Unusual Tourists

Königsstadt, An-Astral

Ginak cast his eyes out across the square, a burnt-out cigarette balanced between his thumb and forefinger.
All around the cafe storefront, the crowds bustled and flowed just as they always had, the hum of traffic never far from an incessant backing track to the sounds of An-Astralian life.
He sighed, and crushed the still smouldering nib of the cigarette against the tiny platter provided just for that purpose. Just because he had been stationed here for years didn't mean he was used to the intoxication of it all. He doubted he ever would.

There was a scrape of metal against stone as the chair just to the left on him was dragged out from underneath the table in a banal display of nonchalance.
Ginak's eye twitched, almost imperceptibly. "Hey Jakob."
The corner of Dafkane's mouth was pulled upwards in a half-smile for little more than a second before he smothered it. "Good morning, Burnd."
The false names they had operated - no, lived - under for the past few years (or substantially longer than that in Ginak's own case) had changed with the seasons of An-Astralian crises. Thankfully for him and his team, there was no shortage of those. 'More practice,' Ginak reflected, more-or-less sardonically.

The creak of Dafkane's seat as his lithe frame lowered itself into it was all but lost over the sounds of the city.
By the table closest to them, a young couple floated, uncertainty painted across both their faces and the way they stood. Ginak could near feel the nervous energy crackling around them.
By the glitter in his young comrade's eyes, Dafkane had already clocked them. Good; the newest quera was significantly better suited to the role than the last pile of crap HQ had sent Ginak.
Apparently 5 years of intensive training was not always enough to sort out the quera from the children who couldn't find their own arse without a wetnurse.

"What's new?" Ginak's An-Astralian had more or less lost any trace of foreign accent long ago. From the reactions of the natives, he had mastered reasonably passing as someone born and bred in Königsstadt.
"Not too much. Bored, though." The younger agent's lilt placed him somewhere to the west of An-Astral, though not Harndon itself, for which Ginak was more than a little grateful; it is one thing to have a cast-iron alibi, but if your nationality dominated your voice, then the whole enterprise was built on boggy foundations.
Especially at a time like this.

"Oh dear. How so?" It didn't take a genious to guess, but getting agents to get things off their chest was never a bad thing.
"I've run out of things to do, places to see. The group that I was supposed to be going to see the sights of the city with have largely been unable to quite organise something yet..." Dafkane's eyes trailed off into the distance along with his voice.
"Don't worry about it. Once they're ready, they'll reach out. There's certainly no point to hanging about like a bad dream if they don't have the time for you." It wasn't only the younger operative that was straining a little against an apparent lack of action on the part of the Communist Party - he'd heard the exact same from nearly everyone in the team over the past day or so. Ginak was just happy to get a break. He'd been in enough of these situations before to know that initial caution and good planning can potentially stop a nightmare down the line. Potentially.

"Besides," Ginak continued, "we have more toys coming over: enough to share. Stuff to write on and with to record our time here, with more than enough spare to gift to our friends. If that's not enough to perk your interest, we've also got some entertainment devices coming over with them."
They'll certainly make an explosive entrance, if nothing else; they had enough arms and equipment for themselves and their own team, but a shipment of Harndonian-made weaponry would equip most of the Communist Party members too.
Ginak rolled the cigarette through his fingers.
The decision had been made to give the An-Astralian revolutionaries recognisably Harndonian equipment, as a public show of solidarity. It was certainly a risk - they could have the same impact without such easy identification. And yet instead there was going to be an announcement of intention in the clearest material way possible.
He just prayed it was going to pay off.

"We just have to wait--"

Königsstadt, An-Astral

"Morning Jakob." Ginak stared out of the window of his flat onto the river below, where night still reigned. "What's up?" He pressed the phone closer to his ear.
The sounds of rustling and heavy breathing were all that came through the speaker.
His brows furrowed, the hairs on the corner of the rightmost brushing against the edges of the mobile. "Jakob?"
It was 02:00 - why was Operative Dafkane calling him now? Neither of their personae are supposed to be active at this hour, least of all making noise.
He couldn't stop himself from glancing about the room; it was bad enough that the walls were too thin.

"Ginak! Ginak--" Dafkane gasped in a breath, "--please listen. No, don't talk about names--"
Ginak's mouth snapped shut. He had just been about to take him to task about just that very thing.
"--Have you seen the memo that's come through?"
His frown grew deeper, but he managed to catch his heart before his pulse leaped. "What memo? I haven't had notification of anything."
"It--what?" Dafkane panted even as he interrupted himself.
"Control your breathing, comrade," Ginak whispered into the mouthpiece, "I haven't recieved any memo, no. What's on it?"

It took a second or two of rushing air through the speaker for Dafkane to return. "It's a leak. Someone inside of the Rossian section command has leaked the names and all current alias details of every single field agent. Orders are to return immediately, through whatever means necessary. Burnd as an alias is dead. So is Jakob. So are all of them. Comrade, get out, now."
"Oh," was all Ginak could think of saying. The rest of his brain was spinning. He had trained for this. They all had. They were the best in the world at this. Supposedly.
"All the other Königsstadt operatives got here ten minutes ago. That's why I got concerned you weren't here. Why weren't you told?"
Ginak's eyes closed. He knew exactly why. "Don't wait for me, just go--"
"--But comrade."
"Don't 'but comrade' me. Just leave. Follow the order. It's been an honour, comrade Dafkane. May Guvar guide you. And give merry fucking hell to whichever reactionary bastard did this." He tapped the screen before Dafkane had a chance to reply. The call closed.

"So," he breathed to the room, "this is what it's like." Total recall and redeployment had always been something drilled - meticulously - for, but never carried out. Ginak loosed a silent prayer that all that drilling might actually pay off this time.
The thing with total recall protocols was that lead officers in any particular deployment would always be informed last, normally at least by a few hours, if not more - it was their job to act as bait, to allow the other operatives an easier passage.
Ginak wondered whether the An-astralians were already on their way. He would be surprised if they weren't nearing the block at that very moment. Who knows, they could even be in the stairwell already. A slight tingle ran up his spine. A smile crept on the corner of his lips - he hadn't had that sensation for far too long.

Whatever the authorities had for him, he'd be ready.

Nothing would get in his way of sending the Rossian section command screaming into death.

'...And just the finishing touch.'
A few coarse grains of salt dusted down from Ginak's fingertips.
He put his hands on his hips and took a step back, eyes on the plate in front of him. 'That'll do.' There was nothing like cooking up a meal to put his mind at rest. Especially now he had to break with Burnd's character, and the inevitible tobacco addition that had come with it.

"Made with only the finest Harndonian ingredients," he whispered to himself with a smile. Shame about how difficult it was to get his hands on them. He frowned at the plate, leaned forward, and picked a crumb of deep, fleshy-pink mycelium from one of the - otherwise white - stalks on the plate. Turning, he threw it in the bin with the rest of the scraps, feeling that old glow of near-giddy pride when it span straight down the middle. Ginak snorted to himself; it was strange how Burnd's dour character had creeped into his own personality - it was a uncomfortable weight to be rid of, but now he was left groping after what he used to be like, before his years in Königsstadt.

He washed his hands, then the last of the utensils, leaving them draining on the rack.
The handheld television left on the side flickered into life, a silent, grainy image casting light upwards.
Ginak peered down at it.
On-screen, a man walked the doorway of the block of flats Burndt had resided in. He carried himself with the straight-ish back of self assurance, only spending the smallest of moments and movements on checking the foyer and staircase beyond.
That the man was not someone he recognised only served to confirm Ginak's suspicions in his own mind.
The door was eased to by the stranger's foot on CCTV stream playing on his tv.
"Time's up."

Ginak strode to the balcony, sparing a farewell glance to the handheld before pressing at a bracelet hidden beneath his sleeve.
The device made the faintest of hissing sounds, and then fell silent. The screen went blank as the circuitry inside burned.
He wrinkled his nose at the acrid taste it left in the air. 'Still,' he reflected as he closed the glass door behind him, 'at least he'll have the mushroom salad to clear his tastebuds.' From the variety on the plate, one could never tell - wihout prior knowledge - that it was all from the same species of fungus. His pursuer could even share it with whoever else was on his trail. Presuming there were others. He would be disappointed if there wasn't; he was worth more than just one person, surely?

He shrugged off the thought. He cast an eye over the railings to where the river trickled idly by, multiple stories below. 'Poor Burnd. Such a downbeat individual. It's no surprise that he had something hidden away for so long. It must have all just got too much for him.' The smile lasted little longer than a half second on his face. He gripped the rail in both hands, and threw himself over.

Königsstadt, An-Astral

'Delightful.' Ginak brushed something slimy off his arm - it made a wet slapping noise against the ledge he was crouched on.
Even with his eyesight slowly adapting, the sewer had an oppressive darkness that had more to it than the mere absence of light.
He stripped off what was left of his clothing, leaving only the thin wetsuit that had been hidden underneath. He bundled them up in his arms and dropped them into the centre of the channel, letting whatever was flowing down it carry them away.
The air tasted of shit; Ginak made a face.
Unzipping an almost imperceptably small pocket on the inside of his thigh, he revealed a small rod, brandishing it with a flourish to the darkness. With a flick of his wrist, it extended a couple of feet. 'Right. Let's have at you.' Hugging the wall, he followed the sewer wall, using the stick to probe every inch of ground he would cover a moment later. "It hasn't been long enough," he muttered at the concrete and stone that wrapped him as he advanced into the darkness.

New New York, North American Republics

So, this was how it was going to end.
The smell of blood and vomit clung to everything. The walls, the bed, herself, all of it.
The feeblest of coughs racked her chest for a second.

All Quera agents had been given orders to evacuate following the leak. All, that is, except those operating in the North American Republics, who were given a choice whether or not to stay. Unanimously, the team had decided to stay. Not that the likes of Dmytro would ever admit that.

They knew the chemical attack was coming. They did all they could; would the Republican authorities listen? Of course not.
Another cough, another lance of pain through her body, another splatter of blood on her hand.
One by one, each of her comrades had disappeared, no contact available. As if the only part of them that had ever existed were their leaked true names and aliases.
It didn't take a genius to know what had happened to them.

There was a sound in the hallway; fine metal against metal, the click of the lock. Footsteps, the slightest of creaks from the floorboards. The door swung open.

"Agent Hiychot." Most of the voice was smothered by the hazmat suit the figure wore. In their gloved hand, lay a pistol, silencer included.
"You--" a pinkish goblet of phlegm flew from her mouth, "--look rediculous."
A shrug of the shoulders. "And you look dead." The Rossian raised their hand.

Her and the barrel locked gazes. A hand, laying limp on the mattress, twitched.
Agent Hiychot's vest detonated.

Somewhere near the An-Astral-Qutset border, An-Astral

"Come on, Konrad!" The voice was carried downslope towards him by the wind.
"Yeah, yeah," he muttered under his breath, gripping his walking stick tight in one hand.
The lamb curled under his arm bleated its agreement.
"You got that lamb?"
He didn't bother replying - the gale that was strong enough to whip the top layer of snow up into the air and channel it straight at his face was more than a match for his already hoarse voice - instead, he held the shivering ball of sodden wool closer to his chest.
"You're the worst farmhand I've ever had," the farmer went on, unseen through the storm, and unlistened to.
'Don't worry, you won't have to suffer my presence for much longer.'
The closer towards the border they meandered, the closer towards home Ginak became.

Armocht, near the border with Fernagh

"--And this is the lead engineer of the team, Naquaw."
The engineer in question, at the mention of her name, abruptly tore her attention back into the real world. She forced a pleasant expression onto her face, and performed a tight bow.
The two figures, one Armocht, the other Harndonian, stopped a little over a stride length's away, and performed their own asinine greetings.
Naquaw continued with what she hoped was blank approachfulness. Though, to be truthful, she wasn't sure she actually cared much.
The diplomat looked from the local, to her, and back to the local again. He clasped his hands together. "Right, I guess I will leave you two to it. Naquaw, if you would mind giving our contact here the details?"
She did mind, but she kept that to herself as she watched the official turn and walk away. "This way," she said to the local, without so much as looking at them. The quicker this was over and done with, the better, frankly.

----

"And this--" the two of them reached the final piece of machinery, a large column that would - to an untrained eye - look almost woven, as if a plant has been caged inside metal and coaxed to grow through its winding course. "--is the piece of equipment that you should have been made aware of in the initial correspondence?"
The Armocht made a noise to the affirmative. His eyes seemed to glint as he looked at it. "The longer term solution."
Naquaw didn't bother to answer rhetorical questions. Instead, she reached into the inside of her split overtunic, and pulled out a box, no larger than one would use to carry cigarrettes in, if one smoked. Which she most certainly did not. She pressed it into the local's hand, and watched as he curled his fingers around it. "It is very easy to use, and can be activated immediately after setup with this console. Just make sure you are nowhere near it when you do decide to start it up."
The local nodded, the grave expression he had adopted looking entirely out of place on his face.
"I'll let you and your team sort yourselves out. I will be supervising the immediate water production aid here, if you need anything."

Before the Armocht had a chance to reply, Naquaw turned on her heel and left the man with the detonator standing, staring after her.

She needed a wash.

Somewhere in Central Keron

Ostomrei watched the pillar of flame rise against the night sky. She felt the heat of it from where she was standing on the hill overloooking the site; a heartbeat later, the bass of the explosion slammed against her chest.
It was beginning.

She turned to her contacts, and shrugged. It was the only thing she felt she could do.
No doubt people were dying down there, trapped by the collapse of the shafts they hollowed out the hill from.
Ostomrei tried not to think about them, but think about them she did.
Behind her, something crumbled, the rumble of its disintergration echoing through the valley.
The three miners in front of her flinched; she had to put effort into keeping her face blank.

The oldest of the three, a grizzled man with coal dust still clinging to the whispy hairs on his cheek, only spoke long after the sound of the building collapse had faded: "This'll be happening all across the country." The edge of his mouth shivered for a second, and no longer. "It'd better be worth it."
The counterpart on his left grunted.
"With the supplies we've acquired," whispered the scarred youth to the old miner's right, "anything might be possible."

"You cannot be too headstrong. Everything here is finely balanced." She forced her tongue to work around the unfamiliar words in an unfamiliar language. "I know it is only me here at the moment, but there are more of us around the country with other like-minded groups, and there will be more of us to come." She squinted over their shoulders at the a glow of light on the horizon - another explosion, maybe. "Just because a group of people have sold you equipment and weapons doesn't mean they have your best interests, or the interests of your class and people, at heart. In this case, I know they definitely do not."
"And you do?" The grey-haired, balding one raised an eyebrow.
Ostomrei permitted herself a grimace. "We try."

She looked from him to the other two, taking time to record their features into her memory, from their faces to the way their determined eyes seemed to sparkle with nervous energy.
"We know you do," the miner said at last. He held out his palm; Ostromei clasped it, holding his gaze.
"Are you ready?"
"As ready as we'll ever be," the young one hissed, his eyes fixed on the labour camp at her back.
The quiet one gave a sad smile, and glanced at the long crate by his feet.
"Lead on."

The four of them began to trot down the hillside, box held aloft by the two younger miners, their cargo rattling gently inside.
Below them, shouts; some of terror, and of triumph.

Somewhere in Central Keron

"This is the third camp we've liberated this week." Ti-fo stood, his arms crossed across his stocky chest. He still had coal dust clinging to his face - Ostomrei had no idea whether he had washed since the first night of the uprising, or if this stuff was just ingrained into his skin and the bristles of his beard. "Each one is worse than the last."
As he spoke, an emaciated figure stumbled out of one of the huts, if one could call it even that, their sunken eyes blinking at the light as they were led - almost carried - out into the air by one of their liberators. It was impossible to tell whether they were biologically male or female, for there was nothing on their bones except a layer of skin, stretched thin like parchment over their body.
"By the fates," The old coal miner that - somewhat unwittingly - had become the leader of the group, muttered under his breath.
Ostomrei found it hard to disagree.

The stench of poverty, that overwhelming, clogging miasma of dirt, shit, rot and dispair, was the only thing she could smell. It was the only thing *to* smell.
"It is because these are the political prisoners. Those who made the ground for this movement, those who distributed the material, only to get discovered, and locked away." Ostomrei kept her face a stone, as much as she wanted to weep for this one figure, who had sunken to their knees, pinkish tears rolling down their soot-blackened skin, needle arms wrapped around the revolutionary's legs, their head buried into his leg.
The armed man who had had his arm around them was left to stare, struck dumb, at the prisoner sobbing into the light of dawn. His own tears dripped from his cheeks and jaw to drip onto the shorn head of the figure, a hand resting against their cheek.

"Ironic that those who made all this possible wouldn't hear about it actually happening until they themselves were freed." This comment, almost whispered, from Tahwur, one of the Quera operatives that had been stationed to a camp a hundred miles west of her original posting; the two groups of workers had joined forces, a mirror of what was happening across the country. He turned away, looking up at one of the few prison guards who had had the sense to surrender when the workers had arrived - he perched on the edge of a raised platform, arms and legs bound in the chains that the prisoner who was now guarding him had been wearing.
He looked down at the scene from where the new captives were arranged. He had stopped crying and begging an hour or so ago, and now he just sat, his shoulders hunched and the dark pits of his eyes empty.
Tahwur drew the ex-guard's gaze, then shook his head.

From the long, low hut that the now-freed prisoner had been pried from, another revolutionary stumbled out, a bundle in her arms, her face slack.
"What's that?" Ti-fo started to move.
The woman didn't respond. She walked - almost limped - on, like her legs were only reluctantly taking instruction.
"Ona?" Ti-fo rushed to her. He glanced at the bundle, then took a half-step back. What colour there had been in his light-deprived face drained away.
Ona walked on.
As she limped past, Ostomrei too caught sight of the rags held to her chest.
A tiny child, unnaturally tiny, their skin sunken into their face stared blindly up at the air, the glassy eyes vacant.
"Fates..." She didn't know who had whispered it. It might have even have been her.
They all watched Ona carry the dead baby to where their comrades were digging the graves. Even the weeping, newly freed captive fell silent, and stared after the two of them.

There was a flitting shape past Ostomrei's shoulder; the bird spread its wings, fluttering down atop the barbed wire. It stood, turned to watch the scene, and cocked its head, the sun reflecting off the mirrors of its eyes. After a moment, it opened its beak, and sang.

Somewhere in Central Keron

The door burst open behind them. "They've only gone and fucking done it!"
"I'm presuming you mean the Veszcotans," Tahwur muttered without looking around; it wasn't a question.
The young miner that had been amongst the first three Ostomrei had contacted, stumbled to a halt. His face was beet-red, lips pressed to a thin white line. Faced with the two Quera's blank looks, Ot-ham's expression collapsed in on itself. "What do we do now?"
"Fucked if I know." Ti-fo was staring at the table he sat before, a stolen bottle of beer in one of his heart-sized hands resting atop its surface. His other hand rubbed at the thick stubble on his cheek.
Ot-ham blinked from the Harndonians to his older comrade, and back again. "This can't be it, surely," he whispered. "It can't all be for nothing."

Ostomrei forced herself to look into the lad's eyes; the scar he had recieved in liberating the first - their own - camp had settled into a livid welt that spread from his forehead down across the bridge of his nose. "Your movement already controls a good part of the country, especially the rural and isolated industrial settlements. You still have the momentum. It is unclear whether the Veszcotans have their sights set on the uprising - our guess is that their first target is the government and armed forces. Though, of course, they may also decide to attack the movement in order to wrest the initiative. If - or when - they deal with the government, they will then focus all their efforts on quelling any resistance, regardless of its source."
"And that means us," coughed Ti-fo.

"So... what do we do?" Any of the anger that had been in Ot-ham's face had fallen away. Now, he just looked tired.
"I and a few of the others spoke to some of the other workers and forces around the country." Ti-fo shifted in his seat and nodded to the encrypted communication device laying flat on the tabletop. "They're split between fighting the Veszcotans alongside the government, fighting the government alongside the Veszcotans, or fighting both at the same time."
The expression of last of the three initial contacts - Bo-ki - darkened from where it was partially shrouded by the shadow of the crook he was perched in. Ostomrei hadn't heard him say a word since the first night they met.
"What did you say?" Ot-ham pulled out a chair from beneath the table the two Quera and Ti-fo were sitting at, and flung himself down into it.
"Nothing." Ti-fo frowned momentarily, and sighed. "I just listened. I wanted to wait to talk to everyone about it before we made any rash decisions. The others are doing the same."
"When?"
"Once I've finished this drink." He threw his head back, and drained the last drops from the bottle. He slammed it back down onto the table, making Bo-ki flinch. "Right." Ti-fo stood, his legs pushing the chair back so that it scraped against the floor. He nodded towards Ot-ham. "Now."