The ringtone. Piercing. The vibrating. Startling. With a start, Don Hersch awoke to his cellphone going off on the nightstand.
Taking a moment to compose himself, he answered with a tap on the screen.
"He... hello?" He answered groggily. It was three in the morning, and the day before had been a long one.
"Don, this is Aaron. I'm on my way over. We need to talk."
The line went dead before Don could reply. Slowly he rose from bed, pulled on some pants and a shirt, and looked at the empty spot next to him. It was the first night in three that Aria wasn't there. A man would be coming instead, it seemed.
Aaron Cole was an Imperial Police commander who had been assigned as the liaison to AllSport. Following the Restoration Assault, two more attacks had been attempted, one relatively successful, against the groups events. The first had been at a rally in Teva where a man had attempted to detonate a bomb amidst the crowd. An off-duty police officer, supportive of the cause, had thankfully spotted him moments before and managed to prevent the tragedy. The second was an action that had at first been attributed to hooligans, but later was linked to the Heritage Alliance. At an Union Holiday exhibition match, before which the manager presented Aria (a long time supporter), with the club's honorary 'Crimson Scarf', a group of individuals dressed as opposing fans attempted to attack a Union all-women's supporters group. Many of the latter's members were also leaders in the fan alliance for a local women's football club and for AllSport, and two were even players themselves. Several fans were injured, but security was able to hold the attackers off for the most part. These two instances came alongside several other events, some of which linked to HA directly, others still unclear, such as a riot outside a collegiate women's basketball game and a suspicious hit and run on Barbara Fulton that had thankfully left her unhurt.
Finally having full police cooperation seemed like a godsend for Don. With Aaron helping to both ensure tight security and also provide information, he was optimistic that future events would go smoother. It was not as if every AllSport rally had turned violent, far from it, but the threat always seemed there.
Five minutes after receiving the call, Don heard a knock on his door. The Police operative posted outside had obviously already let Aaron through. Don opened the door, and let the broad, imposing man through.
"Coffee?" was the first thing Don asked. "I probably won't be able to get back to sleep after this."
"No thanks," Aaron replied, "I never sleep anyway."
Don chuckled; if the man was here at this time, it was probably true.
"Let's get down to business, though. There are two reasons I'm here. How should I start; bad news or worse news?"
Don grimaced. "Let's start with the bad."
Nodding, Aaron said, "Alright then. Simply put, I don't think you should hold the rally at Restoration next week. I'm sure you've heard this before, but bear with me. There are simply too many high value individuals being brought to the table. You, Aria, Ms. Fulton, the various collegiate and graduated players, not to mention the crowd itself. Then you have the location, obviously a symbol. Finally the enormous crowd likely to show up. We can conduct all the security we want, but that doesn't change the fact that this is a serious risk. Now, wait, let me give you the worse news to tie into this."
That last part cut off Don before he could speak. Don had indeed heard that before, but had always objected to canceling; no movement was won by hiding at the first sign of danger, and big events like this were important.
"We finally have conclusive evidence that Heritage is a funded terrorist group, not simply some deep intranet network of fundies who just met online. Or at least its central organization is. This hasn't broken to the press yet, and it was stopped at the intranet filter. Basically, a radical feminist group based out of Saintland leaked a massive file containing the entirety of their government's expenditures, public and private. One big line item was several million going towards Heritage Alliance. Whether or not they knew what these guys were doing isn't quite clear; if they did we're in for one hell of an international incident. What is clear, though, is that the money is going somewhere, and that isn't 'the cloud'. Someone is pulling the strings in this, and that means our suspicions of a centralized organization are correct. These guys are funded, they are organized, and they are dangerous. Don, you cannot hold that rally, or at the very least it has to scale down."
Don looked down. That last bit was... troubling to say the least. They had suspected this for so long, but to have it be definitely true somehow made it more real.
"Do we know their real motives yet? I mean besides killing people?"
Aron was silent for a moment, perhaps collecting his thoughts. "We believe that the Alliance draws in conservative men either unsatisfied with the social change since the War, or else believers in 'traditional' gender roles as a whole. They may cater towards those who are radically anti-feminist to begin with. The attacks on you seem to be directing that energy onto one of the most visible cultural elements: sports. Essentially, we believe they are attacking women in sports as a symbolic move against equality in general."
Don nodded. It made complete sense. After all, sport was both one of the great rallying points in the nation, but also one of the biggest ways Gordonopia was visibly projected abroad. Why not target it?
"I'll think about the rally. We'll see."
to the system where the final whistle came from the referees and we took home the victory at our biggest stadium in Tasrailia. We couldn't believe what had happened and that lost for Eastfield Lodge has put a sting in their campaign. Not for us though as we could beat our win record.
