The Follower

After distracting himself at his typewriter for the rest of the morning, mr. livral busied himself in the kitchen making lunch while elizabeth and sempere remained closeted in his room. To mr. livral’s relief, he heard nothing.  When he was setting the table, elizabeth came out of the room, gathered her things from the other room, thanked mr. livral for all he had done for her, resisted all mr. livral’s pleas for her to stay for lunch and left. sempere didn’t come out for lunch and mr. livral didn’t ask him, leaving the old man to eat the three person feast by himself.

After a 5 minute shower and a change of clothes at her apartment, elizabeth went straight to mobile 9 where she was greeted by a team of Assmachestani officials (while the rest of the country may have been clueless, elizabeth wasn’t fooled; she knew it was Assmachestan). She was now in direct contact with the enemy! Boredom would no longer be a problem for elizabeth. They had already seized access to all of the company’s records and demanded all the top personnel be reviewed on an individual basis. elizabeth's interrogation went until 10:15 pm and would continue the next day. While elizabeth initially met their pries with outright indignation, she quickly feigned a more docile tone. Given her role with the resistance, she had long since labyrinthed away any information that suggested that she or mobile 9 had ever even tippy-toed out of the straight and narrow. She was not overly concerned with what these investigators would find. Instead she began planning how she could use these interrogations to glean as much information about the Assmachestani regime as possible.

Engulfed in this new challenge, the days of beta phase snuck past elizabeth. The only concern she had was about andrew. Why hadn’t he contacted her? But the mobile 9 audit was too great of an opportunity to squander by worrying about silly things. She had to focus on the task at hand. After all, in her first week of the audit she had learned little more than the names of the officials assigned to her case.

Beyond the curfew and checkpoints everywhere, daily life of the average nilbmah was sliding back to normal.  The press, which had already been in Assmachestani’s pocket before the coup, was the line of continuity that eased the country into complacency. At least that was elizabeth’s view. They, the press, had been demonizing Foggistan for months before the event. That’s what the resistance desperately needed, now more than ever: a voice to the people. Like they had at the very beginning. Those myths by that guy… What was his name? winfer? elizabeth was never very good at literature. andrew, on the other hand, was great at it. He could surely help her, if he weren’t… No. She could not let her train of thought down those tracks. She couldn’t!

On the bright side, over the next several weeks, elizabeth managed to make a few cracks into the Assmachestan cloak. Just as predicted, she confirmed that landers was the nominal head of the regime. The media claimed that the regime had chosen one of nilbmah’s own to run the transient government. However, the few conversations she managed to have with the politicians allowed into the regime’s briefings suggested (they were all too scared to say it directly) that landers was way too familiar with the occupiers; he must have been their contact person leading up to the annex. And none of them had heard anything about andrew.

elizabeth had also grown a sprout of a relationship with one of the auditors , Illium. She had learned that he had two kids who weren’t in nilbmah but “he wasn’t at rank” to tell her where they were. And she learned that he hated nilbmahian food but official protocol required them to eat the local cuisine to make the locals feel more comfortable with their presence. But most importantly she had acquired the blueprints of the landers’ building.

The only thing that drew her attention away from her brother (she was now creeping into a panic about his absence) was her suspicion that she was being followed. She imagined that all her inquiries might have raised some eyebrows. So she laid low for a week but she still got the eerie sensation that she was being watched. Finally, she decided to confront the follower. Let the monster see you smile or something like that.

She went out to the market, which had only just reopened at the beginning of the week, in part because she had been dying for fresh produce but more so to draw out her follower.  Before going to the market she made a “phone call” at the corner convenience store and then waited on a bench outside the market, checking her watch constantly. At first she didn’t think that the follower had taken the bait but after buying two pounds of string beans she turned around and saw a coat flash behind a vendor’s tent. She wasn’t able to see the person’s face but she was sure it was her follower.

She finished her purchases and left the market with a small two wheeled cart full of fruits and vegetables. As she took a roundabout way back to her apartment, she made sure the follower was still on the trail. When she was nearly back home, she increased her speed and made a few quick turns. She hugged herself and her cart against the corner wall hoping the follower would rush past her. Instead her pursuer took an extremely sharp corner colliding into elizabeth and knocking her over on top of her cart. The metal grid of the cart tattooed her back and the right wheel dug into her hip but she managed to get to her feet before the follower who seemed to just be recovering from the shock. Remembering that she should be totally surprised by the accident, elizabeth hunched herself over and started groaning. Upon hearing her cries, the follower started a profuse string of apologies and pushed himself to his feet.

“sempere?!”