snippet – Page 3

03/10/2024 Snippet, THE BRANDENBURG SANCTION.

Golems!

Safe in those lodgings, I contemplated my companion. Gefikst was bulky, with heavy steel plates on everything that wasn’t a joint. That, coupled with an old, faded France-over-Sea sigil on its left shoulder, suggested to me that it had fought in the War, twenty years back. Or possibly the sigil was disinformation, or just a suggestion that it liked the Bonaparte dynasty – ah, sorry: the ‘de Gaulle’ dynasty. Old habit. Still, the first and third possibilities weren’t really contradictory. After all, the French were allies with the re-forged Khazaria, these days. For that matter, so were we.

“We don’t actually need him,” Gefikst reminded me. “That safe might have been uncrackable during the war, but it has hinges. If it has hinges, I can pop them off.”

“No doubt.” I gave it a smile. “And if I can disarm the traps in time, we could even get the treasure before it melts, or ignites. But there’ll be alarms without a doubt, and then everything gets messy. Ideally, we want to be in, out, and over the border before anyone notices we’re even there. A quick heist, even if it’s not a simple one.”

“Fair enough, Mr. Weld. How do you know that the cellars won’t be alarms, too? Surely they must have considered that people might try to dig their way in from the sewers.”

I shrugged. “If they did, they would assume the digging would be done by humans. When it comes to little jobs like these, your people don’t come cheap.”

One last snippet from revisions.

Necessary.

A day later, Jackdaw had something else to worry about. The monster pits hadn’t been filled. They hadn’t even been dug. That was… a problem. Mutated beasts were the Dominion’s main shock troops, perfect for demoralizing and harrying mundane opponents. Every Dominion campaign used them. It wasn’t just good strategy; it was fun. So why weren’t there any showing up now?

The only one Jackdaw talked to about it was Scorpion, and only because she brought it up, first. “You can stop making harnesses, Daw,” she murmured to him during midweek sanitation. The streams of water made it possible to talk, if you didn’t shout or whisper. “We’re not getting any more beasts.”

“It’s not up to me,” Jackdaw pointed out as he sprayed down another row of stolid soldiers. Carefully: too much water pressure, and he’d break bones, which he’d then just have to repair. “If my master says make harnesses, I make them. …We did leave that job unfinished, though. He must have been told something.”

“All the big-hats were. Message from back West: something about how this wasn’t really an army, it was just a hunting expedition.” Scorpion shook her head. “I only know about it because I was in the right place to hear some of the big-hats shouting about it. A couple of ‘em almost threw down over it.” Scorpion looked at him. “I won’t name names, but you’re in the clear.”

Which meant that it was the top Senior War Mages who had been almost dueling — and since Plaguebreath wasn’t one of them, it had to mean Pallid and Deathrune. Having the leader and the second in command ready to throw down with each other wasn’t unknown in Dominion warfare, but it was still a problem. A problem which would crap on the head of all the other War Mages, which was why Scorpion was telling him for free.

03/06/2024 Snippet, THE BRANDENBURG SANCTION.

Putting myself back to work.

“Money is good,” grumbled Buonoparte. “Revenge is better. Even the golem knows more of this than any Briton would. And we of Corse? This, we learn this at our mothers’ breasts!”

It’s for certain you didn’t learn how to dress there, I thought while ignoring yet another insult about my people. Unless your mother was a circus clown. Francesco di Buonaparte liked to affect elements of dress that he fondly believed derived from Corsican banditti: big hat with a turned-up brim, and a waist sash around his ample middle. Even for that, the striped pantaloons were a bit much. As to the attitude – well, I’ve fought Corscians. I’ve fought alongside them, too. All of them would have laughed themselves sick at Buonaparte’s pretensions, shortly before washing them out with blood.

I forbore from saying anything along these lines as he poured down more wine. I was beginning to have doubts about employing him in my plan, but he had the (old) name and, most importantly, even the blood of the first Napoleon. With any luck, he’d even know what to do with it. “Then it is fortunate that I have such a formidable to set a good example for me?” I told him, trusting in his imperfect knowledge of English to keep him from noticing my sarcasm. “After all, milord, this entire enterprise depends on you.”

That, unfortunately, was not sarcasm at all.

03/02/2024 Snippet, THE BRANDENBURG SANCTION.

One of the aforementioned need-to-finish-this pieces. Lemme see if I can make this, you know, not glum.

It takes real skill to get drunk on a Rhenish white, but Francesco di Buonaparte was managing, somehow. He’d drunk two bottles to my barely sipped glass — and Gefikst’s untouched one. Then again, I’d only poured our third companion (or conspirator) a glass for toasts, and the smell. Golems can appreciate a good bouquet, and a just-opened Riesling’s these days typically reeks like an alchemical processing plant. It’s a bit of an acquired taste, in other words, and one I had never seriously considered picking up.

They say that alcohol is excellent at extracting a substance’s essence; alas, in Buonaparte’s case, his inner nature was that of the jackass. I almost expected him to grow ears and a tail as he sourly contemplated me. Certainly he brayed like one. “I know why you are desperate to have me for this enterprise, Briton,” he slurred, making the word sound like a curse. “Why should I need to burden myself with your presence?”

Because you have no choice, I thought, and half-debated saying aloud. “Money, milord,” I told him instead. “Everyone needs it, everyone wants it, and I’m giving you a chance to get some of your birthright back.” I sipped more of the horrible wine. “Surely that’s worth a little burden, what-what?”

02/28/2024 Snippet, THE VISITOR FROM OUTSIDE.

Fighting through the Not-Covid Plague! Now my oldest kid has it! Yay!

So today I got to see the inside of the Sentinel Dump for the first time. This primitive phone I was given ‘rang’ for the first time, and that was fun; I almost completely missed it. Fortunately, I figured it all out quickly enough to take the ‘call.’ It was Osborn, and he wanted me to know that I could just go to the Dump at any time I liked. My morning was free, so I went.

You know, you read in books just how primitive the 20th century was, but you don’t really think of what that means in real life. I was expecting some piles of trash and maybe a shack or two, but the Sentinel Dump is huge. Which makes sense, because it was getting so much trash from everywhere. What I didn’t expect was how loud it was. Osborn’s put up soundfences in various spots, and you can see why once you’re past them. Everywhere I turned, there was another hulking mass of ancient industrial equipment (and I mean ancient. Like, pre-electronic, sometimes), wheezing and growling and whining everywhere. And they’d move on their bases, rattling and shuddering, like they were just about to fly into pieces the moment you looked at them.

I don’t know what they were doing. Taking large bits of junk and breaking them into smaller ones, mostly. People would dart between the machines, dumping pieces out of baskets and putting them into hoppers, heedless of the oils and ichors that might get smeared on their clothes and faces. And the smells! The air tasted of metallic grease and slime, and I took with eagerness the face mask offered to me by a Dump employee here to show me the site. She was eager to help (they all were), but I left as soon as I possibly could, and breathed a real sigh of relief when I came away from that place, and could breathe cleaner air. Which tells you a lot about how filthy and nerve-wracking the Sentinel Dump is.

02/27/2024 Snippet, THE VISITOR FROM OUTSIDE.

Lets see who buries who, shall we?

“The USOld wasn’t like we get told now, you know.” Zealia told me that fact with slightly horrified glee. Or maybe slightly gleeful horror, like it was some sort of whispered folk tale. “They weren’t always the good guys. They did dark things.”

“Well, sure,” I replied, wishing I could eat in this library. These books were pretty fragile. “Slavery, Old Devil Wilson, the True Gaians. We learned about all of that in school.”

“Sure, but I don’t mean those things. I mean secret things.” Zealia tapped one book on the table. “Like the stories in that one. It’s a bunch of transcripts about some operations the USOld did two hundred years ago against a bunch of cults.”

I thought about “Cults, two hundred years ago… oh. The Reds?”

“No! That’s what I thought, too, but this is even earlier. Before World War II. They were local cults, not taking orders from the Great Provider or anything –”

Right about then I snorted. “I hope not! Come on, you know they made that guy up for the teracts.”

Zealia waggled her hand. “Sort of yeah, sort of no. The Great Provider really existed, but he probably didn’t sleep in a pool of blood. But that’s not important! Forget him! This is about why we have the Sentinel Dump.”

02/26/2024 Snippet, THE VISITOR FROM OUTSIDE.

‘The door dilated!’

I started back up on the second leg of my survey this morning. It actually took shorter than I expected, but only because I hadn’t really understood just how big the Sentinel Dump is. Maybe I should have taken the ‘garbage dump for half of New England’ thing more seriously.

You can’t see much of the dump from the road, but you can smell it from a mile off. It’s not an intense reek, but it’s powerful. The aroma gets past any kind of mask or filter, and moves right into your nose. As to how it smells? I can’t describe it, just break it down to individual scents. Lots of chemicals, a bunch of decay, things that were on fire that shouldn’t have been — I haven’t smelled anything like this since my pre-college Service. We were dismantling a pre-Reform refugee work facility, and it was one of the ones where they tossed anybody who died into a chemical pool in the basement… well. It’s not something you expect to encounter while doing your year, is all I’m saying.

Anyway, from what I can see of the dump, it’s got at least one hill that looks perfect for the towers. It’s big and it’s bare, and I’d like to have a third reason for symmetry’s sake, but I don’t need more than ‘big’ and ‘bare.’ That it’s also ‘foreboding’ isn’t really relevant in this case. It’s a century’s old garbage dump. It’s going to be foreboding.

02/24/2024 Snippet, THE VISITOR FROM OUTSIDE.

Well, that’s not good.

June 16
So, there’s a problem.

I got the weekly data squirt from Outside, and when it comes to my actual job nothing’s changed. I still have a week to finish things up, and we’re all ahead of the timeline, so that’s not going to be a problem for me. I’m not going to lie ( mean, I can’t lie here, right? It’s still a felony); I was worried I’d have to switch paths again, only this time at the last minute. Finding out we’re good made me feel good.

That state lasted, right up to the moment where I saw the time-sensitive message from Memetic Health. They’ve flagged my journal records, asking for clarification on my dream reports. Apparently my numbers are high enough to be a potential concern. Accordingly, they’ll need to know what self-therapy and palliative care techniques I’ve been using, and whether I’ve found a primary information therapist yet to keep an eye on my status. I’m still cleared to work, but I need to let them know if any larger problems show up regarding my difficult dreaming.

Considering that I don’t remember reporting any difficult dreaming, I’d say that one definitely has.

02/23/2024 Snippet, THE VISITOR FROM OUTSIDE.

It takes shape.

Well, that put a different spin on my lunch. Now that he pointed out, I could taste the subtleties of meat that hadn’t come out of a lab. “This is all real? And not costing an arm and a leg? Why the heck don’t you have more tourists?”

“Because we are officially off the modern maps?” Bill replied. “After the F-SOBs put down the Free State and transported the surviving rebels, they wrecked any navpoints that survived the uprising. We’re lucky they didn’t break up the roads.” He sipped his coffee, and shrugged. “Even when Reform really got going, this area was always low priority. We’re only getting Weaved in now because everybody else in the NewSA already had.”

“Well, there’s some parts of the north that won’t get Weaved until we start resettling people up there,” I observed. “But, yeah, this is the last part of the Original States that’s getting taken care of. I dunno why the Bureau waited this long, either. I guess it’s ‘Ze Feds do as ze Feds do, Mistair?’”

Bill snickered, but I think it was just because of my bad becky accent; I doubt he recognized the line itself. I am really way out in the sticks here.

02/21/2024 Snippet, THE VISITOR FROM OUTSIDE.

Backfilling!

Spent the day doing research in Aylesbury proper. Which is to say, I sat in a musty-smelling library, looking through records on a computer that was old enough to be my grandfather, and even flipping through physical maps. Physical! They were so old, I was terrified to even touch them. Had to be done, though. This whole area wasn’t exactly a technological wonderland even before the Mistakonic Free State rebellion, and what modern gear was here got destroyed by the rebels themselves. They just didn’t care for technology, it seemed — or a bunch of other things, very much including people.

It’s funny. I remember hearing about the rebellion when I was a kid, and I couldn’t figure out why my parents were almost… happy to hear about it. It wasn’t until later that I realized that they were happy to hear about anything bad. I guess they didn’t really believe that Reform was going to be real until then, huh?

Anyway: primitive library. Primitive library. So primitive, there was even a librarian. I guess that makes sense. I mean, physical books have to be put back after people are done with them, and what happens if they’re not put back in the right place? You’d never find anything, then.