08-29-2018, 01:17 AM
Conternian National Broadcasting Service News at Ten
CNBS Studios
"Hello, welcome to CNBS News at Ten, I'm Nicole Everenson. Our top story tonight: Prime Minister Etan Bloomberg and his negotiating team have begun their journey to Sanctaria for the peace talks in Haven intended to resolve the Lauchenoirian conflict. Minister for Defence Amera Refn, Minister for Foreign Affairs David Perensberg, Attorney General Klaus Soderbergh, Minister for Trade Lara Blomkvist, and, in a highly controversial move, CIS director Donna Barrow. Some have criticised the Prime Minister's choice of negotiators as evidence of an aggressive agenda, but he has defended them as the best people for the job."
The news report was playing faintly on television in the small hovel where Helen Blunt had been living the last few days. She'd have laughed at the last line if that wouldn't have hurt her ribs, still bruised from escaping execution by forcing the chair she was tied to out a second-story window. Since that day, she'd made her way across the seemingly endless rolling fields of the Lauchenoirian countryside searching for any information she could find, and any word of what was going on in Conternia. She'd tried to find out what had happened to Antonin, and quickly discovered he'd been taken into protective custody then suffered a 'heart attack' - Barrow's people must have decided he was a liability, she had silently concluded. Every day felt like a nightmare, pushing forward with no clear destination, feeling surrounded by machinations beyond her control, and gnawed at by a constant guilt - the thought that by spending her life killing in service of others, she'd made this inevitable; an occasional voice in the back of her mind asking how many other, similar plots she'd helped to bring to fruition without knowing. Eventually, her search for a safe place and a means of communication had brought her to this glorified outhouse, the residence and base of operations for one Elliott Dowsohn, a Lauchenoirian hacker, smuggler, black market dealer and all-around peddler of the illicit. He was a perpetually intense man, and judging by his running around the outhouse, screaming, at all hours of the night, constant sweatiness, long hours in his small room, almost imperceptibly and random trips out from which he'd return holding mysterious bags, probably addicted to amphetamines of some kind. But he hadn't sold her out or turned her way and he'd agreed to hide her and help her monitor and record calls, in exchange for a price - she was still working out how she was going to sort that: she was sure she'd have time assuming she was alive once all this was over. Whatever 'over' looked like in this case.
"So", Dowsohn began speaking, sounding as if he was already halfway through his sentence, as he walked into the room where Blunt was sitting, "I'm assuming all them" - he gestured to the television - "are the imperialists bastards you had me tap the other day"
"The very same", she replied. "Did your people get the recording to the man I mentioned?"
"My people always get where they're going. They got word he was in -"
Blunt raised her hand, hushing him. "It's better if I don't know. That way if I get caught I won't have anything to give up"
There was a grim, awkward silence for a few seconds then, which was broken by the ringing of the landline telephone which served as Dowsohn's primary means of communication - harder to tap.
Dowsohn looked at Blunt, who shrugged, although she suspected - hoped - it was Griffiths. Dowsohn went into the next room and picked up the phone.
"Hello?"
A harried voice doing a passable impression of a collected one answered the phone. Even muffled by the poor reception it was unmistakably Conternia's now-ex Prime Minister.
"Hello. Are you the one they call the Yellowjacket?"
"I am"
"I received, your, uhh, package. I'm sorry for my delayed response, it took a while to find a safe phone. Many thanks."
"I was just doing what I was paid to do."
There was a pause on the other end of the line, some rustling and murmuring, then the voice returned.
"Well, tell whoever paid you that despite their efforts I'm afraid there's nothing I can do with this information."
Dowsohn's eyes widened.
"Nothing?"
Blunt, who was standing close behind Dowsohn, tilted her head in surprise at hearing this.
"Yes, it doesn't prove anything, really. Good day." All of a sudden, Griffiths hung up, leaving Dowsohn's questions caught in his throat. Blunt promptly strode out of the room, into the small room where she slept and had been sitting, and picked the gun she'd kept off the wooden bench that served as a bed. She checked it was still loaded then holstered it, walking out of the room and toward the door.
"There's two things I need you to do", she told Dowsohn, her voice level and authoritative. "First, tell me where I can get guns quick and cheap. Second, burn this place and get as far away as you can. They've heard your voice. They know your code-name. They'll be coming for you soon."
"I-"
She cut him off: "Don't argue with me on this. There isn't time."
"Where are you going?' He asked, frantically following her.
"Sanctaria." His eyes widened in horror, while her expression steeled. "Me and my team started something. I'm going to end it"
On the other end of the line, Griffiths breathed a deep sigh, falling to his knees in exhaustion. He would have passed out if a gun hadn't been rapped against his back. He'd gone to the address on the package, he'd met some people, but the authorities had been one step ahead: the place was already surrounded, agents inside and out, and they'd been arrested as soon as they tried to leave, driven out to the countryside. They'd forced him to make the call kneeling on the steel floor of a van, the activists held on the ground outside. The phone had been held to his ear, hands tied.
"That wasn't so hard, was it?", one of the near-identical, besuited men with guns taunted him. "I really do admire you, still fighting even after you lost everything: good old stubborn Ezra Griffiths. But we knew activist groups would be galvanised by your ousting: we'd been watching every left-wing group in this country for years."
The man's smug tone made Griffith find rage nestled in his despair.
"You won't win. People like you never do", he growled.
The agent laughed, then gestured to the men surrounding the truck. They heard the other activists back inside, slamming them down on the cold floor. Closing his eyes as he heard gasps of pain and the engine starting up, Griffiths new that whoever had made that recording was the only hope he had left.
CNBS Studios
"Hello, welcome to CNBS News at Ten, I'm Nicole Everenson. Our top story tonight: Prime Minister Etan Bloomberg and his negotiating team have begun their journey to Sanctaria for the peace talks in Haven intended to resolve the Lauchenoirian conflict. Minister for Defence Amera Refn, Minister for Foreign Affairs David Perensberg, Attorney General Klaus Soderbergh, Minister for Trade Lara Blomkvist, and, in a highly controversial move, CIS director Donna Barrow. Some have criticised the Prime Minister's choice of negotiators as evidence of an aggressive agenda, but he has defended them as the best people for the job."
The news report was playing faintly on television in the small hovel where Helen Blunt had been living the last few days. She'd have laughed at the last line if that wouldn't have hurt her ribs, still bruised from escaping execution by forcing the chair she was tied to out a second-story window. Since that day, she'd made her way across the seemingly endless rolling fields of the Lauchenoirian countryside searching for any information she could find, and any word of what was going on in Conternia. She'd tried to find out what had happened to Antonin, and quickly discovered he'd been taken into protective custody then suffered a 'heart attack' - Barrow's people must have decided he was a liability, she had silently concluded. Every day felt like a nightmare, pushing forward with no clear destination, feeling surrounded by machinations beyond her control, and gnawed at by a constant guilt - the thought that by spending her life killing in service of others, she'd made this inevitable; an occasional voice in the back of her mind asking how many other, similar plots she'd helped to bring to fruition without knowing. Eventually, her search for a safe place and a means of communication had brought her to this glorified outhouse, the residence and base of operations for one Elliott Dowsohn, a Lauchenoirian hacker, smuggler, black market dealer and all-around peddler of the illicit. He was a perpetually intense man, and judging by his running around the outhouse, screaming, at all hours of the night, constant sweatiness, long hours in his small room, almost imperceptibly and random trips out from which he'd return holding mysterious bags, probably addicted to amphetamines of some kind. But he hadn't sold her out or turned her way and he'd agreed to hide her and help her monitor and record calls, in exchange for a price - she was still working out how she was going to sort that: she was sure she'd have time assuming she was alive once all this was over. Whatever 'over' looked like in this case.
"So", Dowsohn began speaking, sounding as if he was already halfway through his sentence, as he walked into the room where Blunt was sitting, "I'm assuming all them" - he gestured to the television - "are the imperialists bastards you had me tap the other day"
"The very same", she replied. "Did your people get the recording to the man I mentioned?"
"My people always get where they're going. They got word he was in -"
Blunt raised her hand, hushing him. "It's better if I don't know. That way if I get caught I won't have anything to give up"
There was a grim, awkward silence for a few seconds then, which was broken by the ringing of the landline telephone which served as Dowsohn's primary means of communication - harder to tap.
Dowsohn looked at Blunt, who shrugged, although she suspected - hoped - it was Griffiths. Dowsohn went into the next room and picked up the phone.
"Hello?"
A harried voice doing a passable impression of a collected one answered the phone. Even muffled by the poor reception it was unmistakably Conternia's now-ex Prime Minister.
"Hello. Are you the one they call the Yellowjacket?"
"I am"
"I received, your, uhh, package. I'm sorry for my delayed response, it took a while to find a safe phone. Many thanks."
"I was just doing what I was paid to do."
There was a pause on the other end of the line, some rustling and murmuring, then the voice returned.
"Well, tell whoever paid you that despite their efforts I'm afraid there's nothing I can do with this information."
Dowsohn's eyes widened.
"Nothing?"
Blunt, who was standing close behind Dowsohn, tilted her head in surprise at hearing this.
"Yes, it doesn't prove anything, really. Good day." All of a sudden, Griffiths hung up, leaving Dowsohn's questions caught in his throat. Blunt promptly strode out of the room, into the small room where she slept and had been sitting, and picked the gun she'd kept off the wooden bench that served as a bed. She checked it was still loaded then holstered it, walking out of the room and toward the door.
"There's two things I need you to do", she told Dowsohn, her voice level and authoritative. "First, tell me where I can get guns quick and cheap. Second, burn this place and get as far away as you can. They've heard your voice. They know your code-name. They'll be coming for you soon."
"I-"
She cut him off: "Don't argue with me on this. There isn't time."
"Where are you going?' He asked, frantically following her.
"Sanctaria." His eyes widened in horror, while her expression steeled. "Me and my team started something. I'm going to end it"
On the other end of the line, Griffiths breathed a deep sigh, falling to his knees in exhaustion. He would have passed out if a gun hadn't been rapped against his back. He'd gone to the address on the package, he'd met some people, but the authorities had been one step ahead: the place was already surrounded, agents inside and out, and they'd been arrested as soon as they tried to leave, driven out to the countryside. They'd forced him to make the call kneeling on the steel floor of a van, the activists held on the ground outside. The phone had been held to his ear, hands tied.
"That wasn't so hard, was it?", one of the near-identical, besuited men with guns taunted him. "I really do admire you, still fighting even after you lost everything: good old stubborn Ezra Griffiths. But we knew activist groups would be galvanised by your ousting: we'd been watching every left-wing group in this country for years."
The man's smug tone made Griffith find rage nestled in his despair.
"You won't win. People like you never do", he growled.
The agent laughed, then gestured to the men surrounding the truck. They heard the other activists back inside, slamming them down on the cold floor. Closing his eyes as he heard gasps of pain and the engine starting up, Griffiths new that whoever had made that recording was the only hope he had left.
<t></t>