The Truth Can Be The Cause of Your Death (Aeneas, IC)

[The Republic of Lanos]

Office of the President, The Green House
Keinsteinem National Capital District
Keinsteinem, Kastein, Lanos
January 21, 1976

The man occupying the desk's chair in the spacious office meant for the man in charge of the Republic of Lanos was, by this time, in power since February 1, 1952, almost 24 years since that moment when he took office when his predecessor died from an assassin's bullet and 23 years and one day after he took over the Presidency in his own right and later transformed Lanos in his authoritarian but benevolent vision for the nation. Michael Chambers Sr. was the man occupying the chair today, on the path to winning the office again in an uncontested and show election later that November, and for the first time in years, he was a worried man. His democratic opposition, the United Democratic Coalition, was sufficiently contained by the Order Police to prevent any troubles this election cycle. His government was far-reaching, his power absolute, and he had nothing to worry about.

Chambers had better things to fret about as his Cabinet secretaries ran the show while the man in charge could relax and focus his attention, and unlimited power, on major issues he saw fit. At his age, approaching his 60s starting in 1981, he began to groom his eldest son into taking command one day provided he would have to answer to a higher power eventually. At this point, five years removed from turning 60 years old, he would have plenty to reflect upon if he were to retire. If he were to die today, the country would love his achievements as a regent would rule until his son, Michael Jr., was ready to take his place as his father's successor as President.

Or so it seemed.

It had been last December that the Order Police, from one of their moles in the National Police, discovered evidence that someone knew one of Chambers', and subsequently the nation's, greatest and deepest secret of all times. The revelation that someone in the country, beyond his closest set of advisors and friends, found out about the events of 1952 was jarring to the man. So much that he was caught off guard by the report that today, the President of Lanos had taken to locking himself in his office in fear of anyone finding out the state he was in. He had demanded the report be verified, twice even, before his OrPo commander personally handed in and explained the final report confirming his worst nightmare. That was yesterday and Chambers continued to be jarred by the report, ignoring the previous reports as mere hoaxes. He had no public events today so the people of Lanos, by now used to his public routine, would not see his worried expression. They were by now indifferent to his authoritarian rule, looking for an eventual democratization of the country, but were willing to continue his reign as long as the good times rolled on in Lanos and the Order Police did not cross paths because of an errant comment...or a plot to bring democracy to Lanos by whatever means necessary.

Chambers shook at the thought of the secret being leaked to the public. Such a leak would result in a democratic revolution, one that would lead to even the Army, the National Police, and the people throwing him out of office, trying and convicting him, and even possibly execute him for what he and his group of politicians and plotters had done all those years ago. He had long eroded democracy away, the rights of the people vanishing just the same, in an effort to become the "Benevolent Father" of the country in the wake of the 1952 Tragedy as he termed it. He sighed and simply drank his favorite scotch from the decanter hidden in a desk drawer, sipping slowly from one of his glasses.

"Just when I thought we were past all that...these guys come out with that they found out...how the fuck do they realize that this is major and a state secret..." He took a sip. "I swear...all this fuckery...for what? They can't change the past...what happened happened...let them release it...the Army can't help them if I lie about it...the people won't listen to this shit..." The man shook again. "Fuck. I hate these fucking fuckers. Fuck them and everything they stand for. They want to know the truth. Let them. I'll see to it that they won't last very long in my nation..."

Chambers reached for the phone and dialed his personal secretary, steeling his nerves as he drank.

"Get me the Order Police Commissioner, the Secretary of National Security, and my..." He paused. "...and my closest advisers. There is to be a meeting in three hours in my office. Plan for dinner afterward." He took one sip of his scotch before finishing the glass. "One last thing. Ensure that I am ready to travel at any moment. I may need to go across the country on personal business." After hanging up, Chambers breathed out a sigh and looked at his desk.

"Whoever let this bullshit come into their hands...will find out just how much the truth, even hidden from the public and revealed by the tiniest speck of light, can be the cause of your death."

Chambers wondered in his mind. But how did it get this way?

[Esperance International]

Chambers Square
Keinsteinem National Capital District
Keinsteinem, Kastein, Lanos
January 17, 1976
1815 hours

"This is the place?"

Frances Delaney nodded, her pale blue eyes sweeping around the square. The sun was setting below the roof of the looming government buildings to the west, but there were still dozens of political functionaries in business suits bustling hither and yon across Chambers Square. More than a few were just whiling away a few minutes eating a quick dinner, or sitting around on the benches that dotted the plaza.

Fran felt a prickling sensation at the nape of her neck. The Green House was less than a mile away. Some of the people who crowded the square were bound to be OrPo. And Frances Delaney knew for a moral certainty that the "Benevolent Father" had given photographs of every Esperancer in Lanos to his private thugs. Given the threatening noises Chambers had been making for the last few years, that kind of preparation was only to be expected. We are being watched.

"Chambers Square," grumbled Andrew Burstow. "The belly of the goddamn beast." The tall Demphorian turned to Fran. "You're sure this isn't a trap?"

"Of course I'm not sure," Fran muttered back under her breath. The young investigator for the Commission of Inquiry had been born in Keinsteinem five years before Michael Chambers' rise to power; she had lived her whole life in the shadow of the president's slowly accumulating tyranny. Fran had seen friends disappear, betrayed by agents provocateurs who had infiltrated supposedly secure meetings of dissidents; her own father, a journalist, had gone out to follow up on an anonymous tip one day in 1971, and he never came back. Fran knew in her gut that if she hadn't managed to join Esperance, she would have vanished in her turn as well. And I may yet, before I see thirty.

If there was one thing of which Frances Delaney could be sure, it was that in Lanos, you could never know for certain whether or not you were about to walk into a trap.

"Well, that's just wonderfully reassuring," Andrew remarked under his breath. Fran ignored him - because both of the investigators knew that, whatever the risks, this lead was worth following up.

* * *

Since mid-December, the Commission of Inquiry's sources in the Lanosian government had been reporting a quiet panic at the highest levels of the Green House. Unfortunately, those sources were mostly secretaries and copyists whom Esperance International periodically bribed in an effort to gain access to information about arbitrary arrests, torture, and other human rights violations committed by Chambers' regime. Fran's sources were good at leaking classified memoranda, but all that they could tell about what happened in Chambers' office itself was that top officials kept leaving the room looking like they'd seen a ghost.

Well, that wasn't quite all. The secretaries and copyists had also heard a rumor that the Order Police was furiously searching for a high-level mole somewhere in the administration - which, naturally enough, had all of Inquiry's paid informants desperately looking for an exit strategy. Since the new year, Esperance's sources had decided that no money was worth exposing themselves to an OrPo witch-hunt, and they had stopped reporting altogether. And just like that, Fran Delaney's hopes of finding out what was going on in the Green House had evaporated.

Or at least they had, until a blank envelope arrived at Fran's apartment. That blank envelope contained an unsigned letter, which held only two neatly typewritten sentences:

I know what really happened on February 1, 1952.

Blue Square, 18:15, Jan. 17.

It was probably a trap. Fran knew that. It almost had to be a trap. Another anonymous tip, just like the one her father had received six years ago. The bait that drew you out into the dark, that forced you to expose yourself as a dissident, that led you to a little dark room that smelled like dried blood and stale fear. It was the door that led only into the abyss, and once you took the bait, once you stepped through that door, you vanished off the face of the Earth, and no one would ever, ever find you - not even your body.

Just like Dad.

It had to be a trap.

But what if it wasn't?

What if maybe - just maybe - the letter came from a genuine source? What if someone deep in Michael Chambers' counsel had discovered some secret behind the president's rise to power - a secret that was dangerous enough to cause panic in the Green House and provoke an Order Police witch-hunt? What if one of those nameless bureaucrats who crowded Blue Square at dusk, hurrying over the pavement with their heads down and their collars up, was actually the key to revealing the most important truth in the history of Lanos?

What if?

Frances Delaney knew that she would never be able to live with herself if she passed up an opportunity to uncover the truth for which her father had died. And if, as seemed far more likely, she herself followed in her father's footsteps, and vanished in her turn? Then, she gamely told herself, there was no better cause in which to lay down her life.

Fran looked at Andrew, and his grey eyes stared back at her full of worry. And then she turned to the vast plaza, and squared her shoulders, and took the first step into the heart of Chambers Square.

* * *

Esperance International Bureau Headquarters
Keinsteinem National Capital District
Keinsteinem, Kastein, Lanos
January 18, 1976
1030 hours

"So I'll ask ye again, Fran: who is your source?"

Frances Delaney held herself a little straighter; she felt her spine actually stiffen. And she shook her head and said: "Sir, I can't possibly reveal that information."

Angus Miller threw up his hands and sat back in his chair. The Lanos Bureau's Anglican-born chief had been with Esperance since the New Prospect Purchase; now, white-haired and stocky, he had been robbed by age of much of his native country's politesse but not of any of his adopted home's moral urgency. He glared at Fran from under his bushy eyebrows. "Ye understand, I hope, that this isna just some side project for Inquiry, right? If Chambers realizes ye've got ahold of this, than every Esperancer in this fookin' country is sure ta be rounded up and shipped off God-knows-where. This is my problem, Fran, whether ye like it or not."

Fran's heels dug a little deeper into the carpet of Angus' office. "Sir," she replied grimly, "this is an Alpha-level investigation by the Commission of Inquiry, authorized at the highest levels, and I am under oath not to reveal details that could compromise its operational security to anyone except the Commissioner of Inquiry, the High Commissioner, and the Esperance Record. I understand your concerns, sir, but I cannot possibly reveal the identity of my source to you at this time."

"So it's above my pay grade, in other words," Angus grunted. "I'm just a lowly bureau chief. Well, fuck me." The older man's fingers drummed on his desk for a few moments; in the near-silence, Fran could hear the idling motor of the surveillance car that was always parked outside the bureau compound's main gate. A few Esperancers had taken to waving to the OrPo spooks when they passed the vehicle.

Finally, a thought seemed to strike Angus, and he glanced up. "Does Andrew know the source?"

Fran thought carefully for a moment, and then shrugged. "Partially."

"And what the bloody hell does that mean, translated out of Inquiry spook-speech so that the rest o' us can understand?"

"He saw him. Heard his voice. Doesn't know his name or access source."

"Do you?"

Fran smiled. "He didn't tell me. But yeah; I think so."

"How?"

"Only so many ways a man could get that information. I've narrowed it down some. The source is good."

Angus gave another frustrated sigh. "Jesus, I can't get a straight answer out o' ye about anything." Another moment of silence; drumming fingers, idling car motor. "All right," the bureau chief finally muttered, "what does he want, your source?"

"For public testimony? A one way-ticked to New Prospect, and Security Force protection for the rest of his life. But he's already given me documents and tape-recorded conversations that should go a long way, even if he never makes it out of Plata."

"And he gave ye this evidence in Blue Square?" Angus shook his head. "Why?"

Fran thought of her father, following up on anonymous tips, chasing the truth into a night that swallowed him up forever. She swallowed. "I don't know," the investigator admitted.

"Were ye identified?"

There it was: the all-important question. The answer would decide not just Fran's fate, but also that of Angus, and the fate of the almost ten thousand other Esperance employees working in Lanos.

Fran thought of Chambers Square, of the endless faceless bureaucrats sitting on benches or leaning on streetlamps, files open in front of them, watching.

Were we identified?

Fran took a deep breath, and looked Angus Miller straight in the eye. "Almost certainly," she replied.

* * *

Cafe Becerra
Keinsteinem National Capital District
Keinsteinem, Kastein, Lanos
January 18, 1976
1900 hours

"So what did he say?" Andrew Burstow demanded. He seemed to have forgotten his meal; his fork, loaded with papas bravas, was frozen halfway to his mouth and his gaze was fixed on Frances.

"He said we had to get out. The sooner the better. Take what we've got and run. Get John Smith out of the country with us too, if we can." Fran stabbed her fork into her plate of chopitos with a little more force than was strictly necessary. "Angus thinks we're in danger."

Andrew remembered his food, and finished his cooling fork-full of potatoes. "Don't you?" he asked quietly.

"Of course," Fran replied. "That's why we're here."

Cafe Beccera was a bustling tapas bar. The food was good, the beer was better, and by dusk every evening it was packed with dozens of people all talking and laughing at the tops of their lungs. As a side effect, the number of people and the level of noise in the cafe made it all but impossible to monitor or record any specific conversation; the ambient noise would just drown out whatever the microphone was listening for. Fran had been occasionally using the place for confidential meetings ever since it had become clear that most rooms in the Esperance bureau compound were probably bugged by OrPo.

"So: you're the native. What do you think?" Andrew shrugged, but Fran could see the tension in his shoulders. "Do we bail?"

Fran shook her head. "No." Even to her, the word sounded uncertain, weak. Fran swallowed and repeated, more strongly: "No. No, I think we were made from the moment we walked into Blue Square. John Smith didn't stand out, and the bad guys don't have his picture, so he probably was able to go undetected even after having been seen meeting with us. But OrPo has most likely known who we are for months. They figured out what was going on from the moment we entered that square."

"So doesn't that mean we should leave?" Andrew asked. "Get out while we still can, like the Old Bull said?"

Fran chuckled humorlessly. "No. See, that's what OrPo is expecting us to do - run for the airport or the docks. They're waiting, Andrew. We'd never make it past security. If we run, at least for the exits that they are expecting, we walk right into their hands. And there's another thing."

"John Smith."

"Yeah. I didn't tell Angus that we have no way of contacting him; he only ever contacts us, not the other way around. So I can't just call him up tonight and tell him to run with us for some fishing village and try to sail a boat across the straits to Carpathia."

Andrew raised his eyebrows. "That's not a bad idea, though. OrPo wouldn't expect it."

"It's been my escape plan for six years," Fran agreed quietly. "But anyway, we can't get John Smith out until he contacts us, and unless we get him out, all we've got are documents and recordings taken from a dead man, and Chambers can deny everything with total plausibility. We need John Smith. We need him on the record, giving his real name, telling his full story. That's the only way that people will be convinced that we're telling the truth."

Andrew closed his eyes and squeezed the back of his neck with his hands. "So we have to wait," he said quietly.

"Yeah. At least until we hear from John Smith."

"And if the hammer drops?"

"Then we run with what we've got. We'll have no choice. But we can't run now, Andy, not when we're so close." Fran reached across the table and grabbed Andrew's hand; the young man's eyes opened and he looked at her in surprise. "You know how important this is," Fran whispered. "You know what this could do."

"I didn't sign up to be in the business of regime change, Fran," Andrew murmured wearily.

"No," Frances replied, "you signed up to bring hidden crimes to light, to reveal human rights abuses no matter who commits them, to uncover the truths that the rich and powerful of this world would like to keep stifled in the shadows. You know what Chambers is, Andy. You know what he's done. And this is the truth behind it all, the secret that explains everything." Fran shook her head. "You can't turn back now." She squeezed Andrew's large hand between her two smaller ones. "Say you're with me, Andy."

"I'm with you, Fran." Andrew gave a tight smile, and his gaze met Frances' pale blue eyes. "To whatever end."

Fran nodded, and squeezed Andrew's hand again. "Then I guess," she concluded, "the only thing left to do is wait."

[The Republic of Lanos]

Their source had come from behind and pulled out his personal M1911A1 from his hidden holster and his Order Police badge and stuck it directly into Fran's back. Before she and her counterpart could react, the man spoke in a low tone. "I've come to see you. Don't react." He looked around, nervous that he could have his own cover blown, and spoke again. "Do exactly as I say, both of you, and the OrPos here won't give a shit. Trust me, I know people higher than their pay grades." He continued to hold the pistol at Fran's back, as if to maintain the illusion of a typical "police action" but was gentle in his prodding. "Not the Metro, we're taking my state car." He directed them to the other end of Blue to a waiting empty car, a very high end state vehicle for what appeared to be a lowly Order Police agent. "Turn around and I have to shoot," said the agent. "I'll reveal who I am and to what you will know when we're out of reach. They won't fuck with me." As the three of them drove, the agent continuing to hold his pistol in his right hand, he continued to speak. "Before you ask, I had to do it. Even if I am OrPo, they watch my ass too." He got onto Lanos 1, headed out for the outskirts of Keinsteinem. "With what I am to tell you two, you will have to leave the nation and I can guarantee that you two will get out alive, unharmed, and with the information you seek. If anyone gives you hell, you are to tell no one what you have but only say that I was to get you out of Lanos. I have documents forged for you two in case." The man stopped in a deserted rest area and got the pair out. His coat collar had been turned up and his hat was obscuring all but his eyes.

"Get out of the car and face me."

As the two Esperance agents did so, they looked at him and maintained their silence, afraid he would kill or arrest them in a trap. That's when the agent took his hat off and turned his collar down for them to realize a surprise. If this was any other OrPo, he wouldn't have gone through the trouble of doing this. He looked like Chambers but...younger.

"I am the eldest son of Chambers. Michael Jr. Yeah yeah, I know, what's the point I got it made. That's why nobody followed me or even bothered to check this site." He holstered the pistol. "Even what what I'm doing, not even my father would suspect this action. Sure I'd be shot but I can't leave now lest they come for me too. Now, this is going to be interesting for you two. I told you to come for this...well..." The man opened his trunk and pulled out a file, thick with papers.

"That right there is a state secret and only few people can touch that file, including me. Since father wants me to learn the family business, he told me the whole story after I got out of college. Told me to forget about what I learned about the martyrdom of President Hoyle and how there was a plot against our nation...and that the 1952 elections was a mandate for my father to change Lanos to what it is now. I'm supposed to carry on the Big Lie and the Big Mandate when he gives me the Presidency even if I want to bring democracy back to Lanos. This, right here, would incite revolution if it was released either here or out there. You cannot let this get out until...certain conditions are met."

Chambers Jr. opened the file and began to read out the first page, a memo to the plotters from his father.

"Dated October 31, 1951. To all involved, the time has come to initiate the plot we have been planning since the beginning of Hoyle's term in office. Convinced that his politics are going to bring Lanos to ruin, we shall undertake the plot to elevate myself into office and bring out the change we have discussed. The Army has our moles inside and the United National Front is ready to help take command. Nobody shall dare challenge our version of events as we crack down on those we accuse of..." He sighed. "...killing the President after we do so."

The man looked up at the two agents, looking stunned as he closed the file.

"There's a lot more in here than I could read to you now. What I have told you two is going to change everything." He returned the file to its place in the trunk. "What you now need to do is leave...you two specifically. Father is planning to crack down on the organization for the leak when the word gets out...I have already arranged safe travel out. Whether you take advantage of it is your choice. That file needs to get out too but you cannot leak it...yet. I'll meet up with you and your bosses in due time, whenever that may be."

Chambers began to walk off. "Take the car back to your place or something. I got a ride hidden here. Also, your documents are in the glove box. Anyone gives you hell, show them the papers." He indeed walked to the shrubbery nearby and, minutes later, rode off on a motorcycle, leaving the two agents to ponder on what fresh hell they were to discover further in that file.

Office of the President, The Green House
Keinsteinem National Capital District
Keinsteinem, Kastein, Lanos
January 21, 1976

9:00 PM

After an expansive meal of all those involved in his plan, Chambers sat in his executive office alone before summoning his orderlies into discussing the plot against the Esperance Organization that was to take place in the next three days. Alone except for the man that, three days before, revealed his father's darkest secret to two Espers. The Father did not know what the Son had done but he could only suspect as the Son was building his own network within the Government, except it wasn't all friendly to his father.

"Son, do you know what I am to do with the Espers?" Junior nodded, only having minutes to whittle away before leaving himself for the sake of the meeting.

"You know what I think they know. I gave you the report myself. Someone leaked the file's information to them...last December? Someone knew but the Order Police can't even identify a mole in their ranks...of all the people to trust...the National Police won't release who told what but I don't want the cops to get pissy again...fucking screwballs. They hated me since Day 1."

Chambers turned around, suspecting nothing about what his son had done.

"Go off now, do whatever...I'll handle this." Junior saluted and left his father to his devices. As he left, Chambers Jr. made a mental note.

Yep, now I have to tell them to leave. Great, just when I thought there wasn't going to be one...I have to do something for the others...if I can...shit. Fuck me.

9:15 PM

Chambers had assembled his orderlies for what he termed as a meeting but was more of a lecture on what was to be done in this regard. Aside from the usual swearing of the Chambers Loyalty Oath (a practice derided by the populace), Chambers got into his usual business of plotting, planning, and even arranging of the personal executions of those Espers he felt had to die. The two that were on the list where the ones his son had perilously given "certain information" to but, at least in the nick of time, the list had been redone to redact those names. Chambers didn't even notice as he read out everything to his orderlies, certain that the operation would take place. At least in the public light, the operation would be delicately termed as "Esperance had lost its lease due to certain criminal elements" and that the personnel would be deported safely home. Further from the truth than the lie but at least some would make it some, others would make it into the ground. It did not matter. What Chambers said and ordered was final and he made sure his subordinates would do whatever he commanded lest they face a line of rifles or the electric chair and dishonor in this day of Lanosian history.

The son of the President furiously rode on his motorcycle at speeds high enough to consider an accident an instant death sentence. He wore a helmet that did not betray his status but his single front-facing solid red light and two front and rear flashing red lights and wailing siren indicated he had some important business to take care of. He parked in front of the apartment of the female agent he met, after turning the siren off, and ran up the steps and placed another letter. After running off, he left the same way he arrived, no one knowing what he had done.

Its message was simple and concise.

Get out. You and your friend have three days. Take what you need. Your families will be safe whey they are deported later.

Your father...assume the worst. I will tell when the time comes we meet again. Burn this, not the file.

-Agent Blue.

[Esperance International]

Home of Frances Delaney
Keinsteinem National Capital District
Keinsteinem, Kastein, Lanos
January 21, 1976
2130 hours

"We have to go." Andrew Burstow was pacing frantically, wearing a rut into Frances's cheap carpet. "We have to go, Fran. Come on. You have to be able to see that."

"Right," Frances Delaney snapped, "we go. We go and we do what, Andy? Huh? We take the documents John Smith gave us, and head for the airport, and fly away back to New Prospect? And then what?"

Andrew flung up his hands. "We pass everything up the chain of command to the Commissioner of Inquiry, and Bauer gets to decide what to do with it. That's his job, Fran, not ours."

"Right," Fran repeated, "we take our unsubstantiated file, without any on-the-record source to back it up, and we give it to Paulson and Bauer. And then we pat ourselves on our backs, and what? Go home?"

"Yeah," Andrew agreed, "yeah, basically, that's exactly what we do. It's what we would do even if the alternative weren't staying here and waiting to be tortured, which it is. We do our job and go home. That's the whole point."

"This is my home, you bastard!" Frances' voice was almost a scream. Her hand flew to her mouth, and she turned away, shoulders shaking.

"Fran. Oh, God, Fran, I - I didn't mean - " Andrew took an awkward step closer, and laid one hand on Frances' back. "Fran, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."

Fran nodded, and took a shuddering breath. "I know."

"But Fran" - Andrew bit his lip - "Fran, look, John Smith told us from the start we wouldn't be able to use this right away. There was always going to be a wait."

"Right," Fran said bitterly. "We keep this secret until 'certain conditions are met.' But he was right, Andy. This would incite revolution, wherever it was released. So why wait? Why inflict another year, five years, ten years of Chambers on this country? Why? On the word of -"

Andrew raised one finger to his lips, and Fran stopped in mid-sentence and rubbed her forehead. The two Esperancers were pretty sure that Fran's apartment hadn't been bugged - the Security Force had been over it several times - but you could never be too careful with some secrets.

"I'm just saying our source is - well, he probably had his own reasons for giving us this." Fran shook her head. "Think, Andy! What if he wants us to wait until he's finished building his own power-base, and then release the story at such a time that the resulting revolution will serve to put him in power in Chambers' place? Lanos would just have traded one dictator for another, and we would have been complicit in it! Why should we wait?"

"Because if we don't wait, we don't have an on-the-record source to back up this story, and nothing will change." Andy carefully laid a hand on Fran's arm; the young woman seemed to be vibrating with fury, on the verge of some explosion, and Andrew touched her with the gingerness of a man dealing with red-hot metal. "You said that yourself, Fran."

Frances shook her head and dropped into one of her tattered plaid sofas. "He thinks we're stupid, you know," she said quietly. "John Smith does. 'Burn this, not the file.' Like that needed clarification." Fran snorted bitterly. "Next he'll be mailing me numbered instructions on how to tie my shoes."

Andrew sat down beside Frances, his hip just touching hers. "We have to go, Fran," he repeated gently.

"I know," Frances agreed quietly. She let out a breath, and her head fell forward so that her chin touched her collarbone. "I know." She looked up, her gaze sweeping over the tiny, bare apartment, and she stared out the window into the darkened streets beyond. "This is my country, Andy," she said, and her voice was small, lost. "Everything I've ever known or loved has been here. And now I don't know if I'll ever see it again."

Andrew put an arm around Fran's shoulders; her red hair was soft against his cheek. "Oh, Fran," he murmured.

"He knows something about my father. John Smith knows something about Dad. The bastard told me that he knew something, but he wouldn't tell me what." Frances softly struck Andrew's leg with her balled fist, and the young man flinched not at the blow but at the raw heartbreak in Fran's voice. "He taunted me, Andy. He taunted me with the truth. And just for a moment, I let myself believe - I let myself think Dad might be - " A tiny sound, half a sob and half a snarl, escaped Fran, and her voice trailed off. After a moment, she continued: "And now we have to leave, just when - just when Dad might be - "

There was a long silence. "Just when I finally thought Dad might still be alive," Frances finally finished, her voice hollow. She shifted, pulling away from Andy, and dragged her sleeve across her eyes. "Jesus, that's stupid, isn't it? I mean, after all these years, a letter in the night from - from John Smith. We know what he is; he's bound to be taunting me, that's all. And here I am, and I'm - " Fran gave a sobbing laugh. "I'm like this."

Andrew Burstow stared at his hands, for he did not know what to say. In the end, he looked over at Frances. "It's your Dad, Fran," Andrew said quietly. "I mean - I don't know how anyone could blame you for caring."

Fran gave a sudden, surprised laugh, as if she had just heard some ridiculous joke, and she looked at Andrew with an unutterable tenderness. "Oh, Andy," she whispered, and smiled, and in her smile Andrew saw only a pain that he could not understand. "Oh, Andy, Andy, Andy."

There they sat for a moment, on the cheap couch in the tiny apartment, in the silent calm before the storm. Andrew laid his hand on Fran's, and the young woman shook her head hopelessly. The noise of the vast city stretched far away into the distance, and Andrew Burstow felt tiny, powerless, engulfed in its dark embrace. Alone.

"I have to pack a bag," Fran finally said. Her voice was distant, but there was steel in it, a determination that Andrew recognized. "And then," - Fran's eyes widened suddenly - "Oh, God. Andy, we have to warn the others!"

[Esperance International]

Esperance International Bureau Headquarters
Keinsteinem National Capital District
Keinsteinem, Kastein, Lanos
January 21, 1976
2215 hours

“Three days.” Angus Miller shook his head, and paced back and forth across the floor of the bureau HQ’s secure conference room. “Three days. Jesus Christ.”

“You’re sure the warning wasn’t meant just for you?” asked Rebecca Silverman. The slim, elegant diplomat – Esperance’s official liaison to the Lanosian government – leaned forward across the table. “Look, I don’t know what you two have been up to – “

“We’ve been doing our jobs,” growled Frances Delaney. Andrew Burstow cast a longsuffering glance heavenward.

“Yes, quite,” Rebecca agreed snidely. “And since part of your job is going through Chambers’ dirty laundry, it’s hardly a surprise that he wants to get rid of you. So you should go. But the rest of us have done nothing to attract the president’s ire. Why would he come after us?”

“Our source specifically said that President Chambers was planning to crack down on Esperance International as a whole,” Andrew stated urgently. “This isn’t just about the two of us, or Inquiry.”

“Let me make sure I understand this aright,” Angus Miller snapped. “The twa o’ ye want me to evacuate ten thousand Esperance employees in the next seventy-two hours on the word o’ an anonymous source about whom ye refuse ta gie me any information whatsoever. Is that about right?”

Andrew glanced at Fran, and saw her nod once, decisively. “Yes, chief. That’s it exactly.” Rebecca Silverman gave an incredulous chuckle, and Fran cast her a fiery glance. “And if you don’t do this, Angus, everybody in this room will be deported or in prison by the start of next week.”

Angus shook his head numbly, and stopped pacing; he stood quite still for a long moment. In the end, Rebecca broke the silence again, sputtering: “But why? For God’s sake, Frances, why would Chambers – “

“You know him, supposedly,” Fran snapped. “Don’t you think he’s capable of this? It’s dynamite fishing, Rebecca. He knows Esperance has learned something dangerous, but he doesn’t know which of us has the information. So he grabs all of us, before we can do any further damage. It’s using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut, but it works.”

Rebecca shook her head again, but she kept a doubtful silence. Fran turned to Angus. “When have you – any of you – known Chambers to take a risk when it comes to his own power? He’s capable of this. And he’s going to make a play for all of us – every last one – in three days’ time.”

Rebecca Silverman opened her mouth, and then closed it again. There was a long moment of silence. Then Angus Miller turned to the fifth person in the basement conference room, a big Aurinsulan who had hitherto been silently listening with great focus to the discussion.

“Let’s say this is all real,” Angus said grimly. “I would want to evacuate, aye?”

“Yes,” agreed Wu Da, the captain of the Lanos Bureau’s contingent of Security Force troopers. “But not everyone.”

“Why not?” asked Fran and Angus almost simultaneously.

“If everyone runs for the exits at once, Chambers will know that we’ve been warned. He’ll move up his timetable and catch us as we try to flee. And your source will be endangered.” Da leaned forward. “We have to get our people out without letting Chambers realize that we are evacuating. We have to hide it from him.”

“So how do – how would – we do that?” Angus asked; he stepped back toward his seat, and Andrew could see the wheels moving behind the old man’s eyes as fear was replaced by focus.

“We start with triage,” Wu Da explained. “We figure out who will be in the most danger when the crackdown comes. You two” – the old soldier nodded at Andrew and Fran – “are at the top of that list. Others include native Lanosians and Prospectors – anyone without a non-Lanosian passport.”

“Why?” Andrew asked, his brow furrowed in puzzlement.

“Because Chambers doesn’t want to anger every other nation in the region,” Fran replied grimly. “You’re Demphorian, Andy. If you get arrested, Demphor will be all over Chambers demanding that you have consular access and a fair trial. Multiply that by six thousand, and what you’ve got is a bigger headache than Chambers is prepared to deal with.”

Wu Da nodded. “Foreign nationals in Esperance service will be held for a few days, and then deported,” he confirmed. “Anything else would cause an international incident. But native Lanosians and Prospectors don’t have foreign citizenship; they have no foreign government to intercede for them, or protest if they disappear. When it comes to his own people, or to Prospectors without a passport or an embassy, Chambers has no incentive not to do his worst.”

“So we get them out first,” Angus agreed. “We have about four thousand Lanosian permanent employees in this bureau, and maybe a hundred Prospectors – mostly interns. How do we get even that number out in seventy-two hours without Chambers noticing?”

“Well, we have to send them to New Prospect, for one thing,” Da explained. “We won’t be able to get visas for them to go to anywhere else, but they don’t need visas for New Prospect. But we can’t make it look like that’s where they’re going, and we have to hide the fact that they’re our employees – we need to just blend them in among the ordinary air travellers.”

“Covers,” said Fran in a tone of dawning recognition. “We need to find covers for four thousand people in the next three days, to explain why they’re travelling without referencing Esperance International.”

“Exactly,” Wu Da nodded. “I have about five hundred cover stories prepared: business meetings, academic conferences, reasons for people to be travelling that don’t draw attention to whether or not they work for us.”

“You do?” Rebecca Silverman said; there was a note of shock in her voice.

“We always knew there might be come a day when we would have to get our people out,” Da replied with a grim smile. “We just never thought it would have to be all of them, or all at once.”

“So what about the other Lanosians?” Fran asked. “The ones you don’t have covers ready for?”

Da sighed. “We can probably get another five hundred people out by air without cover stories; Chambers will see them leaving, but a hundred and fifty Esperancers per day going abroad on Esperance business – that shouldn’t reveal that we know what’s coming. He’ll let them get out rather than tip his hand too early.”

“So that’s a thousand people,” Angus said. “Good. What about the other three thousand?”

“They need to run,” Wu Da said simply.

“Jesus,” muttered Andrew.

“Get out of the cities. Go where the OrPo won’t know to look for them. Avoid friends and family. Stick to rural areas. Make for the borders. Try to get out by land.” Da shook his head briefly. “They should do it soon, too. We ought to give all our Lanosian employees two weeks’ wages in cash, right now, and tell them to use the money to disappear. Cook the books; make it look like they’re still coming into work for the next three days, so Chambers doesn’t know to start his hunt early. Have all the foreign nationals work double shifts to conceal the fact that the Lanosians are missing.” Da shrugged. “That at least should give them a head start on the OrPo.”

“And the rest of us?” asked Rebecca Silverman. The diplomat was an Afalian citizen.

“The rest of us wait for the hammer to fall. Then we spend a few nights in jail until our embassies come calling, and then we get deported home.” Wu Da made an effort at a reassuring smile. “It won’t be that bad.”

“You’re just – leaving – three thousand permanent employees here,” said Frances Delaney. Her small hands clenched into fists. “You’re just abandoning them. Give them some money, give them a head start, hope for the best. But nobody’s going to be coming for them. Chambers won’t deport them – he can’t deport them, they’re Lanosian citizens, for Christ’s sake! Where would he send them?” Fran leaned forward, her eyes blazing. “Three thousand of our people, people who gave their lives to Esperance International, are about to be cut loose. How many of them do you think are really going to make it out on their own?”

“Not many,” Wu Da agreed.

“And you think that’s – what – acceptable collateral damage?” Fran shook her head furiously. “How can you justify this?”

“We don’t have a choice,” Da said emotionlessly. “If we try to get all four thousand Lanosians out by air or sea, Chambers will immediately see that we’ve been warned, and he’ll be on us within hours. We’d be lucky if a few hundred of us escaped. This way, a thousand Lanosian Esperancers are almost guaranteed to make it out, and the others have a head start and a fighting chance. That’s all that we can do.”

“It’s not good enough,” Fran spat.

“It never is.” Angus Miller’s brogue cut across the argument; his voice was gentler and yet stronger than Andrew had ever heard it. Angus stood and turned to the Security Force captain. “Da, get our people out. All that ye can. Prioritize personnel from the Commission of Inquiry and the Commission on Democracy and Civil Society. Chambers will not be kind to Lanosian citizens working in those departments. Once you’ve gotten the lucky thousand their tickets out, let me know, and I’ll give the rest two weeks’ wages and tell them to scatter. To conceal the Lanosians’ absence, everyone else will work double hours until the end of the week, and we’ll falsify the employment records in case the Order Police come early.”

Fran shook her head numbly, and her eyes stared vacantly into space. Andrew Burstow looked at her, and felt his heart break all over again.

Angus Miller straightened his back, and looked at the investigators. “You two,” the bureau chief said, “need to get out now. Take those shiny new documents your source gave you, and leave tonight. In the end, after all, all of this is to protect you.” Angus shook his head, and let out a deep breath.

“Whatever secret you two are guarding,” he concluded, “I surely hope it’s worth it.”

[The Republic of Lanos]

January 22, 1976

Somewhere in Keinsteinem, there was a man unhappy with the circumstances that were to unfold. And that man did what he could to save two people entrusted with documents that would, one day, bring down a regime. And those two, and anyone else that would have to go with them, were not getting out fast enough.

Michael Chambers Jr., the man risking it all for those two, was dismayed at the lack of progress of any escape attempt. No one could blame him if they truly knew what he had done. The man that had virtually committed treason weeks ago was now sweating figurative bullets over his fear that the pair of Esperance agents would be discovered and that the heat would be turned to him, even though his father would never dare condemn his firstborn son and later install him despite the "minor" setback. He knew if this came out, he'd be in for it and probably replaced by his younger brother, always more of a loyalist to his father, and then either eliminated entirely or simply locked into exile somewhere. His impending exile, be it now or just before he was installed as the ruler of Lanos, was a matter of time. He had even started a family after marrying his college sweetheart, influencing his decisions to secretly turn against his father more than any official policy that the elder could come up with. It was a torturous cycle of being a family man and working for a government agency that would destroy families if any member was even suspected of saying anything bad about his father. Nominally a member of his father's United National Front, he even quit the only legal political party quietly and joined the underground United Democratic Coalition, led by the banned United Democratic Party and the Liberal Party, but only as an independent. From there on out, Chambers Jr. was charting his own destiny, even if his father would ultimately find out about it and try to fix his son's "mistakes" before he took over.

The morning of the 22nd was a usual work day for the young Order Police officer, installed only for him to get the ropes of government bureaucracy and the ground work, before moving into higher positions in anticipation of succession. Instead of a usual work day, the man fret over events at his desk, given a wide leeway by everyone including his superiors as he poured over paperwork involving "enemies of the state," people Chambers tried to save by commuting secret death sentences (forced disappearances as they were known to the public and abroad) or using his last name to force someone to stay alive albeit exiled or placed in a secret political camp without facing much harm. His father assigned him personally to this task to, in an attempt, dehumanize political enemies as paper entries. As the man continued his normal routine of trying to save people, undisturbed or challenged at a higher level, he got a phone call at his desk.

"Agent Chambers."

"Stay away from the damned Esperance operation." It was his father. Before he could get out a reply, his father hung up angrily.

Chambers Jr. began to worry internally while maintaining his outward composure. Somebody knew he was trying to save people there but who told who and how did his father know? The man sighed deeply and nobody gave pause to notice the agent's displeasure over an undisclosed matter. After noticing nobody was paying attention to him, that he knew of, Chambers left his desk to attend to "matters outside the office," slang for either field operations or personal matters.

This time, he had to deal with both kind of matters outside the office at the same time.

If he had time. If they had time. And that time was ticking away.

[Esperance International]

Keinsteinem International Airport
Keinsteinem National Capital District
Keinsteinem, Kastein, Lanos
January 22, 1976
0630 hours

And so the time came for Frances Delaney and Andrew Burstow to bid Lanos farewell.

They had managed to get the last two seats on the nine o’clock flight to Ormania. Andy’s Demphorian passport would get him through immigration. Fran didn’t have a visa for Demphor, and so she would probably be held at the airport in Ormania - but Angus Miller had promised to call ahead to Esperance’s Demphor station chief. So Fran suspected that she wouldn’t be held for more than a few hours before the local Esperance leadership called in some favors with the Demphorian government and got her released, on condition that she would be sent directly to New Prospect.

The sun was just barely rising over the skyscrapers of the city when Fran stepped out of her apartment door for the last time. She had a backpack and one cheap suitcase. They contained some spare clothes, a few books, a photo album of her family, a toothbrush, and a thick manila folder filled with documents and photographs – the product of a decade of Esperance investigations of which Fran had been a part. The file that Chambers had given her was sewn into the lining of the backpack itself, where only the most thorough of searches would find it.

Everything else had to be left behind. The old tea kettle that Fran had used every morning since she had moved out of her parents’ house. The armchair – her one decent piece of furniture – that her little sister had bought her for her twenty-fifth birthday. The bookshelves filled with tattered novels from all over the region, compiled in defiance of government censors through years of searching.

It wasn’t much, Fran thought. Just her whole life.

She hadn’t even called her family. She couldn’t. The OrPo were all but certain to be monitoring her apartment’s phone line, and it was too risky to let the authorities know when Fran was leaving the country. She had briefly considered mailing her family a letter, but had then realized that the OrPo was doubtless intercepting her mail, too.

My mother will come by to check on me, after a few weeks, Fran thought, and I’ll be gone. Vanished without a trace. Just like Dad.

“Maybe Angus will tell her what happened,” Fran murmured to herself. Then she remembered that in another two days Angus would have been deported too. There would be no telephone call, no letter, no revelation that Fran was still alive. There would just be the long weeks of agonizing uncertainty, and then the slow realization growing at the back of the mind, and then the old woman sitting in her rocking chair in the twilight years of her life, alone.

Fran felt hollow. She wanted to shout, to scream, to curse, but there was no one to hear but herself, and she was a hollow woman.

She left her apartment door unlocked, and turned her back on her life, and caught the early morning subway to the airport.

Fran found Andrew Burstow waiting for her outside the main terminal at Keinsteinem International Airport. As she trudged toward the terminal doors from the train station, Andrew spotted her and started to hurry over to her; he was carrying only a briefcase, and Fran supposed that he probably wanted to help her with her back. Oh, Andy, she thought.

And then Fran shook her head, just the tiniest bit, and Andrew stopped. He too had a copy of the file that Chambers Junior had given Fran; it was concealed in a tiny hidden compartment within Andrew’s briefcase. And while time pressures meant that the two Esperancers had been obliged to share the same flight out, Fran was determined not to speak to Andy until they were both safely out of Lanosian airspace. That way, if one of the two investigators was arrested, the other might still slip through the net.

If that happened, Fran knew, she would be the one to get caught. Andy had a Demphorian passport to protect him. But Fran? Fran was a Lanosian Esperancer. She had a cover story – she was travelling to Demphor in order to report on a corporate conference on desalinization technology, for which she even had a written invitation – but if Chamber Junior had lied, or sold the Esperancers out, then Fran knew that she wouldn’t get far on that story.

Andrew stood as if frozen in front of the terminal doors, and he gave Frances a long look. Fran could see the thought in his eyes: This might be the last time we ever look upon each other. And then Andy gave a tender smile, and a tiny nod, and he turned and walked into the airport terminal and out of Fran’s sight.

For her part, Fran moved mechanically into the terminal, past the armed guards, over to the check-in counter for Air Demphor. She did not look up; she did not look around. If they grab me here, there’s nowhere to run. This is the belly of the beast. Fran surrendered her suitcase to the airline employee, took her boarding pass, and walked over to the security line.

This is it, she thought, and fear ran over her like an icy wind. Time to find out whether or not Mister “John Smith” has sold us out. Fran took her passport in one hand, and the documents that Chambers Junior had given her in the other, and managed a smile for the security guard. “Frances Delaney,” she said, presenting her documentation – though not Chambers’ letter, not yet, not until she had no other choice. “Air Demphor flight 1529 to Ormania.”

[Esperance International]

Menard Municipal Bus Station
Menard, Longrova, Lanos
January 22, 1976
0800 hours

Julia Stephens sat on one of the dozens of uncomfortable plastic seats in the bus station’s waiting area, and stuffed her hands in her pockets, and considered the end of the world.

Or at least the end of her world. Julia Stephens was an employee of the World Education Commission, and an administrator at the local Esperance-run high school for underprivileged youth. She was a vice-principal. Born in Belmont, she had studied abroad in Lycanestria, joined Esperance International, and returned to Lanos to work as a school counselor. A decade later, Julia had been assigned to Menard and promoted to the lofty office of vice-principal for extra-curricular activities.

It was a good job. Julia liked it. There wasn’t much else to her life, really. No husband, no family, and at the age of thirty-eight Julia was beginning to suspect that there never was going to be one. Her mother had died of lung cancer four years back; her father was in a nursing home, slowly and quietly losing his reason and memory. Julia had friends, but they were mostly other teachers and administrators from the school. They all got drinks most days, after the final bell rung.

Now the twenty-three teachers and administrators at the school who were lucky enough to have non-Lanosian passports would have to do the job of a hundred faculty and staff – at least for two days, until they were deported too. And the Lanosian employees were scattered to the winds. A few, like Julia, had received cover stories and tickets out of the country. Most were just told to run, and to hope that they made it out of sight before the OrPo brought the hammer down.

I’m never going to see any of my friends ever again, Julia thought, and the realization seemed so immense that she could barely wrap her mind around it. Never, never, never, never.

And so Julia Stephens sat and contemplated the end of her world. And as she did so, a man took the seat behind hers, and sat down so that their backs were turned to each other. Julia couldn’t see much of the fellow, but he was big, and moved with a boxer’s nimble grace.

“Julia Stephens?” The man’s voice was low, so as not to be overheard, and muffled by the fact that he was facing away from Julia – but the Lanosian could still make out a foreign, Slavic accent flavoring the stranger’s words.

“Yes,” Julia said, very quietly. There was no response, and after a moment Julia realized that the stranger had not heard her. Feeling foolish, she repeated herself slightly more audibly. “Yes. That’s me.”

“Take the eight-thirty bus to Port Darthur. There is container ship under Phonese flag sailing to Lycanestria at five o’clock tomorrow morning. The captain is waiting for you. Don’t be late.” Julia heard a rustle of fabric as the man moved slightly. “Your bus ticket is in envelope under your chair. The captain is old friend from your school days in Lycanestria, and he offered you a lift to your college reunion.”

“Really?” Julia asked, surprised. “I don’t remember any Phonese – “

“No.” Julia thought she heard a grim amusement in the stranger’s voice. “Not ‘really’. But is what you’ll tell anyone who asks.” Out of the corner of her eye, Julia saw the man stand. “S bogom,” he murmured, and a moment later he was gone.

Julia just sat for a moment, and then she reached under her chair and pulled out a manila envelope. Contained within were a bus ticket, a sheet of paper with the berthing information for a ship called the SS Matsumaru sailing out of Port Darthur under a Captain Eguchi, and an old college yearbook with one page folded down. Julia opened the yearbook to find a single entry circled: a boyishly handsome face next to the name “Eguchi Moronobu”. On the adjoining page was a photograph of a beaming young woman, and the name “Julia Stephens.”

Julia stared at the old photograph for a moment, and she suddenly was quite certain that she was as alone as anyone in the world.

The bus station’s intercom crackled. “Interstate 308 to Port Darthur departing in fifteen minutes. All passengers please move to the boarding area. Thank you.”

Julia stood and glanced around. Her gaze alighted on a man in a suit and sunglasses, reading the newspaper and sipping coffee from a cardboard cup. There seemed to be nothing special about him, and yet Julia couldn’t see his eyes, and she was suddenly certain that he was watching her. A chill ran up and down the Esperancer’s spine. He’s just a businessman, Julia told herself. And then she saw the video camera near the ceiling of the bus station. And then she saw the woman at the ticket counter looking at Julia out of the corner of her eye. And the man at the pay phone on the street outside glancing at Julia as he made a call…

Panic rose, hot and acidic, in the back of Julia’s throat. And so she put her head down and walked toward the boarding area for the Port Darthur bus, and prayed with all her might that she was just paranoid, that the eyes on her were just the eyes of fellow Lanosians, that the Order Police were a long way away and out of sight.

And when she was seated on the bus at last, and it pulled away from the station, and everything that mattered in Julia’s life was vanishing in the rear-view mirror – then Julia Stephens let her head rest against the window, and knew in her heart that there were far, far worse things than starting over.

[Esperance International]

Esperance International Bureau Headquarters
Keinsteinem National Capital District
Keinsteinem, Kastein, Lanos
January 22, 1976
1000 hours

Angus Miller, for the first time in his life, was cooking the books.

On the evening of January 21, Commander Wu Da had quietly made phone calls to every Security Force captain in Lanos. Those Security Force officers, in turn, had sent their troopers out by car and motorcycle to deliver warnings to the homes of every Lanosian Esperance employee in the country. A lucky few – primarily those without immediate family - were given tickets out of the country, complete with cover stories that concealed their Esperance affiliation. Most were just given a month’s wages in advance and were told to run that very night.

At any rate, almost half of the Esperance employees in Lanos had not showed up for work on the morning of January 22. Schools, medical clinics, offices, and construction projects all over the country were suddenly half-empty. Those Lanosian Esperancers who missed the warnings and came in to work anyway were urgently bundled out the back door and told to head for the borders as fast as they could. And business went on more or less as usual without them.

Therein lay the rub, of course. Angus had to find a way to make Esperance operations in Lanos look normal despite the fact that they were suddenly catastrophically understaffed, in order to keep the government from realizing that Esperance was evacuating all its native-born employees. He had to hide the absence of four thousand people. And that meant cooking the books.

For one thing, the Esperance schools were closed. Angus had called the Commissioner of Education and the principals of every Esperance school in Lanos, and he’d managed to come up with hundreds of different reasons to close the schools - ranging from a sudden flu epidemic to asbestos fumes leaking out of the walls to flooding damage in the basement that needed to be repaired. Hopefully, the OrPo wouldn’t look any closer for at least a few days – giving the Lanosian Esperancers a few days’ grace before Chambers realized they were gone and started hunting them in earnest.

Esperance University in Keinsteinem was too big to close in advance, so when the native Lanosian professors disappeared on the night of January 21, the university provost responded by cancelling some classes – claiming a virus was making the rounds in the faculty – and by bringing in visiting professors for others – meaning that any foreign-born Esperance employee with a doctoral degree suddenly found himself teaching a university class. The provost had called Angus an hour ago: apparently, a lot of the students knew that something was up, but none of them had any idea that the Lanosian professors were actually trying to flee the country. And even if the students did figure it out, the provost had continued, they wouldn’t say anything: most were either liberal intellectuals or underprivileged youth who owed their chance at higher education entirely to Esperance.

As for the clinics, a few had closed, citing the same supposed virus that was laying low Esperance employees left and right. That had allowed Angus to consolidate his remaining foreign-born medical staff, ensuring that the clinics that remained open had enough doctors and nurses to do their jobs without attracting unwanted attention. Lines had gotten longer for Esperance-provided free medical care, but that sort of fluctuation was normal; it wouldn’t attract close OrPo attention, at least not for the few days needed to give the native-born Esperancers a head start in escaping Chambers.

As for the construction projects and the officers, the show of work continued to be done – but in reality, the focus was on assisting the evacuation. Here, the key was making sure that any OrPo raid would not reveal documents leading to the refugees. On paper, the Lanosian Esperancers had to cease to exist, so as to make it that much harder for Chambers to locate four thousand people lost among the millions of other Lanosians.

“Shred it,” Angus told Sophia Frenz. “Shred all of it. Shred it now.”

“Sir, there are” – Sophia waved at the endless shelves of the archives in the basement of the Lanos bureau headquarters – “thousands of files here.”

“Four thousand, one hundred and twelve, “Angus agreed, “plus whatever other documents reference any Lanosian citizens working for Esperance International in this country. Yes. Shred them all. Questions?”

Sophia shook her head. “With all do respect, is this really necessary?”

Angus chuckled bitterly. “If we are very lucky,” he said, “in about two and a half days, the Order Police are going to kick down our door and arrest all of us. We will then be deported – me to Albion, ye to Gvozdevsk, and so on. And when this happens, the OrPo will discover a strange fact: all of the Lanosian citizens working for Esperance International – the people whom they could legally imprison or execute – will have vanished. Hopefully, most of them will have already fled the country, because we were warned of what’s coming.” Angus raised his eyebrows. “Now: when Chambers discovers that, he will be furious that his prey has escaped. And he will spare no effort to hunt down whatever Lanosian Esperancers have not yet made it beyond his borders. And the easiest way for him to do that will be to look in our files, and learn the names, addresses, and family members of all the Lanosians who are working for us.”

“Ah.” Sophia nodded. “Ja. I understand.”

“Perfect. Then shred the files. All of them. Start bonfires, if ye have to. But when the OrPo break down this door, I want all trace of our Lanosian personnel to be gone without a trace. If nothing else, that should give them a few more days of freedom.”

Sophia nodded again, and turned away. And as Angus Miller left the basement archives room, he heard the roar of a dozen electrical shredders coming to life behind him, and he knew that the paper trail linking Julia Stephens and thousands of other Lanosians to Esperance International was vanishing into thin air.

He could only pray that the Lanosian Esperancers themselves would be able to manage the same trick.

[Esperance International]

Sondria State Highway 9
Outside Telrania, Sondria, Lanos
January 22, 1976
1030 hours

The highway stretched ahead to the horizon. The broad ribbon of asphalt was just beginning to shimmer in the heat of the day. Inside the Carter family’s station wagon, there was no sound but the dull hum of the engine. A long, stunned silence filled the car.

It had begun the previous night. Jim Carter was a career Esperance employee in the Commission for Civil Infrastructure Development. He was an architect, and a construction supervisor. A native of Telrania, Jim had returned to his hometown as an Esperancer and had worked on the organization’s big project there: a new community center for the working-class slums on the edge of town. It was Jim Carter’s baby: a clean, well-designed complex of basketball courts, skating rinks, and cafeterias that could offer at-risk youth a safe place to play and socialize off the streets.

It wasn’t Jim’s only baby, either. On returning to Telrania, the Esperancer had courted and wed his high school sweetheart, Wendy. The marriage had come as a surprise to almost everyone, including both Jim and Wendy; and yet, in their gentle, teasing way, the two were happy with each other. They were not passionate, perhaps, but they were companionable, and neither ever felt alone. There is a deep love of its own in that.

And so Jim and Wendy lived together in Telrania, and raised their two children: a daughter named Ruth, who had just turned twelve, and her younger brother Jim Junior. Wendy sold car insurance for a local company; Jim ran Esperance International building projects in the area, most importantly the new community center. They were just average folks, and proud of it.

And then a tall man with a Cestyn accent had shown up on the doorstep of Jim’s suburban bungalow at nine o’clock the previous night, and he had told the architect that in two days he would be arrested by the Order Police unless he left his home, dropped off the grid, and fled the country as quickly as possible. And suddenly, Jim Carter and his family were not just average folks, not any more. They were fugitives.

There had been harsh words. Jim had told Wendy to pack a suitcase. She told him that they couldn’t just uproot their lives. Jim told her to pack a suitcase. She had told him that their children would have no future if they ran. Jim told her to pack a suitcase. Wendy asked whether he even cared about Ruth and Jim Junior.

“Of course I care, Wendy,” Jim had told her. “That’s why I want them to grow up with their parents alive and out of prison.”

Jim Junior was crying quietly behind the door of his room. Ruth was screaming at Jim’s back, shouting about her friends and her school. And suddenly Jim saw the realization wash over Wendy’s face. Her jaw went slack and her eyes lost focus, and she said: “This is the end of everything, isn’t it? The end of everything.”

Jim took his wife in his arms, and held her as she stood stock still, unmoving, dry-eyed. And then, numbly, she packed a suitcase.

By midnight, they were on the road. Each member of the Carter household packed a suitcase and a backpack, and then loaded themselves and their abundant baggage into the station wagon. Jim cleaned out the cash in the house safe, and locked the front door; behind him, he could hear Ruth and Jim Junior quietly bickering over who got more space in the back seat.

“Do you think we’ll ever be back?” Wendy asked quietly.

Jim touched his forehead to the doorframe. “I don’t know.”

Gently, Wendy laid one hand on his arm, and Jim nestled his face into her hair. The smell of her made his heart beat a little more slowly. “I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you too.”

And then Jim fired up the station wagon, and his home vanished into the night darkness in the rearview mirror.

They drove all night, through the darkened suburban streets and along the near-deserted highways, passing only long-haul container trucks, their way lit by the dim glow of distant rest stops. They were silent. Jim Junior fell asleep in the back seat. Ruth stared vacantly out the window. Once, she began to weep quietly. Wendy reached back and took the girl’s hands. Jim drove, and drove, and drove, until his eyes felt raw and his hands began to cramp on the steering wheel.

At about three in the morning, Wendy touched his arm, and said: “I can take over.” Wordlessly, Jim pulled the car over to the side of the road, and the two adults switched places. Wendy put the station wagon back into gear, and Jim put his head back and caught a few precious hours of sleep. He dreamed of Order Police agents materializing out of the dark, snatching Ruth and Jim Junior, dragging them away.

Jim woke at dawn. Wendy drove on for another hour, and then let him take over. By that time, Ruth was asleep in the back seat too, next to her brother. Wendy twisted in her seat and looked at the children. Jim could feel her eyes on him.

“We’re going to be okay?” she asked.

Jim opened his mouth to say yes, of course, everything would be fine. Then he closed it again, and just laid his hand on Wendy’s.

A few hours later, Jim Junior woke up in the back seat. He was quiet for several minutes, and then announced. “I’m hungry.”

Yawning, Ruth awoke next to him. “Me too,” she agreed sleepily.

Wendy glanced worriedly at Jim, who shrugged. “The border is still at least a day away,” he said quietly. “If the Security Force guy last night was right, no one is looking for us yet. And the kids to need to eat.”

Wendy just nodded. Jim pulled over at the next rest stop, and ushered his family inside, up to the diner counter. There were truckers everywhere, bluff honest faces that reminded Jim of the construction workers around whom he had spent his life. Nothing seemed out of place, but Jim felt painfully exposed and vulnerable, an alien feeling of creeping panic that reminded him of half-remembered nightmares.

The Carter family ordered eggs and biscuits, and then fled to a booth in the corner of the rest stop. Jim checked his watch, and looked longingly out the window.

The life that he had known already appeared but a distant memory, and yet safety still seemed unutterably far away.

[The Republic of Lanos]

January 22, 1976

Michael Chambers Jr. rode his motorcycle at high speed through Keinsteinem's roads, trying to reach the Esperance HQ before anything could happen. As soon as he reached the immediate vicinity, he knew he was too late to do anything. He could see the front of the building swarmed with government vehicles and the roads leading up to it were blocked by Order Police checkpoints. He drove off in a rage, unable to express anything about what he had seen except within his own mind.

Fuck! He set them out early! Damnit my father set them out early! Those people! They're good as dead! Fuck fuck fuck!

His father had called earlier as a hidden message of staying away from the operation because he had, in his infamous fashion, started the operation early to surprise everyone involved. He had done more surprising on his son, and that of the Esperance people, in order to get things taken care of while he framed, hopefully, that Esperance was committing grave criminal acts in Lanos and had to be stopped. The father's plan of destroying the organization, seen as a means of passive resistance against his increasingly authoritarian rule, would be working as planned. The media would issue the required propaganda and then condemn the organization as members are shunned, tried, convicted, imprisoned, exiled, and some would be shot. All in the name of Michael Chambers Sr., President of Lanos.

15 minutes earlier

Everyone pulled out of the way of the convoy of vans, two ton trucks, and police cars flashing their red lights as checkpoints were established in the area to prevent anyone from getting in or out. As the vans rolled up, previously stationed OrPo agents stood, waiting to draw guns and make their entrance into the HQ and to stop anyone trying to run for "questioning." Things had built up to this moment for the OrPo. Then, they poured out of their vehicles. The undercovers flashed their guns and badges. And the mob of SWAT-style officers stormed the Esperance International HQ. The officers stormed in, CAR-15 carbines, M16s, shotguns, SIG SG 510s and pistols drawn and ready to fire, and did not hesitate to shout and point their weapons at those they considered enemies of the Lanosian states. They had surprised the staff, which had been in the midst of destroying anything that could be used against innocents, and caught everyone off guard in the best possible manner. Agents moved up the stairs, yelling in their brash fashion, and threatening to shoot anyone that attempted to resist.

And that was, at it seemed, the start of affairs.

It only depended on how far Chambers was willing to go in this crackdown.

Sondria State Highway 9
11:30 AM

As a station wagon rolled past a billboard, a hidden Order Police vehicle rolled behind it from behind a billboard and flashed its lights on it, ordering it to pull over. As he did so, the officer, alone and in uniform, approached the vehicle and noticed the terrified occupants. Duly suspecting issues, he had the identification of both adults taken and radioed in to find out, yes indeed, they had reason to fear the Order Police today. As he got out to inform both adults to get out of the vehicle and be secured before calling for a detention vehicle, he was met with a speeding and red-flashing National Police car. In their effort to hamper the OrPo, the shunned and defanged National Police had taken to getting into the action of kicking the collective ass of any OrPo doing his job by harassing anyone the agency marked. Listening into this officer's radio calls, they very much so had reason to do what they could to stop this from becoming a tragedy. One sky blue-shirted officer got out of his white car, defaced with a red stripe and the badge on the sides, and walked towards the vehicles.

"Hey, shitcocker!" The officer held his 12 gauge Remington in his hands. "You ain't giving this family some shit!"

The OrPo looked bemused. "You guys don't learn to not interfere with my state business? I have yet to even call for detention and child service-" The second officer, unnoticed, fired his "borrowed" SG 510 past the left ear of the OrPo. The first pointed his 12 gauge's business end and cycled the weapon to load 00 buckshot.

"When I said 'You ain't giving this family some shit,' I fucking mean you ain't giving this family some shit!" The cops looked as serious as death as they watched the stunned OrPo turn white. It usually had to come to deadly force to force the Order Police to bend to the National Police as the latter always could destroy the former if Chambers had allowed the two agencies, one in National Security and the other in Justice, to wage a full-scale war.

The second officer yelled from his vantage point. "Now, motherfucker. We had called our skyblues after hearing this bullshit go out and they'll be here in 5 eager to find out you sent these kids to live in some state orphanage while mama and daddy die a slow painful death. I'm sure that even the Chambers Amendments would find the OrPo policy exemption to spare families humane so..." He loaded a full magazine into the rifle. "If you don't mind, kindly report that these people are clearly harmless."

The OrPo turned red. "You fucking shits! I already radioed their IDs in! They're fucked!"

Sirens and flashing red lights could be heard in the distance. The OrPo had his hand on his service revolver.

"No, asshole! You are!" The first officer had his finger on the trigger. The second officer was ready to make his marksmanship known. "What do you want to face? Us or God?"

Before things could turn deadly, the OrPo's radio crackled. After "prodding," the OrPo got into his car and listened to the message.

"KTXW to Car 1715, State Highway Niner. Do not take Carter family in. They are to proceed unmolested. Ordered from Keinsteinem."

The officer looked confused. "Car 1715 to KTXW. By who's authority in Keinsteinem?"

"Car 1715, order comes direct from Special Agent...Michael Chambers Jr and commander of the agency."

At least Chambers Jr. could interfere with the crackdown in one area.

Fuming in the records offices where they had to look into who was marked for capture, the agent had heard of the search of the family and heard all the details involved. Without knowing the National Police had a car nearby to carry on the tradition of hating the OrPo, Chambers had rushed into the radio section to "persuade" that the family was to go free. Of course, he had also brought in the agency's commander after a successful argument that the family wouldn't dare suffer. After Keinsteinem told Telrania to clear the family, the radio issued the all clear.

The OrPo officer, red as ever, walked back to the station wagon, returned the identification and cleared the family to leave the scene, and walked back to the police officers which had now received some serious reinforcement from the National Police Emergency Response Force.

"The next time this fucking shit happens, my people will ensure a civil war starts on yours asses!" He got into his car and drove off.

The first officer looked at the second. The second spoke.

"Buchanan...next time you try shit like that, you should join those UDC fuckers. They got the balls."

Officer Paul Buchanan, on station in Sondria from his home state of Nostrom, looked bemused. "Well, I think I should carry on my family tradition to try to have a daughter so we can have a Lady...oh and be Governor of Nostrom. I got a few years left before I start trying for both..." He slinged his shotgun, saluted his fellow officers, and drove off away from the scene, hoping this wouldn't happen again with the family he had saved.

Lanos Highway 308 to Port Darthur
13 miles from Port Darthur
4:01 PM

It had been late in the afternoon as the bus traveled along the National Highway towards the central bus stop, and then for one passenger, freedom, as the bus encountered an unusual rolling checkpoint. For whatever reason, rush hour headed into the city had to wait as the Order Police had established checkpoints to ensure nobody wanted would get out of Lanos and the port city was one place to do so. As agents walked on board the bus with submachine guns, they looked for anyone scared to death to take off the bus to find out just who they were before they were to figure out what's the next step.

"Hey Fred, you think we're gonna find anyone on this thing? I mean, we're getting the finger already." There was a discussion at the front of the bus between the two boarders.
"Yeah, for what? Taking on the agency that did some serious state crimes?"
"I don't know. I mean, shit, you think they're dumb enough to run out of Lanos? Didn't the boss say don't go all hardcore and kill every Lanosian Esperancer?"
"Shit. I thought we'd pardon the majority and kill the people responsible for all the crimes they've done." The agents looked at the passengers and the driver.
"I bet you any Esperancer wouldn't be dumb enough to run now. They probably were waiting until it's too late. Oh well, let these people go."
"What's the use of this stop? I'm due to get off in an hour anyways if we didn't look for these Esperance fuckers for whatever we're getting them for! Fine with me! Away with this shit!" The agents disembarked and waved the vehicle through to its final destination in the city of Port Darthur.

If only others were as lucky to have luck shine upon them favorably this day.

[Esperance International]

Esperance International Bureau Headquarters
Keinsteinem National Capital District
Keinsteinem, Kastein, Lanos
January 22, 1976
1100 hours

They had five minutes' warning. Maybe less. However much it was, Angus Miller would later thank God for having gotten any warning at all.

The Esperance bureau chief had left Sophia Frenz to get a head start on shredding the records containing the identities of all Lanosian Esperancers. He had returned to his office and emptied his personal safe, stuffing the contents into a canvas backpack. And then Angus Miller had taken down a solid willow-wood cricket bat a plaque on the wall above his office fireplace. He had hefted the bat, feeling its weight, and thought: Well, if worst comes to worst, at least I'll get in a good drive or two before I go.

When Angus looked up from the bat, Wu Da was standing in the door, and the big Aurinsulan's face was grim. Angus felt his stomach clench. "What?"

Wu Da pointed with his chin. "Look out the window."

Angus parted the blinds. On the street outside, he saw have a dozen tough-looking strangers wearing garments loose enough to conceal firearms. One of them looked right back up at Angus through the glass.

"Oh, shite," Angus whispered.

"I've got my people barricading the doors," Wu Da said briefly. "We've already sent all the Lanosians away, but - "

"Their head start means cack-all now." Angus shit his head. "Damn, damn, damn." Abruptly, the bureau chief's eyes widened. "Oh, no," he muttered.

Wu Da frowned. "What?"

"Sophia - the records - " Angus whirled away from the window. "We have to destroy those employee records. We have to destroy them now, before the Order Police can get their hands on the personal information of every Lanosian working for this bureau!"

Sirens began to wail in the distance. "They're here," Wu Da grunted. He turned to Angus. "Go. I'll buy you some time." The big man paused. "It's been an honor, chief."

Angus just nodded, and then he ran for the records chamber.

As Angus rushed through the halls of the Esperance headquarters, dozens of employees swarmed hither and yon in a panic. A few Security Force troopers were standing on the stairs, shouting: "Everybody up! Upstairs! Get to the roof!" Angus wondered why they were trying to move the Esperancers to the roof - We surely can't get out that way, they must have us surrounded - but then a woman barreling along and weeping silent tears of terror almost knocked Angus off his feet, and the bureau chief had no more time for thinking. He had to keep moving.

Wu Da's makeshift barricade on the main door of the headquarters building survived all of three hits from the SWAT team's battering ram before it crumbled. Angus saw agents in paramilitary gear swarm into the building, and he bolted toward the records office. One man took off after him, sprinting down the hallway; as soon as the officer rounded a corner in the corridor and vanished out of sight of his friends, Angus heard a hard thunk. When the bureau chief turned around, he saw Wu Da carrying a heavy steel pipe, and the SWAT officer laying in a heap at his feet.

"Told you I'd buy you some time," the big Aurinsulan said with a forced smile. "Hurry."

On Angus sprinted, away from the sound of screams, down the long corridor that led to the archives in the basement of the headquarters. He arrived out of breath, and hammered with his fist on the door of the archives room.

From the other side, he heard Sophia's voice, shrill with fear and anger. "We haven't done anything!"

"Sophia," Angus panted, "for Christ's sake, it's me. Open the damn door!"

The archives door opened, and Angus almost fell inside. He could see a huge pile of shredded paper in a corner of the room, and next to it an even more enormous pile of documents still intact. "What's going on?" Sophia asked.

"The OrPo is here," Angus replied, still struggling to catch his breath. "We have to shred all of the remaining records on the Lanosian employees, right now."

Sophia shook her head. "We can't. That will take - hours, certainly. Maybe days."

"We don't have time." Angus looked desperately around the room, and then he was suddenly moving, grabbing an old kerosene lantern off the wall.

"I keep that down here for when the power goes out," Sophia explained blankly. Then her eyes widened in understanding. "No. Oh, no. Sir, you could burn the whole building down - "

“It’s finished for us here anyway,” Angus cried. He turned to Sophia, eyes wild. “If the OrPo find these records, they will torture and imprison and murder thousands of Lanosians whose only crime was trying to make the world a better place. I won’t have that on my conscience, Sophia. I won’t!” The old man’s voice was cracked with fury.

Sophia Frenz took a deep breath, and then nodded once. Angus swung the kerosene lamp at the wall, grunting with effort; on the third try, the lamp began to drip a clear liquid. Panting, Angus doused the pile of documents in the leaking kerosene, and turned to Sophia. “You should go surrender,” Angus told the librarian.

Sophia gritted her teeth, and lifted her chin a little higher. “I’ll stay.”

Angus chuckled and nodded. Abruptly, a fist hammered on the door, and Sophia looked at Angus, her eyes full of fear.

The last of the kerosene dribbled out of the lamp. The door shook as the Order Police banged on it again. Angus pulled a cigarette lighter from his pocket. Sophia gave a soft cry as the door jumped in its frame; someone had kicked it. Angus frantically worked the lighter with his finger. “Come on,” he whispered. “Come on!”

Abruptly, the door exploded open. SWAT officers swarmed into the room. One grabbed Sophia. Another made a beeline for Angus. The bureau chief saw a rifle muzzle loom before his eyes like an endless dark tunnel.

In the lighter in Angus’ hand, a single tiny flame appeared. Angus Miller let out a long breath, and opened his fist. The lighter fell straight down onto the enormous pile of personnel files. For a moment, nothing happened, and Angus felt the cold hand of terror squeeze his heart.

And then the kerosene-soaked paper exploded into flame, and Angus flinched away from the blue-white bonfire that was all that remained of the personal information of every Lanosian citizen employed by Esperance International.

In that basement room, his lungs choked by smoke, amidst the ruins of everything that he had spent his life working for, Angus Miller turned to the Order Police officer in front of him, and smiled triumphantly. “I am an Anglican citizen,” he said simply, brandishing his passport. “Go on, then: arrest me.”

[Esperance International]

Sondria State Highway 9
Near Telrania, Sondria, Lanos
January 22, 1976
1130 hours

Jim and Wendy Carter sat in stunned silence in their station wagon, trying to absorb what had just happened to them. In the end, it was their daughter Ruth who reached forward from her place in the back seat of the car and grabbed Jim’s shoulder, shaking him gently. “Dad. Dad, we have to go.”

Jim blinked slowly. “I thought we were dead,” he said distantly.

That seemed to shock Wendy out of her daze. She grabbed her husband’s hand, and whispered: “Not in front of the kids.”

Jim swallowed hard; his foot drummed the floor of the car, a staccato drumbeat that spoke of hysteria barely constrained. “Dad,” Ruth repeated, “we have to go.”

“Yeah,” Jim finally managed to grunt. He put the station wagon in gear, and pulled back out onto the highway.

A few minutes passed in silence. Then Jim glanced at his wife. “They told us we would have three days. Three days to get out of the country before the crackdown began.”

Wendy nodded. “I know.”

“They lied to me!” Jim slammed one hand furiously into the steering wheel. “They lied to me, and they almost got us – “

“Honey,” Wendy said quietly. “Please.”

Jim subsided into silence. After a moment, Jim Junior piped up. “How do you know the President, Dad?”

Jim’s brow furrowed. “What, little man? Chambers? I don’t know Michael Chambers.”

“Huh.” Jim Junior shrugged. “The radio in the OrPo’s car said that Michael Chambers said not to bother us.”

Jim glanced, bewildered, at Wendy. “What?”

“I heard it too,” Ruth confirmed. “I heard it was Michael Chambers Junior, though.”

Wendy turned her limpid blue eyes on Jim. “Friends in high places, honey?”

Jim just shook his head. “Love, I have absolutely no idea what’s going on anymore.” As he said the words, Jim felt some great weight lift from his shoulders. There’s a peace in accepting that your fate is not in your hands.

“Well,” Wendy replied, “whether the president knows you, or whether the president’s son knows you, I’m still going to say a prayer tonight for those National Police cops.” She twisted in her seat to look at Ruth and Jim Junior. “It just goes to show that there are good people everywhere, kids, even working for very bad people. You just have to be willing to see them.”

Jim saw Ruth roll her eyes in the rearview mirror, and he gave a short, exhausted laugh. “Amen to that,” he agreed.

And the Carter family’s car sped on down the highway, and every passing mile brought them closer to the border – and safety.

[Esperance International]

Port Darthur Municipal Bus Station
Port Darthur, Darthur, Lanos
January 22, 1976
1700 hours

Julia Stephens’ heartrate was just beginning to slow down again when she stepped off the bus in Port Darthur. She stopped toward the edge of the bus station, her gaze nervously scanning the crowd, and took a deep, shuddering breath in an effort to calm herself.

She had been sure that she was about to be caught when the two Order Police agents had boarded the bus. She had almost stood up and identified herself, thinking that maybe they would go easier on her if she turned herself in voluntarily. After all, Julia was just a school vice-principal; it wasn’t like she was some kind of hardened criminal.

And then one of the agents had turned to the other, and said that the Order Police had instructions to kill every Lanosian Esperancer. For a moment Julia’s heart had stopped beating, and she almost made a noise of physical pain. But instead she sat very still, staring desperately at the seat-back in front of her, until the two agents had exited the bus. And then Julia had turned her face to the window, and closed her eyes, and tried to block from her imagination the images that swirled there: pictures of her friends, her co-workers, the only people in the world who knew her or cared about her, laying in pools of their own blood on the concrete floor of an OrPo cell.

Julia kept her jaw clenched and her eyes closed, and by the time she made it off the bus at the Port Darthur station her urge to weep or scream had dulled, compressing itself into a tight ball of agony somewhere under her sternum. And so Julia said nothing, and when she stepped off the bus in a strange city a long way from home, she had never felt more alone.

Once the beating of her heart was no longer thundering in her ears, Julia cast a long stare over the crowd surrounding her. There were fellow passengers from the bus lining up near the taxi stand, a few street food vendors hawking their wares, some dockworkers hurrying home through the gathering dusk. A few National Police officers in sky-blue strolled by on patrol, and Julia quietly turned away and studied a map of bus routes on the station wall until the policemen passed.

At length, Julia took a deep breath. I have to get to the ship. The last thing Julia wanted was to spend the night exposed in a hotel. The Matsumaru is leaving at five o’clock tomorrow morning. If I can just make it to the ship, I’ll be able to hide on board until it leaves. There’s barely twelve hours left, anyway. The Esperancer squared her shoulders slightly. I just have to make it to the waterfront, and then I’ll be safe.

Abruptly, Julia’s stomach rumbled unhappily, and she remembered that she hadn’t eaten anything since the previous day. Hunger gnawed at her, but so did an anxious nausea. After a moment’s deliberation, she walked over to a food stall and ordered some fried codfish balls, enough to fill a brown paper bag; she had seen some of the locals munching on the same food as they walked past the bus station, and hoped that to join them would help her blend in.

And so, as the sun set over Port Darthur, Julia Stephens kept her head down, ate her dinner, and walked with quietly determined steps toward the waterfront – and the safety that was now both so close and so terribly far away.

[The Republic of Lanos]

The Order Police officer with the CAR-15 in his hands pointing the weapon at the self-identified officer looked dismayed at the destruction of evidence and the fact there was a fire in the basement, a fact being spread by the sounding of the fire alarms. As he signaled other officer to detain and drag out the others, he stood in front of the Anglican Esperancer as the rest of the team evacuated the basement and began to clear the building hoping the fire department could come in time. As he looked past the man and viewing the evidence being destroyed, likely all of it when the Keinsteinem Fire Department arrived, he fumed at the man's gloating.

"The fact you are a foreigner cannot save you nor your friends, you fucking shitcocker!"

He threw his rifle butt towards the head of the man, successfully hitting him in the face, and proceeded to personally handcuff and drag his Anglican prisoner to safety with his personal effects in tow. Whoever he was, figured the officer, he was either in charge of the HQ or he was high up to warrant such wanton destruction and obstruction of "justice." That now no Lanosian Esperancer could be targeted by the Order Police was not of matter to the one that really wielded the power in Lanos.

President Michael Chambers Sr. was a very happy man.

After ordering the crackdown to happen earlier to surprise everyone involved, he had added to the order to not significantly harm any Lanosian working for the agency but to only place them under watch or protective custody with no physical harm. The last part of sparing the Lanosians and harming the hell out of the foreigners was part of his idea that the agency was a foreign danger to the Lanosian Republic under his "caring" rule. There was also the fact that most of the Lanosian Esperancers were either too valuable to kill off or simply not worth killing many of his national comrades over some "damned foreigners." In any event, he added the final note to his orders as an afterthought, realizing that there were Lanosians that worked for this now-criminal organization. Having done the deed, the President of Lanos had finished his lunch triumphantly and had the media prepare for a special statement to the nation at 7 PM to address the events of what caused Esperance International in Lanos to run afoul of the government. The man could barely contain his excitement as he proceeded with his business in the Green House.

Order Police Officer and Special Agent Michael Chambers Jr. was in a state of depression.

The fact he had saved a family in Sondria had barely tempered his current state of emotion as he had tried his best to save people...and his efforts were beaten by his authoritarian father. What was worse, even if the records of Lanosians were destroyed, there were certainly other files compiled by the agency he worked for that would find those targeted and things would be very bad for those wanted if they were caught. As he stayed in his apartment with a worried wife holding his firstborn son looking on, Chambers stared out into the city beyond, watching the life of Keinsteinem continue on as if nothing was going on. How would they know until his father spoke and the media, required to do so, spouted the government line 100%? The man, with a pained look in his face, turned to his wife.

"I want to make a plan..." He knew they would never bug his place. His wife Elena knew what he was to say. "I want to get out of Lanos when it's time. I don't know when but I'm going to start planning now and then we'll be out when it's time. I'm getting about finished with this. When it's over..." He moved to kiss his wife's cheek and took a hold of his son.

"...we'll never be known only as the family of your grandfather, the authoritarian."

Keinsteinem International Airport

They were only looking for the woman. They only suspected her anyways.

Frances Delaney had been marked for arrest and Order Police plainclothes officers were looking for her, and only her, at the airport as the two Esperance agents proceeded to get out of Lanos. As her partner proceeded unharmed, and to safety thereafter, the security guard noticed the name on her Lanosian passport and looked back at her. Without even a warning, he put down the passport and grabbed the woman and dragged her and her belongings to the detention area of the airport. Before anyone could intervene, officers nearby ensured that anyone trying would earn a free trip to the ground. Her partner, whomever he was, would not dare try as he was escorted away to his flight.

The security guard had only identified himself as Order Police as she was shoved onto a chair and her bags separated for good measure as they began to find out what she was trying to do and why she was doing it. As they let her suffer in silence, they tore through her bags to find anything incriminating that would earn the Lanosian a death sentence for treason. Despite their efforts, they did not find "the file" or anything related to her work as an investigator. They could care less about the abuses in Lanos, as it was policy to shrug off the international accusations and redirect them at the accusing powers, but she was supposedly carrying something that was not to get out at all costs.

An interrogator came into the room.

"Gerald Sutcliffe, Order Police Special Agent." He sounded as cold as he looked.

"Ms. Delaney, you know why you're in here? Of course, don't answer. I know about your father...poor man. He was...to say the least...very annoying to our government." He gave off an evil smile. "I'll have you know that your father was personally condemned by the President...and you'll likely be joining him if you don't tell us what you're trying to get out you stupid bitch." He threw down onto the interrogation room's simple steel table. "Look! We know you're trying to get it out! We've been watching your ass since when your father was shot in Stonehill!" He referred to the feared prison and camp system run by the Order Police, known for where people "disappeared" or were sent there and never seen again. "Don't think for a fucking minute we're stupid like you and your fucking father! You're lucky we don't target the rest of your family per orders or we'd send them all, including you, to the camp system long before this fuckery happened! Your friend is not of interest to us. We don't suspect a damn thing on him. You...we got you on treason, which will end your life pretty fast. You won't even get a trial...we don't want...the secret getting out now do we?" He grinned. "Your security is so bad at finding our bugs...we know what you have...and we'll find it."

Knowing where to hit, he continued the line.

"He was a good man, wasn't he? Taught you well. If by that treason, I guess so. He could have tried to save himself but he chose to die instead of living. I believe Jesus said something like that...ah yes. He chose poorly...for his time here at least. I wonder if you're religious...wouldn't help you face the wrath of our government as you wait to meet whatever you believe in after death. Whatever is to come, be assured you'll be joining your father in the same graveyard and right next to him as well...we made sure of that if it ever came to this."

He proceeded to leave the room.

"You can have a lawyer if you want. He won't save you."

At the rate things were going for Frances Delaney, nothing could.

[Esperance International]

Esperance International Bureau Headquarters
Keinsteinem National Capital District
Keinsteinem, Kastein, Lanos
January 22, 1976
1105 hours

The butt of the Order Police officer’s rifle slammed into Angus’ face, and the Esperancer felt his nose break with a wet crunch. Pain spiked into Angus’ head: the sharp pain of the broken nose and what would later prove to be a hairline fracture in his cheekbone, and the dull ache of the concussion.

Ears ringing, Angus fell, and distantly he felt his head bounce off the floor. Instinctively, the Esperancer tried to protect himself, covering his head with his arms and curling up to shield his belly. But the OrPo man grabbed his hands and forced them behind his back, cuffing them. Still stunned, Angus did not resist; he was focusing on trying to breathe past the torrent of blood coursing back down his throat from his broken nose. His bound hands, scrabbling behind him, found his passport and seized it, holding on to the document like a lifeline.

Then the big officer was dragging Angus to his feet, and the Esperance official’s head began to clear. In his school days in Albion, Angus had played rugby; he had taken his fair share of knocks. As far as Angus could remember, the key was not to dwell on it: not to look too far ahead, not to worry about anything beyond the next step.

The archives room was getting uncomfortably hot as the bonfire of personnel files continued to blaze; the flames licked at the ceiling and at the wooden bookshelves that filled the basement chamber. Smoke was beginning to billow from walls and ceiling as the building itself heated up. Oh, God, Angus realized. I might just have burned the whole bloody compound down.

Wiping his broken nose gingerly on his shoulder – a streak of dark, arterial blood stained Angus’ collar – the Esperancer turned on the OrPo man who was dragging him out of the burning room. “I am an Anglican citizen,” he repeated, shouting over the crackling blaze of the fire. “Everyone in this building is a foreign citizen. We have the right to contact our consular officials and embassies, and to inform our governments that we have been detained. If ye deny this right, then ye are responsible for an act o’ hostility against our governments.”

Angus lifted his chin a little higher; blood coursed down his chin. “Man, I know ye. Ye just do this job. Ye do nae have the power to make that kind o’ decision. So let me talk to your superior officer, and maybe we can keep ye from infuriating every other nation in the region. All right?”

[Esperance International]

Berth 256, Port Darthur Harbor
Port Darthur, Darthur, Lanos
January 22, 1976
2130 hours

Night had fallen over Port Darthur. The vast warehouses and enormous stacks of shipping containers that dominated the harbor area cast huge shadows over the roads, dwarfing the feeble light cast by the streetlamps. Half-glimpsed in the dark, moored in their mighty concrete berths, towered the titanic shapes of cargo ships the size of small skyscrapers. Trucks and cranes, darkened and empty, sat vacant on the endless tarmac roads, waiting for morning.

Julia Stephens felt very small; insignificant; helpless, even. She knew that, under different circumstances – just a day ago, just one day ago – she would have felt afraid to be wandering the harbor by herself after dark. She would have been thinking of muggers, rapists, of how very alone she would be if anything went wrong.

But now the darkness felt comforting: it felt like a cloak, a shield from prying eyes. It would be harder to follow her, Julia knew, in the shadowy labyrinth of the shipping containers and warehouses. And safety – a ship to Lycanestria, and a new life far from all this crushing fear – was very close indeed now.

As if on cue, Julia rounded the corner of a final warehouse and saw before her a battered ship moored between two enormous concrete piers. The paint on its hull was peeling, and its deck seemed to sag slightly under the weight of dozens of shipping containers piled on top of each other. But Julia could still see the graffiti-covered sign that stood in front of the pier: Berth 256. And she could still see the line of Mizuyuki-jin characters painted on the ship’s stern, facing her, with a translation in Common underneath: SS Matsumaru.

“Oh, thank God,” Julia whispered to herself. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, thank you.”

With a nervous glance around her, Julia hurried across the waterfront road that separated her from the ship in its berth. The street was deserted, but Julia could feel her heart pounding; to have come so close to safety only to be caught would be unbearable. But nothing happened; the Esperancer found herself on the mighty concrete pier, hurrying down it toward the removable set of rickety metal stairs that led up to a door in the hull of the cargo ship.

And so it was that Julia Stephens came to be standing at the top of a set of battered metal stairs, banging on a steel door with a little Plexiglas window in it, praying that someone was on board and awake and near enough to hear her. Just when her heart was rising into her throat with fear – how could she have come this far, escaped so narrowly, only to fail to find a way onto the damn ship? – she heard footsteps on the far side of the door, and suddenly the hatch swung open with a creak of rusty metal.

A short man – he looked Mizuyuki-jin or Aurinsulan, Julia couldn’t tell the difference – with greying black hair stood silhouetted in the doorway. To her horror, Julia realized that she couldn’t remember the name of the captain who was supposed to carry her to safety. “Are you – are you – “

The stranger smiled. “Eguchi Moronobu. Captain. SS Matsumaru. Yes.” He raised his eyebrows. “You must be Julia Stephens.”

Julia let out a small sound, half a sob and half a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank God.”

Moronobu smiled. “We have a cabin waiting for you.” His Common was heavily accented, but fluent, and his voice sounded warm and kind. “Come on in. Let’s get you out of sight.” He put a hand gently on Julia’s arm. “It’s all going to be all right.”

And tears came at last to Julia Stephens’ eyes as she realized that she wasn’t alone any more, that she didn’t have to run any more. Finally, finally, she was safe.

[Esperance International]

Anderson Family Motel
900 Kilometers From Lanosian Border
January 22, 1976
2115 hours

It was dark when the Carter family’s station wagon pulled up to a motel by the side of the road. A part of Jim had wanted to drive on through the night, to insist that he and Wendy take turns sleeping while the other one drove. He figured the family would be across the border at dawn if they drove all through the night, and the idea of trying to sleep in a country where the Order Police was hunting them seemed like madness.

But in the end he had been persuaded otherwise. When he declared his intention to continue driving, Jim Junior had started to snuffle in the backseat. Wendy pointed out that they hadn’t eaten since that morning. Ruth observed that she hadn’t seen any police cars in hours; the Carters were driving through the middle of nowhere. And when Jim remained obstinate, Wendy had leaned over and quietly said: “Honey, if we get to the border, we’re still going to have to find a way to get across it without being stopped. Don’t you think we should rest up and plan before we try to do that?”

Well, Jim hadn’t considered the problem of actually crossing the border; he had been too focused on the task of just getting to it. He found himself unable to argue with his wife’s reasoning. And so, an hour or so after nightfall – it was winter, and the sun set early – Jim pulled the station wagon into the parking lot of a ramshackle ranch house that stood alone by the side of the road, the only building for miles around. A sign out front declared, in peeling paint, “Anderson Motel”. Underneath, flickering neon letters spelled out the word: “Vacancy”.

The Carters sat for a long time before anyone moved from the car. Finally, Ruth announced: “Guys, this looks like the set to a horror movie.”

“I’m sure they’re perfectly nice people,” Wendy replied reflexively. In the rearview mirror, Jim could see skepticism writ large on his daughter’s face.

“Come on,” Jim finally grunted. “It’s going to be fine.” He grabbed the road atlas of Lanos that he had been using to navigate, and clambered out of the station wagon, groaning slightly as he stretched his legs for the first time in hours. Wendy and the kids followed; Jim could hear his wife chiding the children to take only one backpack, and not to forget their toothbrushes.

In the event, both Ruth and Wendy turned out to be right: the proprietors of the Anderson motel were cheerful and considerate, but they did seem almost creepily excited at the appearance of their guests, and Jim suddenly remembered that there had been no other cars besides the Carters’ in the motel’s parking lot. Perhaps influenced by all the horror movies that he had seen, Jim insisted on renting only one room for the whole family; he didn’t want to be separated from his children, not if something went wrong. The youngest member of the family that ran the motel – presumably the Andersons, Jim supposed – insisted on carrying the Carter children’s bags to the family’s room.

The room itself had once, clearly, been well-kept, and it was still clean; not a speck of dust was anywhere to be seen. But the curtains were tattered, the bed sheets threadbare, the wallpaper peeling. Nevertheless, there was a working television, and Ruth cast Jim and Wendy a look of plaintive appeal.

Jim glanced at Wendy, who nodded. “But not for too long!” she warned. “You’ll need your rest.”

“Thanks, Mom!” Ruth beamed, and Jim felt as if someone had knifed him in the heart when he saw her face, because it was the first time in what seemed like an eternity that he had seen his daughter smile.

While the dull roar and flickering colored lights of evening cartoons filled the hotel room, Jim and Wendy sat down on the bed and began poring over the atlas. “We have to get out without being stopped,” Jim said quietly. Wendy nodded, and Jim continued: “We got really lucky the last time, but I don’t know the president, or his son, or whoever the OrPo thinks I know. Once the mistake is figured out, we won’t be protected anymore.”

“Okay,” Wendy nodded. “So how do we get across the border?”

Jim shrugged helplessly. “Back roads, maybe?”

Wendy shook her head. “Don’t you think they’ll have the whole country locked down?”

Jim sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Three days. The Security Force said we’d have three days before anyone started hunting for us.” He shook his head. “We could have been across the border before they closed it in that amount of time.”

Wendy put an arm around her husband’s shoulders. “I know,” she murmured. “But what are we going to do now?”

Jim studied the atlas a moment longer, shaking his head in exhausted bewilderment. Then he tapped the map. “What’s this place? This little town; it must be a fishing village. I’ve never heard of it.”

Wendy frowned. “I don’t know, honey. Looks small, though.”

“And on the coast, and really close to the border.” Jim turned to Wendy. “I think maybe we don’t have to find a way through the checkpoints after all.”

Wendy nodded slowly. “A boat. Just hire a boat, and go five miles down the coast.”

“Hug the shore, stay out of sight. Nothing but another fishing trip.” Jim nodded with growing excitement. “It could work. It could work, Wendy!”

“We’d have to leave the car behind,” Wendy noted.

“We’ve left more already. Once we get out, we can go straight to New Prospect, and we’ll find another car. Haven’t you ever wanted to see New Prospect, Wendy?”

Jim’s wife gave a small smile, and leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder. “You know I have.”

Jim grinned, and ran his hands through his hair. “Oh, my love, I think we might just make it out after all.” He gave Wendy a brief, tender kiss; in the background, he could hear Jim Junior make a disgusted noise of protest.

Wendy chuckled softly and laid her head back on Jim’s shoulder. “You know,” she murmured into his shirt, “I think so too.”

[Esperance International]

Air Demphor 1589
En Route to Ormania, Demphor
January 22, 1976
0920 hours

Andrew Burstow sat in his cramped seat on the airliner to Ormania. His tall frame did not quite fit, and his knees were pressed uncomfortably against the seat-back in front of him. Next to him, a rotund Lanosian businessman was chortling as he read the comics in an Anglican newspaper. Andy stared out the airplane’s window at the endless clouds below. He felt in his heart that he might never laugh again.

Andy had gone into the airport before Fran, and he had made it more quickly through security; he had less luggage to deal with. Andy, after all, was going home. His mother had big boxes of his things in the attic of the family home in Konflania. But Fran – Fran had showed up with that big old suitcase.

Fran.

Andy was already through security when she was taken. He had looked back just in time to see the security guard grab Fran, knock her off balance, and drag her away. Plainclothes cops seemed suddenly to materialize around her, casting baleful looks at the terrified crowd. At first, Fran had tried to resist; she had cast a frantic look around, and for a moment, her eyes met Andy’s through the crowds of the security checkpoint, and Andy had opened his mouth to cry out, to scream, to do something.

And then a vast and terrible peace had come over Frances Delaney’s face, and she had given her head a tiny, imperceptible shake, and looked away. She resisted no longer; she walked with firm and dignified steps, head held high, as the Order Police dragged her away to her fate.

And so, alone and dazed by grief beyond enduring, Andrew Burstow had walked to his gate, and waited for the call to board, and clambered onto the airliner bound for Ormania. No one looked twice at him; none of the security guards came near him. When the gate agent saw his Demphorian passport, she gave Andy a bright smile and said: “Did you enjoy your time in Lanos?”

Andy had opened his mouth, and then closed it again, unable to speak. And perhaps the gate agent saw something in his eyes, for she suddenly inhaled, and then, very gently, touched Andy’s hand.

The flight departed on time. Andy held his briefcase in his lap, and sat next to the fat Lanosian businessman, and touched the hidden compartment in the briefcase that held the documents that could bring down an entire regime. At first, he glanced surreptitiously around the plane, searching for plainclothes OrPo agents waiting to leap out and arrest him before the airliner left Lanosian airspace. But only ordinary travellers met his gaze: businesspeople, families, tweedy academics. No one was looking back at him.

He had gotten away with it. Andrew Burstow had escaped Lanos with the most important secret in the country hidden in his briefcase.

But as Andy sat there in his cramped airline seat, he felt no elation. He thought of Fran, and of the smell of her red hair, and her determined scowl, and her sharp and clever and ironic laugh. He thought of her energy, and her passion, and the way she had looked at him with such tenderness even when he had misunderstood her, obstructed her, failed her. Failed her.

A female voice spoke suddenly over the airliner’s intercom. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have now left Lanosian airspace. News media restricted under Lanosian law are now available for purchase.”

Andrew Burstow closed his eyes for a moment, and knew that he was safe. And in that moment, all he cared about was that in all his hours alongside Fran Delaney, in all the time that they had spent together, over all the dinners and all the long nights poring over documents, never had Andy possessed the courage to tell Fran the one thing that really mattered.

“I love you,” Andy whispered to himself, alone in the crowded plane. And he put one hand over his eyes, and silently wept at last.

[Esperance International]

Keinsteinem International Airport Detention Area
Keinsteinem National Capital District
Keinsteinem, Kastein, Lanos
January 22, 1976
0645 hours

Now that it had happened, it all seemed somehow inevitable.

Of course Fran would be caught. Of course she would be arrested. Of course she would find herself sitting here, watching as the Order Police tore through her bags. Of course they would find the file, and of course Fran’s life would be over; she would vanish without a trace, just like her father. I’ll see you soon, Dad, she thought, and there was comfort in that idea.

Fran only wished that she had gotten the chance to tell her mother goodbye. Her mother, and Andy.

And then something unexpected happened. Despite all their diligence, the Order Police neglected to tear open the lining of the backpack. They didn’t find the file. And Fran Delaney was left to sit in silence, suddenly wondering if her story might just possibly have a different ending after all.

Soon enough, she was disabused of the idea. A man came into the room; Fran fixed her brown eyes upon him, and her chin raised just a tad in defiance. My father never begged, she thought, and though in truth she had no way of knowing whether it was true, Fran believed it in that moment with all her heart and soul. He was strong. I can be strong too.

“Gerard Sutcliffe,” the interrogator said, “Order Police Agent.”

Fran said nothing, but her gaze remained fixed on the man’s face, unwavering, unafraid.

Sutcliffe began to speak. "Ms. Delaney, you know why you're in here? Of course, don't answer. I know about your father...poor man. He was...to say the least...very annoying to our government." He smiled, and Fran said nothing; she did not move, and her face was still.

"I'll have you know that your father was personally condemned by the President...and you'll likely be joining him if you don't tell us what you're trying to get out you stupid bitch." Sutcliffe slammed the interrogation room’s steel table. "Look! We know you're trying to get it out! We've been watching your ass since when your father was shot in Stonehill!"

So he is dead. Fran had long since accepted that fact in her heart, and yet to hear it remained a blow. Somehow, the circumstances made the reality of her father’s death easier for Fran to accept. He died doing what he believed in. I am about to do the same. Fran thought she could almost feel her father beside her, waiting, smiling at her with that quiet encouragement that had always given her the strength to carry on.

"Don't think for a fucking minute we're stupid like you and your fucking father!” Sutcliffe was raging now, ranting, but Fran was still and quiet and unmoved, staring at the agent unafraid. “You're lucky we don't target the rest of your family per orders or we'd send them all, including you, to the camp system long before this fuckery happened! Your friend is not of interest to us. We don't suspect a damn thing on him. You...we got you on treason, which will end your life pretty fast. You won't even get a trial...we don't want...the secret getting out now do we?" He grinned. "Your security is so bad at finding our bugs...we know what you have...and we'll find it."

For the first time, Fran reacted: she shook her head. If they had really managed to bug us, then they would know that Andy has a copy of the file. But they don’t; they don’t suspect a thing about him. A small, contemptuous smile flitted across Fran’s face. They don’t know a damn thing. I’ve won, Dad. Even if they kill me, I’ve still won.

Oblivious, Sutcliffe forged ahead. "He was a good man, wasn't he? Taught you well. If by that treason, I guess so. He could have tried to save himself but he chose to die instead of living. I believe Jesus said something like that...ah yes. He chose poorly...for his time here at least. I wonder if you're religious...wouldn't help you face the wrath of our government as you wait to meet whatever you believe in after death. Whatever is to come, be assured you'll be joining your father in the same graveyard and right next to him as well...we made sure of that if it ever came to this."

For the first time, Fran spoke, her voice soft and calm. “Thank you, Mister Sutcliffe. I appreciate that.”

The agent turned on his heel and stormed toward the door. He called over his shoulder: "You can have a lawyer if you want. He won't save you."

And at those words, for some reason, Fran’s calm broke. But it did not break out of fear; it broke out of anger, out of outrage. This smug bastard thinks he’s got everything figured out. He thinks he controls my fate. He thinks there are no surprises left in the world for a man like him.

But Fran Delaney had one last card to play: the forged documents that Chambers Junior had given her, the papers that he had said would see Fran safely out of the country. Fran had not wanted to use those documents. For one thing, she didn’t trust Chambers Junior; for another, if he was on the side of freedom, then using the documents he had given Fran might expose him as a co-conspirator with her. But in that moment, Fran simply didn’t care anymore: all that she cared about was giving the self-satisfied thug in front of her a shock before she died. I will not go gently into my grave, Fran thought. I will die fighting, or not at all.

“Mister Sutcliffe!” Fran cried sharply. “Before you go, I think there’s something you should see. A friend of mine told me to give this to you.” Awkwardly, Fran reached into a pocket of her jeans and pulled out the folded papers that Chambers had given her – the forged documents, not the secret file. She shoved the rumpled papers across the table at Sutcliffe. “Perhaps you’d like to take a look for yourself.”

[The Republic of Lanos]

The agent returned into the room, bemused as he snatched the crumpled paper from Fran's hands and read the document, frowning.

"Hmm, so one of ours cleared you? Official stationary and seal too..."

He tore the paper and smacked Fran so hard it left a red mark.

"Does it look like I, or the rest of the agency, gives a fuck what Chambers thinks?! His fucking opinion doesn't matter but his father's does! You ignorant bitch! Even if his humanitarianism tries to save you, it won't work! I could have you shot right now and we could say you resisted arrest! Shit, I was the one who shot your father in the back of the head! He was just as shitty as you!" He angled close to Fran's ear. "I could end you right now...and nobody would care nor notice...I'd get a commendation for it too...you stupid cold..."

The man couldn't finish his statement as another agent walked in, carrying a XM177 carbine and looking like he meant business. He cycled the carbine's action, making Fran notice a familiar face in nothing but combat fatigues in lizard stripe, a combat equipment carrier with ammunition and gear, a M69 frag vest, M1 helmet in the pattern, jungle boots, and a very very mad Michael Chambers Jr. being the wearer of the gear and owner of the carbine. If you hadn't noticed who he was, you would have thought he was a soldier or a OrPo tactical agent. Clearly, he wasn't there for entertainment.

"When the paper said she was fine..." He flicked the selector switch to full-auto. "I think that meant she was free to go..." Chambers shrugged and waved Fran out of the room with the rifle. "I'll handle this matter."

The other agent turned red. "You think you can get away with this! I'll have you..."

Chambers fired a burst into the ceiling, scaring Fran and the agent for the first time in his life.

"By the time I take charge of this nation...lest you forget who I'm the son of...I'll have the Order Police scoured with a radioactive brush and try and convict all of you criminals and reform this entire nation if I don't get beat to the punch by a democratic revolt. You are going to end up on the middle-end of the death penalty list by the time my rule happens or democracy comes again without me doing it, whichever comes first. Please enlighten me as to what you were planning on doing to Ms. Delaney, beyond torturing her in many many ways that you did to her father and then ending her life?" Chambers grimaced at the thought. "In fact, don't. I don't think you'd last long if I gave her this rifle."

The agent was still red but kept his collective cool.

"Dan, don't forget. You're going to get implicated in every hit on Lanosian pro-democratic individuals that you killed in foreign nations. All the torture. All the killings. That's not the only thing they're going to get you on..."

The agent looked confused. "What? What else do they know?" Chambers looked at the agent one last time.

"This." He raised his XM177 and shot the agent 6 times in the chest, ensuring that the man would be meeting his eternal punishment sooner rather than later.

Before Fran could react, he gave her a death glare. "Don't. Fucking. Say. Anything."

After this, he put the rifle to his side and grabbed Fran and got her out of the room, rushing her through the detention area as fast as he could get her. He only stopped to grab her bags and force them into her hands. He continued to rush the woman beyond the area and into the tarmac where a small jet was waiting. After getting her to the plane and her bags safely handled by airport workers, he turned Fran to face him.

"This will take you to New Prospect, no questions asked. Listen to me. You are safe. Your family will be safe too in a few days. They're being sent to your place as well...don't. I know. I had some connections work. Your friend is safe. He'll be there in a few hours. Now, get these documents there and hide them and make sure you're the only one that can read them or handle them. That is important. You cannot let anyone but you, Andy, or I touch them lest New Prospect gets bombed."

Chambers sighed, thinking this will be the last time in a while he'll see someone he trusts with what he had done.

"When the time comes, I'll be in New Prospect looking for you. That's when we'll start. Until then, you must wait."

He sent Fran into the arms of a flight attendant who escorted her on board. As the plane was sealed up and taxiing for takeoff, Michael Chambers Jr. looked at the greatest achievement he had done in his position in the Order Police. He executed a rifle salute at the plane, continuing to hold it until well after the private jet took off in the direction of New Prospect.

He sighed. "Well Michael...now we wait to see whether or not the rest of this nation will burn."

January 23, 1976

The Sticks (or out in the middle of nowhere), Sondria

Being about 560 miles from the international border and almost next to the state line with the State of Espia, a coastal state where said fishing village was sighted on the map, the Carters had yet to even reach their destination. However, given that Chambers Jr. conveniently cleared the family all that while ago, they were now no longer going to get hit on a police stop if the officers checked for wants and warrants. Even then, the Order Police had the ports of entry on watch even though the Border Police and the Coast Guard had plans to violently write off the OrPos meddling in their affairs. Out here, nobody could care less if you were running from the government. In Sondria, even despite government efforts, you could get your hands on a full-auto M1 carbine and nobody would care until you tried to shoot them.

In Keinsteinem, not so much.

The Esperance HQ building did go down in flames after the evacuation of everyone in the building. While nobody died, not even the firefighters controlling what became a four-alarm fire, the evidence sought was destroyed and gone forever. Given forensic technology then, it was impossible to recover information from charred papers. In any event, there was nothing to gain.

Despite the "Foreign nationals are working here!" defense, said foreign nationals ended up in detention centers. Angus was among their ranks but not specifically in the detention centers with his coworkers. He was in the Order Police HQ itself in one of its administrative detention cells in the basement of the complex, enjoying a relatively decent incarceration. It was likely, so he heard, that most of those nationals could get deported. Most. Angus would probably be sweating his ultimate fate in that cell for the time being. The officer responsible for the catch was given a high medal and rewarded with a good vacation and pay raise.

A visitor was at the complex today to see the quarry they had caught. He had come personally to award medals and inspect all that could be recovered from the latest "enemy of the state." He even had ordered the Anglican head of the agency in Lanos brought to the finest interrogation room so that the man could be personally interviewed by the visitor. Assuredly, this visitor was to help ensure that Esperance International would suffer in Lanos for daring to oppose the President.

President Michael Chambers Sr. was a happy man.