because she just had to push her back into one side with her feet on the other and then vertical-walk herself up to the top. She had practice with similar shafts in the mobile 9 building and she was good. Even with the extra weight of the cases she was flying up the shaft. Finally her heart rate began to let up. She was almost at the top and she was back on schedule.

With only a half a floor left to climb, her shirt, which she used to slide her back up the metal walls, became un-tucked and her soft, lightly perspiring skin stuck her back to metal, jamming the brakes on her climb.

It was ok. Stay calm. Breath. All she had to do was slip her shirt back down and she was going to be fine. She still had time. She was going to be fine. She was just pulling her shirt back down. Easy. She was plummeting down the shaft!

Her gut jumped out of her mouth and she slammed her feet against the shaft braking her fall with the skin of her back. She had only fallen about 8 meters but her nerves were shaken.

She had lost her legs to a wobble. She could hear her heart kick-drum in her arteries. She was losing time. She was panicking.

After 32 seconds, She finally began to pull herself together and back up the shaft. But she slipped again. Only about 20 centimeters but enough to give her nerves another shake.

She took it slower this time. Her legs steadied out. Her drummer settled down. Her head knocked into the cap of the roof vent. She was there. She had made it!

She was 2 minutes and 19 seconds late. Shit! And elizabeth didn’t curse.

During the fall, elizabeth had forgotten about time but before she opened the cap and exposed herself to security, she check. What should she do? Plan B was to go back to the bathroom and sneak the cases out in a cleaning truck but that would require a lot of sweet talking to get past security. It could work but it was dangerous. Very dangerous. Even if it did work, she would be on the security tapes and her secret identity would be as good as gone. She decided to check out the roof. Maybe the emergency power was slower than they thought.

She opened the cap to darkness. The lights were still off! For then. She didn’t know how much time she had. The lights could flash on in any second. She quickly climbed out of the vent, pulled up the cases and sprung the glider out of its storage tube. All the while, she was ready to jump back into the shaft in case the lights came one. She was almost ready. She just had to fasten into the glider and strap the cases to her back. But once she got in the glider it would be much harder to hide if the lights came back on. Did she have time? Her drummer was back at allegro. She decided to jump.

Getting in the glider was easy. But strapping on the cases, while weaving through all the glider’s poles, was a challenge. She needed to go faster. The lights would be on any second. She had the first case attached. Faster!

She got the second case on. There was no time for fear of heights now. She 9 stories high but she had to turn her brain off. The tanks on the ground looked so small it was nauseating. Her head started to spin. Turn it off!

Running across the roof in the glider with two cases of detonators was terribly awkward. It was like, elizabeth imagined, running while 8 months pregnant. Oddly enough, that thought, in the middle off all that crazy, turned off her brain to the 100 meter drop and the lights that might turn on and she soared. She soared off the roof and over the fence and into the brush and the lights remained out.

She got lucky, too lucky.

After delivering the detonators to a hidden storage space, she returned home at 11:36 pm, made a shot of espresso, massaged lotion onto her metal-burned back and began working on the isabel englewood article. jacob martin wasn’t going to get away that easy.

Uncertainty

Jessica Bangs was sitting at her new desk, in the typically cold and stale offices of another Foggistani outpost in Econometric Elation. These were the temporary quarters of the Physiological Engineering and Improvement Program—but the program was on hold until further investigation could be conducted into the cause of the explosion at the original headquarters. Meanwhile, Jessica drummed her fingers impatiently on her desk.

She had just gotten off the phone. Peter was out of harm’s way for the time being, up in the Space Disk. As for Latvia, nobody knew of her whereabouts. Jessica had tried to have the message sent to her—the false message reporting Peter’s death—but had failed. Latvia wasn’t picking up her phone. And when Foggistani officials visited her house, they found the roof caved in. It looked like there had been an attack, but the only areas damaged were the old house’s roof and a strange old attic. Everything in the attic had been turned over, like someone was searching for something. Jessica had a pretty good idea what they were looking for, and she was also pretty sure they hadn’t found it. The investigation into the attack was still underway. The incident was kept under wraps. It wouldn’t be wise to have the media all over the disappearance of a widely-read political columnist.

Jessica pounded her fist on the desk—ran her fingers through her straight blonde hair. She needed to get the message to Latvia. Trying to contact Latvia through Estonia had been equally useless. Estonia’s apartment had also been attacked. Shattered glass everywhere—even fractures along the floor and wall. It was like there had been a miniature earthquake. Another situation to keep under wraps. This wasn’t Jessica’s job. She was a scientist. But had it not been for her, the wrong person might have found out about the two sisters’ disappearance. Now she had to make sure the whole deal was kept quiet. All three Starr sisters were missing. That was the sign of the beginning. Or so she had been told. And if it really was the beginning, then all the more reason for her to get in touch with Latvia, and fast.

She ransacked her brain for everything she knew. Anything that could prove useful. Without realizing it, Jessica was clawing her hair out. She had memorized the full history—spoken with everyone she needed to speak to—but she felt like parts of the story were still missing. Unless… Unless they had expected her to figure things out along the way. “Of course,” Jessica spat, pounding the desk again. That was typical of how they worked. Of how things worked. Knowing too much information was always a risk. Sometimes not knowing enough was precisely what was necessary to make things pan out the way they should.

Still, she would’ve liked a heads up. No one ever told her she’d have such trouble getting a stupid message across. But the balance of everything depended upon it. And the fact that Peter was up in space was proof that she had accomplished her mission. So why wasn’t she accomplishing her mission?

Or maybe she had accomplished the mission, without knowing it? Jessica thought back—tried to remember if she had told anyone. No. No she hadn’t. But if things were as they should be, then Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania were together in LusciousLocks. Which meant that their powers had received a supercharge. Which meant that the map-out was still underway.  

So then, had she missed her chance? Had she simply moved too late? She knew she wasn’t supposed to do this, but there was too much at stake. After all, maybe doing something she wasn’t supposed to do was all part of the plan anyway.

She picked up her untraceable phone and dialed another untraceable number. She raised the receiver to her ear. She waited. “Who is this?” came a man’s voice on the other end of the line.

“Jacob Martin, it’s Bangs. We need to talk.”     

Lokton

“We have to get out of here,” said Timoteo as soon as the three sisters were done hugging and crying.

Latvia looked around, still in awe at how she had somehow managed to freeze everything as far as the eye could see. “Don’t flatter yourself,” said Timoteo. “You didn’t do this all on your own.”

“How long will it last,” she asked him.

“Not long. We’re a large group of people.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” said Lithuania.

Timoteo’s expression was one of an adult with a stubborn child who insists on learning the rules of an overly complex game. “Right now, we are all suspended in a single moment in time And we’re… what, eleven people?”

Latvia continued to look around at her frozen surroundings. “Why does it matter how many people we are? Shouldn’t it matter how many people are frozen?

Timoteo shook his head. “The magical energy is being expended on keeping us active within a single instant in time, not on keeping everyone else trapped in it.”

Latvia furrowed her brows, while Estonia eyed Timoteo suspiciously. “How do you know how this all works?” she asked.

Timoteo turned to her impatiently. “There are all sorts of magic—different kinds of magic,” he said. “That doesn’t mean they don’t all abide by the same rules.”

“He’s got a lot of explaining to do,” said Lithuania. “First we think you’re against us—then suddenly you’re with us. Now you’re also magical, and we don’t even have a clue as to what your true history with LusciousLocks is.”

“There’s only so much I can tell you, at this point in time. Soon you’ll know everything I know. But so long as your perception of time remains linear, there are certain rules I must abide by if we wish things to turn out as they should.”

“What the hell is this guy talking about,” said Felix.

“I hate to interrupt,” said Winfry, looking warily at the world outside the magic wall, “But we’re in the middle of a battlefield. Shouldn’t we go… somewhere…”

“Safe?” finished Isa.

“Yes,” said Timoteo. “We’ll finish talking then. Estonia, you’re in charge of space. Get us out of here.”

Estonia looked at everyone around her, her expression blank. The quilaire-induced high was fading, but she still had an idea of what it was she had to do. She closed her eyes, focused, and soon enough everyone was enveloped in a bright flash of light.

An explosion of blue, and everyone reappeared in an abandoned town. In what appeared to be the town square.

“Where are we?” said Estonia. Felix and the four soldiers kept their guard up, shields activated and rifles at the ready. The town looked quaint; small houses, shops, a town square with cobbled roads and a fountain. But the darkness of LusciousLocks and the uncanny silence of the town tinged its quaintness with an eerie ghostliness. It was no longer cozy or inviting. It was cold, sinister and alien.

“This is Lokton,” said Timoteo, eyebrows arched as he scanned the abandoned surroundings. “Though it’s changed quite a bit since I last visited.”

“Any reason you brought us here?” Felix asked Estonia.

Estonia shook her head. “I didn’t even know this place existed.”

“Where’s Lokton?” said Latvia.

“Small town on the border of LusciusLocks and Nilbmah,” said Timoteo. “Cross that thick forest over there and you’ll eventually reach a Nilbmahian highway.”  

Everyone stared around for a few more seconds, then Felix and his soldiers lowered their guard. “I guess the obvious question is—where’d everybody go?” said Latvia.

“Same question goes for Green City and all its suburbs,” said Felix. “As far as I know, this is just another abandoned city in the vast, abandoned expanse of LusciousLocks.”

Lithuania felt exposed out in the middle of the plaza. “Have you guys noticed everything is really clean?” she asked.

Timoteo nodded. “It’s odd.” He began walking across the town square, and everyone else automatically followed.

Suddenly, Latvia shuddered. She felt as if cold water had spilled over every inch of her body, mixed with the sensation of being trapped in slow motion inside a thick black cloud.  

She collapsed.

Felix caught her before she could hit the floor. “Latvia!” he cried. Latvia eyes were glazed, her breathing rapid.

“Oh my God,” she said, breaking into a cold sweat. “Oh my God.”

“What’s wrong with her?” cried Estonia.  

“Timoteo!” said Lithuania, “What's going on?”

Timoteo just stared at Latvia as she shivered in Felix’s arms. “She doesn’t like what she sees,” he said.

Latvia’s eyes snapped back to normal. She was suddenly aware of everyone around her. “They all died!” she cried.

Winfry’s face went pale. He whispered something into Isa’s ear, to which Isa nodded. He pulled out the librem and scribbled something in.

“Who died?” said Lithuania.

Latvia looked around, as if she could suddenly see everything under a new light. Her eyes had a rather crazed look to them. “It’s why it’s so clean. They died—right here.”

Lithuania kneeled in front of her and gently wiped her bangs back. “Relax Latvia, we’re here. We’re all fine.”

Latvia’s eyes returned to normal, and she frowned at Lithuania before pulling herself up. “I’m not talking about us,” she said. “I’m talking about the people of this town.”

Timoteo narrowed his eyes. “Wait, you saw them die?”

Latvia nodded. “We need to get away from here. They all died right here. They were shot to death. I just felt their past life forces. Dozens of them.”

“Dozens,” said Timoteo. “So… everyone else…”

Latvia looked at the sky. “They were taken. I felt them leaving, the ones who didn’t die. I don’t know where…”

Timoteo looked perturbed. “That doesn’t make sense… Why would they kill…”   

“Alright Timoteo, you need to explain things, now,” Lithuania snapped. “Where you came from, why you returned, what drama happened between you and the LusciousLockian royality—the whole deal.”

“You don’t understand when I tell you I can only tell you so much, do you?” Timoteo spat. “Now shut up and be patient. I’ll tell you what I can, but not out here.”

“Nobody speak,” Isa interrupted. The urgency in her voice and the infrequency with which she spoke was enough to make everyone shut up and stand still. A second later, a woman was walking into the plaza, dressed in a sort of fabric that looked very much like black mist. Her features were sharp, her hair was black and pulled into a tight ponytail, and she walked with a grace and sensuality that suggested royalty—almost divinity.

“She can’t see us,” Winfry whispered. “Just stand still and perfectly quiet.”

The woman approached them, her black eyes carefully scanning the town plaza. She looked right in their direction without seeing them, then stood still. Winfry was blown away by her beauty—a rigid yet fluid, sharp yet smooth kind of beauty. He couldn’t quite explain it. In any case, she looked lethal. There was no doubt in his mind, judging by her expression, that she had killed in cold blood before. It was a good thing he had written invisibility x 11 in the librem.

The woman opened her palm like she was going to catch raindrops, and a medium-sized security microtape materialized in her hand. She smiled, looked around the plaza one more time, then disappeared into a brick building immediately adjacent to the plaza.

“Do you know who that is?” Estonia asked Timoteo.

Timoteo’s eyes had darkened, but he shook his head. “No. But I might have an idea.” The women returned from the building, looked at the sky, then vanished in a swirl of black mist. “Black magic,” Timoteo mumbled. “She is definitely not from LusciousLocks.”

After a few precautionary minutes of silence in case the woman returned, Timoteo said, “Follow me,” and led everyone into one of the abandoned buildings. “I will tell you everything I can.”

The Space Disk

Peter Pidgeons was up in a rocket ship before he had the chance to recover from his post-enhancement headache. “Jagesic needs you up in the space station now,” Jessica Bangs had told him. “It’s all he told me. Whatever it is, it’s highly confidential.” Peter had objected. He was still feeling wildly bizarre after the procedure—picking up emotions left and right, detecting the subtlest of nuances, catching whiffs of the most secret repressions—suffice to say, Jessica was now the only one who would speak to him at the Military Recovery Facility, and she was also the only one from whom Peter could detect no emotions whatsoever.

And so Peter was sent on a rocket ship to the Foggistani Space Station, also known as the Sky Disk, without being allowed so much as a call to Latvia. “I’ll let her know you’re OK,” said Jessica. “Don’t worry. Up in the Sky Disk you’ll receive all the training and treatment you need.” Then she looked him in the eye and said, “Trust me. You’ll be grateful for your enhancement. Now you’re truly gifted.” What bothered Peter was that he detected neither sincerity nor deceit in her voice.

Upon arrival at the Sky Disk, Peter was led to his solitary pod and told to await orders from Jagesic himself. Rather than eat at the common hall, food was brought to him directly. Whatever was going on, Jagesic wanted him to interact with as few people as possible. So Peter waited in his pod, reading Picking Up the Pieces, or What We Know of the Breckinridge Exodus on his digital FlipScreen, when without warning his pod door slid open and in came General Jagesic, unaccompanied.

Peter jumped into his military stance. “Admiral.”

“Evening, Captain Pidgeons.” Jagesic scanned the room with his infamous scrutinizing eye for a few seconds, then gave Peter a curt nod. “You’re tidy, Peter.”

Peter nodded. “Just arrived, sir.”

“I know.” Jagesic began pacing the tiny room, presumably thinking of what he was about to say. He began, “I presume you’re wondering why I’ve brought you here on such short notice.”

“I assume it has something to do with my enhancement, sir.”

“You remember I mentioned starting with you, in the Helo-Fleet, before moving on to enhancing our Psychics?”

“Yes sir.”

“How’re you feeling?”

“Well, normal right now.”

“So you’re not picking anything up from me?” Jagesic had a way of turning questions into assertions.

“No sir.”

Jagesic frowned. It was the first facial expression he made, and from it Peter sensed it was more a theatrical custom of Jagesic’s upon hearing negative news rather than an actual, genuine expression. “And that frown, sir, was not real.”

“Oh?” Jagesic’s eyes quivered ever so slightly as he suddenly stared hard at Peter. And the quiver said it all: Jagesic felt a hint of discomfort at the thought of Peter being able to read him.

“And my reading you perturbs you. Makes you feel invaded, sir.”

Jagesic’s discomfort then turned into surprise, almost delight, and he delivered a grave, hearty laugh. “Son, that enhancement sure is something, isn’t it.”

“It is something…” said Peter, “Though I’m not quite sure what.”

“How so?”

“Well, with you, I don’t feel overwhelmed. You’re very inexpressive, sir. But at the Recovery Facility… and depending on who I spoke with… I would sometimes feel overwhelmed. Like I was drowning in someone else’s emotions.”

Jagesic nodded. “You’ll learn to manage them, in due time. It’s why I’ve asked that you be kept isolated. Ms. Bangs has informed me of the risks of your enhancement, especially during this early stage. You’ll be treated and kept under strict observation while here. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Peter nodded. “So why did you summon me so suddenly to the Sky Disk, sir?”

“Why, because Maia Dameon is here, and she is the Psychic most suitable to observe and treat you.”

Jagesic was lying, and Peter felt it. “Excuse my forthrightness, sir, but I know you’re being disingenuous.”

Jagesic smiled. “Something tells me you’re going to be a double-edged sword, Peter. I admit it, I am not being perfectly honest at the moment, but I ask that you accept that, for now.”

“But I can’t help but wonder, sir… why else you’ve brought me up here?”

“Listen Peter. There’s only so much I consider wise to tell you.”

“I’ll take what I can get.”

Jagesic nodded. “Very well then.” He pulled the stainless steel seat from Peter’s desk and sat. “Remember I told you Maia Dameon could make no contact with the surface of Styx?” Peter nodded. “And how we think Styx is somehow blocking our communications with LusciousLocks?” Peter nodded again. “Well then, whatever their jamming technology is, it’s powerful. Not even our highest technology can overcome Psychic communication. These guys can.”

“These guys…?”

“We don’t know for sure who ‘these guys’ are. But they’ve invaded our moon and attacked our planet.”

“So any natural phenomena are completely off the table?”

“Our official stance, at least before the people of Foggistan and Coralende, is that it is a natural phenomenon. But anyone who knows better knows that that’s not true. Some sort of advanced technology there is causing this whole mess. We have reason to believe it might be AssMachenstan.”

“For real? Like, AssMachenstan of legend AssMachenstan?”

“Oh, they’d like you to think they’re nothing but a legend. But they’re real. Very real. And if they’re on Styx, we have much to be concerned about.” Jagesic’s expression darkened. Peter sensed he was remembering something. Something painful. But just as quickly as the memory came, it left, and Jagesic continued. “I’ll tell you everything I can tell you, in due time. For the time being, focus on training your enhanced abilities. Maia Dameon will guide you every step of the way.” And with that, Jagesic was done.

Peter frowned. He still didn’t understand why he was taken to the Space Disk so abruptly. He didn’t understand why he was not allowed contact with Latvia. But his biggest question was: where was the quilaire?

“Good night Peter,” said Jagesic. And with a nod, he left Peter’s pod. Peter looked at the gray carpet, feeling incomplete. Miffed. Like he’d only heard 10% of what he was supposed to hear. And he still had more questions than answers.

He sat on his bed, crossed his hands behind his head dropped onto his pillow. “Wall setting, transparent,” he said. The walls of his pod slowly shifted from cool chrome to transparent, leaving Peter on a floating bed in space, the stars gently swirling around him as the Space Disk rotated on its axis. The moon of Attica drifted above him, and drifted away. Then Styx came into sight, its mysterious black band growing wider, longer, every day resembling the slit-like pupil of a massive red eye.

Peter felt he’d be walking its surface soon. Sooner than expected.

Little did he know he was right.  

The Declarations

Something was wrong, music-has-stopped-in-a-horror-film wrong. nilbmah was at war with LusciousLocks.

It had almost been a week and the nilbmah scout troop had only just arrived at Lokton, a small town 20 miles from the nilbmah-LusciousLocks border. The peculiar dark mist that cloaked LusciousLocks kept the nilbmah military in the dark as to the activities within the nation. So they sent in spy planes that all mysteriously disappeared; everything appeared fine and then they lost radio contact never to hear from them again. So the army was sent in, but the recent and frankly supernatural exponential increase in the density of the forest had completely overtaken the road and the scout troop inched along.

________________________________________________________

nilbmah was still not at war, perhaps even farther from it now than ever. The magistrate was a knocked over hornets’ hive. But he only had himself to blame and he knew it which made him all the more enraged. Impatient with the political road blocks to war (even with 95% of the politburo in favor, the bureaucracy of repealing the requirement of blood shed for the declaration of war was time-gorging), the magistrate took the reigns and pulled his puppet president to call a referendum to enact a state of emergency, which would allow him to sidestep into war. Unfortunately for the magistrate, while he had nilbmahian politicians in his pocket, he did not hold the strings to the nilbmahian people.

________________________________________________________

The troop was small, 20 members, and apart from a nasty patch of hidden briars, their trip to Lokton had been uneventful, just slow. They essentially had to cut their way through the woods to get to the city and they didn’t even get a whiff of the beasts that welcomed isa and winfry to the woods. But what was waiting for them in Lokton was perhaps more terrifying.

________________________________________________________

In spite of their support for war, nilbmahians were skeptical of the state of emergency. Sure every nilbmahian in the 6th grade could tell you the state of emergency was the 1st amendment of the nilbmah constitution and that it probably saved the budding nation in its 3rd decade of existence. However, nilbmah’s pride towards the state of emergency during the plague of retro-virus HIL was a historic romanticism. They loved that their foreparents had done it but they would never do it now. While nilbmahs would give up their money and their labor to the government, they had grown too attached to their say in government actions to give that up. That was something the magistrate hadn’t quite understood. So even with the nilbmah post rooting for the state of emergency, only 26% of the population was fooled. The referendum was a flop and the magistrate was livid.

________________________________________________________

After being lumberjacks for five days it was slightly relieving to see Lokton appear behind a wall of trees, but it was also an anxiety spike. This was the first time that any nation (except for Foggistan but you couldn’t really trust those pretentious pricks) had contact with LusciousLocks since they went catatonic and the black mist seeped in. The plan was to scope out the town and find out what was going on. Before entering LusciousLocks, the bigwigs labored over how the troop should approach Lokton without being noticed and hide out until the rest of the nilbmah forces could arrive. The plan and the protocol kept the troops calm. It gave them an illusion of control which they were glad to grab hold of. However, their arrival at Lokton snatched the plan away and their background music came to an eerie halt.

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It was time for jacob to pounce. The magistrate had finally lost some of his footing opening him up for a jab. While the magistrate was terribly elusive, mr. martin, with all his ins and outs, could have easily been director of intelligence for the nis. Even so, he wasn’t able to dig up much. The magistrate owned or at least had private access to three condos, an apartment building and four hotel rooms (all of which were paid from banking accounts in landers name), but there was no evidence to suggest he resided at any of them. jacob suspected the magistrate didn’t sleep for days at a time but there wasn’t any evidence for that either. jacob had an extensive inventory of everything in all these places but nothing on the list was particularly useful. In spite of all this prying, his biggest lead came after he took a page out of his friend winfry winster’s book and visited the library.

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It was immediately apparent that Lokton was abandoned. And that shouldn’t have been so surprising in and of and by itself, but there were no signs that anyone had left except that no one was there. The hovercraft were still parked on the street, the public tram was still running on automatic schedule, the video boards were still touting the wonders of the new ArrowMae conditioner for “luscier locks”. But just to confirm the town was truly abandon, the troop spent the day watching the town like a herd of hawks. As every hour slipped past the troop with no sign of life, the questions buzzed in their ears like a wasp they couldn’t shake. How did the people leave without their hovercraft? Why would such eco-friendly people leave on the city power? Where did they go? Why would they go? Lokton was a ghost town and the questions were haunting them.

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Before winfry had gone into exile (jacob was sure his friend wouldn’t have stayed in nilbmah; he had too many foreign connections for that.), winfry and jacob had numerous conversations about the unusual occurrences around the world: the black band on Styx, the Foggistani fleet, the absurdity in LusciousLocks and nilbmah’s role in the mess. They both agreed this would be a turning point in history and that nilbmah, with the right guidance (their guidance), could possible wind its way to the top. But that was a long time ago and where was his friend now? Jumped ship with a hot chick. That’s where. But that wasn’t really the point. The point was that winfry told him that all the paranormal activity was very similar to some of the accounts of the fall of Breckinridge. A review of the history and myths sections in the library proved winfry correct. Why was jacob still upset about winfry leaving?

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The troop decided to spend another night in the woods and wait until morning to explore Lokton. The troop went off in groups of two to explore every street of the city. Except for a foreign emporium with excellent cejambastanian manistinis they didn’t find anything of interest until the afternoon when the troop met at the town’s southern square. After a half hour reporting what each pair found, one of the troop noticed it. Like the picture of the young lady that transforms into hag when you notice the necklace looks like a mouth, the plaza took on a new darkness when one of the troop commented on how surprisingly clean the plaza was. It must have cleaned right before the town left and not just a normal street cleaning but the deluxe-super-sparkle. But it was just the plaza and the road that led out of town that had been cleaned. All the other entrances were just as dusty as the rest of the city. What’s more, the shops on the southern side of the plaza had new windows. This was a bit suspicious and with nothing better to do the captain of the troop order a search of all the buildings around the plaza. When they found that all the March 23rd security tapes were missing in all of the shops around the plaza, the search became a full out criminal investigation. And that was when globe began to tip off the shelf.

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mr. martin could solve the magistrate’s referendum fiasco but he had a price. Eventually war would be declared, that was still inevitable, but the referendum had dramatically decreased nilbmahian enthusiasm for war. The blindfold of passion slipped a half a centimeter. martin could tie back the blind fold even tighter but the magistrate would have to let him see freely. With his research at the library he was nearly certain that he saw past the magistrate’s veil of elusion, he just needed to confirm he had discovered the necklace that transformed the magistrate into a monster.

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Within the first hour, the troop found many pieces of incriminating evidence. They discovered carefully concealed re-plastering in the walls of the southern shops and three bullets hiding under low cabinets. Something terrible had certainly happened in that plaza. Something terrible enough to cause everyone to vanish. But even after 4 hours of intensive investigate, they had no clue what had happened. But then they found a video recording that sent the globe spinning of the shelf.

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jacob had conjured up a death. isa's death. When they first met, jacob, as was his custom, looked up her political file and realized it had been tamper with and when he was in nighline for his first warmongering article, he found her grave with her body in the coffin. Yeah, very creepy but we don’t have time for that right now. So jacob once again dug up isa’s body and used it to frame LusciousLocks with blood on their hands in article that was about to go to press if the magistrate answered his questions. And if the magistrate refused, a second already-printed-article explaining the truth about the original warmongering article would be released. And that’s exactly what jacob told the magistrate when he finally returned to room #1203 in the corrison hotel. After a dramatic-as-always pause, the magistrate told him to ask away. “Is Assmachestan responsible for recent activity in LusciousLocks and Styx and are you an Assmachestani agent?”

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They found the now infamous tape hidden in a one-way-mirrored safe on a window desk over-looking the plaza. The four hour tape showed how batches of the citizens of Lokton were marched into the plaza and put into transportcraft at gun point. And the last hour of the tape showed how the last batch of citizens resisted at the southern end of the plaza and were brutally shot by the Foggistani forces leading the operation. Within 5 hours of the discovery of the tape, the multinational force on the edge of LusciousLocks declared war with Foggistan.

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“That was shockingly quick, mr. martin.” Even this question didn’t seem to faze the magistrate. At least he took even longer than normal to answer. “Yes, mr. martin,” and then his voice went into its eerie shouting-whisper, “WE ARE ASSMACHESTAN AND WE ARE BACK.”