[Xiomera]

Post written with input from Lauchenoiria

---

It had been shockingly easy to infiltrate WOE. The human element had been the key. That, and having an insider.

Gabriel Fleming had, once again, proven his value to Xiomera by providing the key elements of planning what would be known, in Imperial Intelligence, as Operation Treechoker. The name of the operation, a less than subtle pun on "tree hugger", conveyed the mission quite well. ImpInt was to capture members of WOE, and bring them to Xiomera for interrogation. The fact that they were in Lauchenoiria was of little relevance to the Xiomerans.

The operation began with the simple expedient of gaining access to the non-secure online server that WOE members used to communicate casually. From there, ImpInt agents managed to convince one of the WOE members to trust them enough to let them into the more secure server where actual discussion and planning took place. Taking advantage of peoples' willingness to trust others was an ImpInt specialty.

After some time on that server, ImpInt agents were able to narrow down two likely candidates to start the operation. The first was a bombastic individual named Clay Moss. He was often the first, and last, and loudest person to speak at WOE events on the streets of Buttercity. The second was a much less outwardly noticeable person named Irene Ramos. Ramos was not prone to speeches or taking center stage at rallies. What she was prone to do was organize. Every event, gathering and meeting of WOE in Buttercity seemed to involve her in one fashion or another.

Between a big speaker and a big planner, ImpInt reasoned, enough useful intelligence should be able to be gathered to begin bringing WOE down.

---

Both of them were brought into the custody of ImpInt in a similar fashion. Moss was tricked easily enough by being told that a group of interested people wanted to hear him speak. When he arrived for his big speech, he was given a drink with enough knockout juice to put him to sleep for quite a while. Ramos was simply tracked to her home, and nabbed late at night. She was likewise given something to make her sleep through a very long trip.

When both of them woke up, they would be somewhere neither of them had ever expected, or wanted, to be - Xiomera.

[Lauchenoiria]

“Oooh I haven’t had a Lauchenoirian in so long!” Mariya Adema gushed as she entered the cell. “Hello little terrorist! You’re a fantastic birthday present!”

The captured member of Warriors of Our Earth blinked up at the new arrival warily. Her words didn’t quite make sense to him, with his head still spinning from his sudden capture. The growing fear didn’t help much either.

“I’m… who… what… where?” he struggled to think of the correct question. Luckily for him, Mariya enjoyed a nice pre-interrogation chit-chat.

“You are a terrorist. I am a professional torturer. This is your preliminary interrogation! And we’re in Xiomera,” Mariya answered the half-asked questions.

Professional torturer. Xiomera. The WOE member’s heart skipped a beat. Surely he hadn’t just heard that. People didn’t just go around openly calling themselves that. “Is this a late April Fools prank?” he asked.

Mariya laughed. “Aww, denial! I like that, Xiomerans don’t do that. No, let me explain in full what’s going to happen here. You are in Xiomera. You are a prisoner. You will answer my questions in full or you will face unbearable pain. When that’s all over, maybe you’ll be allowed to go back to Lauchenoiria. I wouldn’t count on it though. Not unless you’re really cooperative.”

“This is not real,” he shook his head. “People don’t talk like that.”

“People don’t give you ultimatums?” Mariya cocked her head. “That’s not been my experience; everything’s an ultimatum with humans. Especially capitalists, if I’m honest, but communists do it too. I don’t much care which one you are, but it might be interesting if you want to tell me!”

“People don’t go around calling themselves professional torturers and threatening people like this!” He laughed in disbelief.

“Oh, you’re confused because I don’t use the normal euphemisms? Yeah, I find they’re a waste of time. ‘Enhanced interrogation’, ‘enticement to cooperation’, the Kerlian ‘persuasive techniques’. They all mean the same thing in the end. Talk, or I hurt you.”

Kerlian. She was Kerlian. And he was in Xiomera. “Oh F*** no!” he screamed, beginning to struggle against the restraints that kept him on his chair. “You’re that Kerlian demon!”

“I see my reputation precedes me,” Mariya said smugly.

He continued to struggle, yelling for salvation from any deity that would listen. He’d heard of her, everyone involved in a crime as small as littering in the mere vicinity of the Xiomeran state had heard of her by this point. Word spread through the criminal underworld, the activist groups, the dissidents, like a wildfire from the depths of hell. If you meet her, they said, you will invite death with open arms. If you meet her, they said, you will curse your mother for giving you life. If you meet her, they said, well, don’t. You don’t want to meet her.

“HEEEEELP!” he yelled.

“Nobody’s coming to help you, little terrorist,” Mariya said, cupping his chin in her hands. “It’s just you, and me. Now, tell me, what is your name?”

*

The other one was already terrified to begin with. She’d woken up on a hard chair, her wrists and ankles secured by restraints. Her thoughts had all come at once, then: fearing what was going on, noting that this wasn’t the Lauchenoirian police’s usual method, wondering if she’d somehow crossed the Kerlian border, remembering that Kerlile no longer kidnapped people who did that, they just deported them. All this in a single second. And then the door to her cell opened and Mariya stepped in.

She’d just finished with the other WOE member, and she was still wiping blood off her hands. The new prisoner let out an involuntary gasp at the sight.

“Good morning!” Mariya began cheerily. “I’ve just been having a nice chat with your colleague! Apparently his name is ‘oh please God help me’, WOE’s plans are ‘noooooooo’ and the timescale of said plans is some unintelligible screaming. Would you concur with that analysis or do you have anything else to add or contradict?”

The prisoner desperately tried to think back to her training. “Um, my name is Irene Ramos, my date of birth is the 12th August 1998, uh, I’m Lauchenoirian… I know there’s another… oh yeah I was born in Summersea. That’s all the things I need to tell you without my lawyer. There’s a card in my wallet that has her number on it.”

“Oh sweetie,” Mariya laughed, dropping the bloody towel and bending down to eye level with the prisoner, Irene. “You’re not in Lauchenoiria any more.”

Irene had guessed it but the confirmation still made her stomach lurch. By the interrogator’s accent, she was probably in Kerlile. She just had to hope that their reforms were still going along nicely. “Hey uh, if this is Kerlile then maybe I can, uh, don’t you have a test-thing where you assess how feminist someone is? Can I sit the test and if I pass you let me go?”

“We’re not in Kerlile either,” Mariya teased, waiting to see if her prisoner would work it out. But Irene had never been to Caxcana before, and hadn’t heard the same rumours as her colleague.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand what’s happening, I just went to a demo and I was going to go home and read a book, I didn’t do anything I swear! I didn’t even stand on the grass bit that belonged to them, I was on the public pavement.”

“Do you really think this is about stepping on grass?” Mariya burst into peals of laughter, which made Irene shudder. There was something about this woman with the Kerlian accent that gave her a cold feeling. “No, that’s not what this is about. I’ll tell you the same thing I told your friend: you are a terrorist. I am a professional torturer. This is your preliminary interrogation. And we are in Xiomera.”

“I’m not a terrorist, I…” Irene ended her denial when the rest of the sentence registered in her mind. Then she turned to the side as her stomach heaved like she was about to throw up. There wasn’t much in her stomach so nothing came out. “Uh…” she didn’t know what to say.

“So, you’ve told me your name which is more than your colleague managed. Can you tell me his name?” Mariya asked, holding a photo in front of the prisoner.

Irene, feeling faint and with her head spinning, could barely hear Mariya. But her sense of self-preservation was still in force, so she forced herself to turn towards the photo, and when she did, she let out an involuntary wince. She opened her mouth to answer and then paused, uncertain if she should cooperate or not.

“I can see you know the answer, Irene,” Mariya cooed. “And I know you understood what I told you. Must we do this the hard way?”

Irene was still frozen in indecision. She hadn’t been trained to resist torture! She went to non-violent direct action training. All she’d been taught is what she had to tell the Lauchenoirian police, what she didn’t have to tell them; how to not injure yourself with a spray-paint can and how to glue yourself to a building. She’d never even done the last one because she found glue gross! And now here was some Kerlian, in Xiomera, threatening to literally torture her if she-

Her overthinking was interrupted by Mariya grabbing one of her fingers and twisting it right back until she screamed. Of course she screamed. She wasn’t trained to resist torture!

“Clay! Clay Moss! He’s the really loud guy at all the demos who wears too much deodorant and his speeches are always a bit conspiracy-ish! Please!” Irene whimpered. Mariya let her go, and she gasped, shaking, with tears forming in the corner of her eyes.

“Thank you,” Mariya blew Irene a kiss. “For your cooperation. If only you answered in the first place, we could avoid such unpleasantness.”

Some of the tears escaped the corners of Irene’s eyes as she continued to shake and squirm in her chair. She knew pulling at the restraints was pointless and yet she couldn’t help it, just the same way she couldn’t control her breathing right now, except, except, she had to because if she stopped paying attention then the woman would do it again.

“I said,” Mariya growled, her face changing in an instant, “what is WOE planning to do next in Xiomera?”

“I don’t know!” Irene blurted out. “Please, I’m sorry, I just… I can’t breathe…”

“Aww,” Mariya said in fake concern. “Poor little terrorist.”

“No!” Irene cried. “I’m not a terrorist, I swear! I just go to demos and answer emails! Oh, and there’s the spreadsheets but they’re boring, and I guess I did design that checklist for action accessibility, and then there’s the disability friendly guide to anti-plastic messaging, but none of that is terrorism!”

“What is WOE planning in Xiomera?” Mariya repeated, opening a briefcase she’d brought along to reveal several implements Irene couldn’t identify.

“No!” Irene blurted out involuntarily, pressing herself in against the back of the chair, her eyes wide as she looked at the briefcase. “Please, I… I don’t know because they hadn’t decided yet in the meeting, I don’t go to the… the violent ones, but they’re loud and, and, they were saying something about helicopters and, wait no that was the past, it was something about boats and Auria and Mallacaland and the embassy and I think a paint bomb, or was it a real bomb? I don’t remember I don’t aaaah…”

Mariya tossed some implements back and forth between her hands, eyeing up her prisoner. She seemed to be telling the truth. Panic did have a way of clouding the memory sometimes. There were two ways Mariya could move forward. Wait for Irene to calm down, and try this again. Or force Irene to pick up the pace. Mariya was not merciful.

She stepped towards Irene, leaning until she was whispering in her ear. “I suggest you start remembering quickly,” she said, then licked a salty tear off the prisoner’s face. Then she bent over with her implement, and suddenly Irene let out a scream of more anguish than she’d ever previously known.

[Lauchenoiria]

Jointly written with Xiomera.

Calhualyana loved visiting the new Ministry of Loyalty complex in the foothills north of the capital. Internal security had been her specialty as an ASI operative. Whenever she walked around the MoL complex, it invigorated her to see so many people pursuing the same mission she had once had.

In truth, she sometimes missed the work. That was as much a reason as any that she had decided to pay a visit to Mariya as anyone to check on the progress she had made with the arrivals from Lauchenoiria.

As was her usual method, she arrived without announcement. The Empress entered Mariya's workspace with a simple nod of acknowledgement, waiting to be greeted.



"Your Majesty!" Mariya jumped up from where she was bent over a small laptop covered in Spanish-language activist stickers. "It's an honour to have you visit my workplace. I was just about to take this to the computer department and begin my report. Would you like a summary?"



"A summary would be excellent," the Empress replied, seating herself at a nearby table and dispatching a minion for a beverage. For all her usual pomp and circumstance, Calhualyana was almost treating the visit as a chat between colleagues. Only her eyes showed the eagerness with which she was awaiting the discoveries Mariya had made.



Mariya handed the laptop to one of her own minions with instructions to take it to the computer analysis division. She then clasped her hands behind her back and began her report.

"The laptop you saw me with just now belongs to Irene Ramos. She was kind enough to provide me with a password and a summary of the relevant contents of her hard drive, alongside her cloud access. I had just finished verifying that her information was truthful when you arrived. It appears she told the truth." Mariya paused just long enough for an overdramatic look of surprise.

"The other one, the male, is too busy screaming abuse at deities from assorted religions to answer questions. I have people in there just now to continue softening him up for me. Irene's laptop contains a summary guide of the file coding system used by WOE. It can be used to decode files that neither of our prisoners are aware of. Hopefully, at least. As for the layout and location of their offices, the rumours that Warriors continue to use Watchdogs' offices is true. That makes things easier."



"It does indeed. This is excellent work," Calhualyana said with a sip of her coffee. "If this information pans out, it could be the springboard we need for an operation to cripple this group of little terrorists. We will need to act quickly though, before they realize we have two of their people. If you can uncover any more information expeditiously, that would be of great benefit."



"The girl is cooperating so it should be easy to ask her further questions. Anything specific?"



"The hours that any WOE offices are open that she is aware of. Also, any upcoming large-scale events that will be held by them, and who may be attending. That information will be useful for future operations." The Empress finished off her coffee. "And any information on who their leadership is, and where they may be found."



"I'll get it done, your majesty," Mariya promised. "Now, Irene will be useful for this, but if we want specifics on the violent elements I'll need to end Clay's newborn baby impression." She mimicked the sound of a baby crying. "Irene claims she isn't involved in the violent aspects of the group, and I'm inclined to believe she's telling the truth. But she also told me that Clay is, in fact, involved with that aspect. It's a pity he's being so stubborn."



"I wonder if the classic good cop-bad cop approach might work here," Calhualyana mused. "If someone promises him the pain will stop once he stops being so stubborn...."



"Perhaps," Mariya nodded. "He's certainly feeling it, judging by the volume of his screams."



"Show me where his cell is," Calhualyana said. After being led to the cell, Calhualyana instructed the guard to open the door, then told Mariya to walk in with her. The unfortunate inside the cell would now be greeted by not just one nightmare, but two.

The pair of underlings Mariya had left to 'soften him up' did not expect to see the Empress and quickly bowed, stepping back from the prisoner. 

Feeling the change, Clay slowly opened his eyes from where they'd been squeezed shut and let his scream fall away. He recognised her from TV.

"This... definitely isn't an April Fools prank," he said weakly.



"Of course it isn't." Calhualyana gently took Clay's chin in her hand, a gentle expression on her face. "This is all real. Including the pain. It doesn't have to be, though."



"Why? Why are you doing this?" He whimpered.



"Why did your organization choose to attack us?" Calhualyana said softly. "We did not attack you first, after all. We don't want to do these things, but we must defend ourselves. You feel that you're defending something as well, and I admire that. But haven't you given enough? You surely never expected to end up here."



"You were gonna bomb the trees and then, like, the poisonous snakes and stuff will go eat humans instead... or something like that. The science isn't really my thing, I just know it will be bad and people will die, and you'll make money from snake stuff."

Mariya stepped forward to murmur in Calhualyana's ear. "The girl did say he was into conspiracy theories."



Calhualyana hid her contempt for that nonsense perfectly. Instead, she gently caressed Clay's cheek, probably the first physical contact he had since arriving in Xiomera that hadn't involved pain. "Let's focus on the here and now. You have suffered a great deal. You could suffer a great deal more, if I leave here without us coming to an understanding. That would leave you here with Mariya, alone." She paused. "I don't want that, though. I don't want you to suffer.  We can avoid all that."



He whimpered when she mentioned Mariya. "No please, she's not human, she's some kind of demon. Please don't leave me with her, please!"

From behind the Empress, Mariya waved her fingers and blew him a fake kiss while eyeing up the torture implements she'd left to the side.



"I can stay here, and keep Mariya from harming you any further. But for that, we need to have a conversation. About what WOE is planning next in terms of direct action." Throughout her performance, Calhualyana kept her voice soft and gentle, almost hypnotic, while stroking his cheek.



"On Saturday they're gonna have people wearing fake Alvarez masks pretend to have a fight with fake oil in front of Parliament," he tried.

From behind, Mariya groaned, "oh my Goddess, that is not what she meant!"



The Empress sighed in response, a look of disappointment crossing her face. "It appears that you have not taken me seriously. That is unfortunate. I will not waste your time further then." She turned to walk out of the room, gesturing to Mariya to continue.



"Nonononononono," he cried out desperately. "Please, I'm sorry, I'll answer your questions, please don't let her..." his voice trailed out into a wail.



Calhualyana smiled gently again. "That's better. Things go so much better when we cooperate with each other, don't they?" She touched Clay's cheek once before, before finding a place to sit. "Now. You will tell me everything you know about any violent action that WOE will be taking, anywhere. Once that is done, the unpleasantness will end as well."



"They hadn't decided at the last meeting," he began. "There were two options but people couldn't agree. One was to get divers - there are divers who do the things to the oil rigs usually - to mess with your boats in your exclusion line. With, uh, bombs." Looking sheepish he continued. "The other one was they were gonna go after the Xiomerans in Auria to make you forget about Manabí Rive. Oh, and during either thing they were gonna cover the Kerlian embassy -" He paused scrunching his face in concentration. 

"No wait, they changed their mind about that after the thingy, they were gonna look up if Novella Islands has an embassy with you, and if they so they'd do the Novellan one, but if not the Kerlian one. Anyway they were gonna cover the one in your capital, I can't pronounce it, with paint so your police thought it was the other ones. And there's some stuff in Lauchenoiria but please, please can I have some water?"



Calhualyana gestured to a guard, who returned with a glass of water. She watched Clay sip desperately from the glass with well-hidden amusement. "Thank you for cooperating. It does make all of this so much easier." The Empress handed Mariya the glass and stood back up. "If you continue to be cooperative, and the information you provide proves to be accurate, you have my word as Empress that no further harm will come to you. You will even be sent home, if all goes well. But if you are lying to us, or stop cooperating....." Calhualyana let her voice trail off into a stark silence. She looked meaningfully at Mariya, the message to Clay as crystal clear as the glass she had handed over.



Clay gulped. "Please can someone other than..." he looked at Mariya, "ask me questions? Please?"



"I would do it myself, but my time is quite occupied, as you might imagine. But someone will come in to complete your interrogation. I trust that it will not be required for Mariya to return?"



"No, I promise! I'll tell you everything you want to know!" He assured her quickly. "I'll even tell you every time I accidentally called my schoolteachers mama!"

Mariya suppressed the urge to giggle. Almost.



Calhualyana allowed herself a small smile. "That level of detail won't quite be necessary. Just answer the questions and you will be fine." With a nod, Calhualyana turned to leave the room, gesturing to Mariya to follow her.

Once out of the room, Calhualyana smiled. It was a genuine smile this time. "I haven't assisted with an interrogation in entirely too long. That was....exhilarating."



"I'm glad you enjoyed it," Mariya replied, attempting to sound enthusiastic. In truth, she was a little, just a little, sad that she wouldn't get to spend more time with the prisoner.

Calhualyana caught the nuance in her voice. 

"Don't be sad. You still have the other Lauchenoirian. And soon, many more of them, should the information these two are providing turn out to be good."



"Speaking of the other one, I ought to pay her another visit. Before someone catches on and locks her username out of things," Mariya replied, already perking up at the thought of Irene's wide, terrified eyes.



"I will leave you to it then. Good work." Calhualyana paused on her way out. "I feel like you deserve a reward for your work on these two. You should come to dinner at the Palace tonight."



"I would be honoured," Mariya said, smiling.

[Lauchenoiria]

Jointly written with Xiomera.

The group were dressed like tourists, wearing backpacks and taking photos. The cameras were real – after all, they wanted to be able to send things to the media. One of them even had a fancy one that would auto-upload to a cloud in case nobody was around to send them manually. This was Tlālacuetztla after all. There were only four of them in the group; most members of WOE wouldn’t set foot in Xiomera.

These four would. One was overconfident, one was a fanatic, one was a masochist, and the fourth was the fanatic’s brother who refused to let her go alone. The brother was the photographer. He prayed to anyone who would listen that if he didn’t actually touch the paint they’d go easy on him. He had no illusions about what awaited them.

As they approached the Novella Islands embassy, the other three quickly slipped off their backpacks and opened them to pull out cans of spray paint and immediately began to spray the exterior of the embassy in a chaotic fashion. The brother took pictures of them, as his sister let out a whoop and attempted to climb up the side of the embassy for some reason. The masochist decided to stand in between her and the police so that they got him instead, while the overconfident one seemed surprised the police had already arrived.

The Tlālacuetztla Municipal Police and Imperial Police who closed in did so in a rapid and overwhelming fashion. The overconfident one was tackled to the ground by six officers before he could react. The masochist was likewise overwhelmed by the officers pouring out of the surrounding buildings, quickly being dragged to the ground. The climber soon found herself being chased by two other officers who came after her up the wall. More police came charging at the photographer, batons in hand.

The photographer yelped, let his camera fall to his chest to dangle on the strap that held it around his neck, and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. Hoping they'd slow down.

They did not slow down.

Three of the officers slammed into the photographer, knocking him to the ground. His camera was snatched from around his neck, and his arms roughly twisted behind his back for handcuffs to be applied. As he looked around, he could see the other two who had been tackled in a similar predicament. There was no sign of the climber.

"AMADA!" he yelled, twisting his head around to look for his sister.

The climber, meanwhile, managed to scale the wall around the embassy grounds and leap over. Realizing that they could not pursue, the two officers behind her climbed back down with several curses under their breath. The other three, however, were now in Xiomeran custody.

---

7am in Lauchenoiria, two hours after the embassy incident

Prime Minister Josephine Alvarez, Domestic Affairs Secretary Adelita Cabello, new Foreign Affairs Secretary Juan Pablo Estevez, and Justice Minister Paquito Tosell were in an unwelcome emergency meeting with the heads of the Lauchenoirian Federal Policing and Investigation Service (FPIS), Lauchenoirian Domestic Security Service (LDSS), and Lauchenoirian External Intelligence Agency (LEIA). The subject of the meeting: what to do about the Lauchenoirians taken prisoner by Xiomera.

“The four behind the embassy incident travelled from Elopolis International Airport on a flight heading to Eiria. They then boarded a ferry to Huenya, and crossed the Canal Zone to Xiomera. At each point of crossing they listed their purpose of travel as leisure tourism,” said Sandalio Felix, director of LEIA.

“On the matter of prior convictions, the report I was given says we only have minor misdemeanours: in the case of Amada Toledano, a minor vandalism conviction relating to graffiti, and in the case of Demetrio Iglesias a drug possession charge that was later dropped. Damian Toledano and Toni Oquendo have no prior criminal records,” Tosell added, reading from a piece of paper.

“Regardless,” cut in the Prime Minister, “this is a bad look for us. We need to find some way of handling the WOE situation. We cannot keep allowing things like this to happen. But in the meantime, how are we doing finding the three arrested by the Xiomerans?”

“We have as yet been unable to ascertain their location,” the director of LEIA shook his head. “Which has worrying implications. If they were merely at the local police station, we would have found them by now.”

“Where do you think they are?” Alvarez demanded.

He swallowed. “The actions of the Xiomeran authorities in this matter indicate it is likely they have been taken for in-depth interrogation in the manner of their own citizens who display alleged disloyalty.”

Alvarez groaned, knowing exactly what that meant. If these really were members of the non-violent group, then this was going to constitute even more of a crisis. If they were Warriors, well. It would still be a crisis, she couldn’t exactly set a precedent of allowing foreign powers to torture her citizens.

Alvarez gestured for her three fellow politicians to leave with her into a side room to discuss their response away from the intelligence staff.

“What do we do? We closed our embassy there in the war, and every time we’ve been about to reopen it, some new crisis has caused a delay. We need to speak to the Xiomerans, but we absolutely cannot be seen to endorse or apologise for WOE in any way. Regardless of whether these are the violent or non-violent ones, most people can’t tell the difference in the media.”

“We have to do something,” Estevez argued. “We would be neglecting our duties if we allowed three of our citizens to remain in Xiomeran custody under the circumstances. Especially if the LEIA report is accurate.”

“We have issued a number of advisories against travel to Xiomera,” countered Cabello. “And we have made it very clear that we do not approve of WOE’s actions. I sympathise with what they’re probably going through, but we’ve done everything we can. Even if we were to contact Xiomera, I doubt they’d be receptive.”

“And yet, we have to try,” Alvarez sighed. “I will not allow Lauchenoirian citizens to be subject to the kind of interrogation techniques that Xiomera employs without at least trying to do something about it.”

“But how do we do that without seeming to support WOE’s actions?” Cabello said.

“I… don’t know,” groaned Alvarez.

“I would suggest we contact Sanctaria,” Estevez said, pushing his glasses up his nose. “They have maintained their embassy in Xiomera, and I expect they would be willing to provide our citizens with consular assistance.”

“Yes!” Alvarez replied. “That’s an excellent idea. Calhualyana considers us weak, that’s perfectly clear. I doubt she’d be so blasé dealing with Sanctaria. I’ll return to my office, and contact them. Return to the agency directors, tell them we’ll resume the WOE meeting later. I want suggestions for what we can do about Warriors. We absolutely need to do something, and soon. They continue to escalate, and the longer this goes on, the more I worry Calhualyana is right about our weakness. We’ll resume at 10:00. And I sincerely hope that whatever the next crisis is, it happens in a closer time zone.”

She swept out of the room, hurrying along the corridor back to her office, cursing every single person who thought forming WOE was a good idea.

[Novella Islands]

12:17 PM
Tlālacuetztla, Xiomera
Novella Islands' Embassy Compound

"Hey! You! Get down from there, right now!"

The deep voice boomed throughout the compound, as the pointing guard lowered his arm, and took his silver whistle into his hand. The ear-piercing tone that emanated from it after it was blown summoned three further uniformed officers, who collectively sprinted over to the climber.

"Down on the ground! Now!"

The Novellans were not yet aware of the mere vandalism that had occurred on the other side of the wall, and in the heat of the moment, had even less of an awareness of who this individual was. Even without their service weapons, the quartet of the embassy's guard detail were able to neutralise and detain the intruder in a matter of seconds. With a swiftly executed leg sweep, she was then pinned face-down on the floor, one guard per limb.

"Do you have a weapon on you? A weapon? No? Good."

With a series of breathless grunts, the exasperated woman answered in the negative. With the threat contained, the four men hauled the invader to her feet, and began escorting her into the building's antechamber. By now the entrance had a gaggle of onlookers; assorted diplomats, bureaucrats, and various other Novellan citizens accessing the consular services provided by the embassy. Most notable, of course, was the presence of Paul Dalton, the Novella Islands' ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to Xiomera.

Lowering the woman to a chair, the ranking officer marched over to Dalton as the other three prevented her escape. "Sir. The detainee scaled the wall, dropped down, and was subsequently captured with no resistance. The situation has been contained."

The diplomat nodded as he glanced over to the woman, who was scuffed up and no doubt going to feel the effect of the one-sided combat, come tomorrow morning. He let out a long sigh, before turning back to the officer. "Thank you, Captain. Keep her under arrest... but get her a cup of coffee, and find out her story, would you?" A single-word acknowledgement from the serviceman was followed by a nod, as he made off to carry out the ambassador's orders. Dalton stood there for a moment longer, before pinching the bridge of his nose, resigning himself to his next task.

Great, just what I bloody well needed. A call to the Imperial Police to set the tone for my afternoon...

[Sanctaria]

The warm, wood-panelled walls of the historic Bruton House, the headquarters of the Sanctarian Department of Foreign Affairs, belied the fact there was a sprawling compound beneath the building, bustling with civil servants at all hours of the day. Ambassadors on home leave, analysts on secondment from the Sanctarian Intelligence Service, political advisors formulating policy - there was rarely a moment the place was quiet. There was always something going on, always something happening in the world to give the politicians "upstairs" a headache. For the permanent civil service, each new thing that popped up was a opportunity to either put in place well-established procedures, or learn something new when the politicians went off-script and wanted to "get involved" or "change things up". That's not how the Foreign Service works.

But the civil servants didn't have that to worry about often. The Foreign Secretary, Kathryn Stewart, was a shrewd and experienced politician. She was previously the nation's Homeland Security Secretary. She didn't have time to go off-script. She knew the intelligence community, and had a sound understanding of world affairs. She had a good relationship with most of her peers, even in countries where Sanctaria historically had much cooler relations. Stewart didn't seek the limelight, she sought results. She expected her civil servants, her intelligence agents, and even her political staff to do their jobs, go where they were told, and to keep Sanctaria's reputation whole. In general, this was achieved.

Stewart herself was rarely seen without her phone. Most people have heard of "back-channelling" between governments, political factions, and even in intra-party controversies. But the world had moved on from code words and telegrams. Nowadays when one hears of "the government engaged with their foreign counterparts through back-channels" on the news, it generally means one Foreign Secretary texted the other from a non-government phone or had an off-the-record telephone conversation. Stewart learned very quickly when she was Homeland Security Secretary that those third-party messaging services with end-to-end encryption of messages often had better security firewalls than those actual governments deploy. She always put it down to the fact the private sector could pay more, and therefore attract better engineers and cybersecurity professionals. So she was always on her phone; checking emails, speaking with diplomats in the Sanctarian Foreign Service, sometimes speaking with her peers abroad. And today was no different.

Ping. It wasn't a loud sound. Enough to grab the attention of Stewart's aide who took her phone and checked the incoming mail. Lauchenoiria. Back Channel. Estevez. was all the message said, but it was enough for the aide to nudge Stewart and hand her her private phone, a call already placed to someone in the Lauchenoirian Foreign Secretary's office. "Juan Pablo Estevez, ma'am", the aide said pushing the phone into Stewart's outstretched palm.

Stewart nodded, took the phone and spoke right away without even checking to see if it was answered, or who it was on the other end. "Juan Pablo, how are you?" she said in a matter-of-fact, slightly impatient tone. She listened to the response. Her silence, and her nods, with the occasional "mmhmm" indicated the other speaker too dispensed with niceties and went straight into it. "How many", her question punctuated the silence in the ante-room of her main office. "Warriors or Watchdogs?", another question that hung in the air. "Juan Pablo, how many times have we told you to sort out this group", she scolded firmly, fairly obviously cutting across the other person on the line. Chatter on the other end resumed after a brief pause.

"Ok, I'll reach out to our Ambassador - and Juan Pablo", Stewart began, "Lauchenoiria needs to deal with these people once and for all. Xiomera taking matters into their own hands was always going to happen, and dithering put you in this situation. I'll send updates through our Ambassador in Buttercity." She hung up without even saying goodbye, tossed the phone on the couch beside her, and picked up a pen and a pad. "Harvey", she said not even looking up to her aide, "get Densi on the phone". The aide just sat there, almost afraid to ask a question. He cleared his throat. The Secretary sighed. "Densi. Denise Adams, our Ambassador in Xiomera. Some idiots from the WOE got themselves arrested in Tlālacuetztla, and we don't know if they're the harmless Watchdogs or the other ones, the Warriors", she said Warriors with more than an unsubtle hint of disdain in her voice. "Lauchenoiria still don't have their embassy re-established, they want us to provide consular assistance". She scribbled as she wrote, and didn't look up as her aide, Harvey, went to execute her command. 

"Oh", Stewart said, again not looking up, "see if someone from the SIS can get us more information on the arrests and the individuals in question. I don't think the Lauchenoirians have any concrete intel from the ground." She sighed and put her pen down, finally glancing up at the aide. "And get our Ambassador in the Novella Islands too, I want to find out the condition of the person they have." The aide looked surprised. "Novella Islands, ma'am?" Stewart shook her head, "it's a long story, just get Densi, the SIS, and our NI Ambassador in that order." She paused. "I'll need to let Ethan know at some point too, but let's have as much information as possible first."

The aide named Harvey nodded quietly and backed out the door. It was his first week on the job, and he was supposed to manage the Secretary's diary. He was just covering for his manager, Stewart's personal secretary, while she stepped out for an appointment. Evidently, Stewart felt everyone on her team, no matter their role, had to row in when necessary.

[Lauchenoiria]

Jointly written with Novella Islands

12:22 PM
Tlālacuetztla, Xiomera
Novella Islands' Embassy Compound

“What is your name?” the Captain asked.

“Amada Toledano,” the young woman said, trying to steady her breath after all the adrenaline.

“Okay Amada, where are you from?”

“Lauchenoiria.”

“And what exactly were you doing climbing the walls of our embassy?”

Amada blinked. “A climate protest.”

“Right. What sort of climate protest?”

“Like, uh,” she looked sheepish. “With the paint?” She held up her hand which had stains on it from the spray paint can.

“I’m not sure I understand what paint has to do with you climbing our wall.”

“No, I climbed the wall after, when I saw the Xiomerans - there were thousands of them!” she exaggerated. “They were just everywhere. I mean, when I first wanted to come to Xiomera to protest, I was gonna do so because they’d get all mad and then they’d probably do something that would make all the other countries mad at them, and that would get them to pay attention to us! But when I saw them all running I realised I did not want to find out what Xiomerans actually do to their prisoners, in the end.”

“So, you carried out a climate protest that involved paint, and upon sight of the Xiomeran police you decided to climb the wall to our embassy?”

“Basically, yeah.”

"You are aware that you've gone and broken another dozen or so laws, by trespassing on a foreign embassy, right? Laws far more serious than mere vandalism?"

She cringed. “Well, I, uh, wasn’t really thinking about that at the time. Besides, the Xiomerans don’t care, they execute people for wrongly pronouncing Calhu… you know what, I’m not even gonna try.”

“If you believe the Xiomerans were likely to react so strongly to your protest, why did you choose to protest here in the first place?”

“Cause, back at the WOE meeting they were looking for people to come and do this, and they said if you do then you’d be allowed to…” she trailed off. “Actually, uh, not sure I want to answer that one without a lawyer.”

“You are a member of WOE? Watchdogs or Warriors?”

“... Watchdogs,” she hesitated.

“You hesitated.”

“I’m not a Warrior!” she insisted. “At least, not yet, anyway,” she muttered.

"Not yet?"

She cringed again. She’d already said too much, so she might as well go on. “They said in the meeting that if we came to Xiomera to do this, we’d be able to join the Warriors.”

"Is there any particular reason you wish to graduate from peaceful - legal - protest, to an organisation with far more violent, less accepted means of demonstrating?"

“Because, like, they ignore us. The government, I mean. They ignore us when we do the spray painting or the performances, or even the roadblocks. They just paint over it, or laugh, or put up diversion signs. But they don’t ignore the Warriors.”

"The government? Lauchenoiria's? Xiomera's? Novella Islands'?"

"Any of th-"

"Actually, it doesn't really matter. We could talk with no end about the politics, about how we both live in democracies, and what we might think of the Xiomerans. At the end of the day, it's a moot point."

She waited, watching him.

"The fact of the matter is, the Warriors are terrorists... and as you so astutely pointed out - even if what you are saying about merely being a Watchdog is true - committing vandalism in Xiomera is a pretty stupid thing to do."

“Are you gonna hand me over to the Xiomerans?”

"That's not up to me to decide, so I'm afraid I can't give you an answer right now... though I have no doubt the ambassador is on the phone to the Imperial Police, as we speak."

She remained silent, though she cringed a third time. And despite her brother spending all of his interrogation asking after her, she didn’t even think of him.

[Lauchenoiria]

Written with input from Shuell.

A group of “violent terrorists” stood outside the Federal Parliament of Lauchenoiria. They were wearing paper masks depicting the faces of the members of Josephine Alvarez’s cabinet. Next to them were buckets of a black substance designed to look like oil. In truth, it was some vegan stuff mixed together. The exact recipe was unknown by the many onlookers who stopped to watch the “cabinet” throw “oil” at each other while pretending to really enjoy it.

Meanwhile, as the eyes of the Buttercity Police Department were on the chaotic protest-cum-entertainment, the actual violent terrorists were creeping towards the Lauchenoirian office of Monolith Manufacturing, a Shuellian company that wasn’t exactly known for its eco-friendliness. They didn’t intend to blow it up (they were saving their limited quantity of explosives for Xiomera).

Instead, upon reaching the building, they took out something one would never expect to see in the hands of climate activists – gasoline. After that, they moved quickly. A pair of them hammered at the windows until they smashed, after which six of them climbed inside and began to pour out the gasoline into every corner they could reach. While they were doing so, a ninth member of the group was spray-painting onto the road outside. “FOSSIL FUELS DESTROY. SEE ABOVE.”

The alarms were going off, of course, but it was 5am on a Sunday morning and the building was empty. At least, they thought it was. It probably was.

They finished off the pouring and dumped the cans, quickly climbing back out of the building. Those who’d been inside and whose clothes may have contained traces of the liquid quickly made their way back to one of the getaway vans, while one of the window-smashers lit a lighter and chucked it inside, diving behind the brick wall of the next property immediately afterwards.

They weren’t wrong. The fossil fuel they’d poured over the building did help destroy it.

*

“That’s it, everything’s on the table,” Alvarez said at the now apparently daily crisis meeting two hours later. “I want WOE gone. Tell me how to do this.”

“We have five primary options,” Ladislao Arias, the director of LDSS began. “Firstly, we have the database of Watchdogs members obtained by the Federal Cybercrime Investigation Unit. We could bring those marked as active for questioning to try and root out the Warriors among them. Secondly, we have a number of sting operations planned out that may allow us to separate the two groups based on willingness to proceed. Thirdly, we can detain those we currently suspect of being Warriors, with the caveat that we will likely miss some. Fourthly, we can freeze the passports of everyone on the list, but that will only solve the problems abroad. Finally, if we wish to be thorough, we could detain the full list from FCIU.”

“We’re not detaining a couple thousand climate activists to hunt out the fifty terrorists among them,” Alvarez shook her head.

“Actually, ma’am, the total membership list at last count was 25,634.”

“We’re definitely not detaining that many people. Do I look like Calhualyana to you?”

“Forgive me, ma’am, but you did say nothing was off the table.”

This is going to be a long meeting, Alvarez thought. “They lied to us about not taking action during the elections. We can’t trust a word they say, but equally, we cannot betray our principles. They must face justice, not vengeance.”

“As I say, these are the five options we have at present. They can, of course, be amended as required.”

Alvarez was silent for a long time. Eventually, she spoke. “We have no choice but to detain those we are confident are members of Warriors. If enough of them cooperate with questioning, we can discover others that way. And we can put out a message asking people from Watchdogs who have any information about Warriors to come forward. It’s unlikely many will, but you never know. If this is insufficient, we will rethink things.”

Those present nodded, and went off to carry out their orders. Across the country in the coming days, around 40 individuals suspected of being members of Warriors of Our Earth would be taken for questioning. Some would be cooperative; most would not. None of them would be able to afford a lawyer expensive enough to prevent them being remanded in custody. The government of Lauchenoiria had had enough.

[Xiomera]

Imperial Police Central Tlālacuetztla Garrison

Cochcuitli, the commander of the Imperial Police garrison responsible for the center of the capital, sighed as he picked up his phone. He had already informed his superiors what had transpired at the embassy, and they had advised him how to proceed. He dialed the number for the Novellan embassy, and requested to be put through to the ambassador when someone answered. After a moment, he was connected. "Ambassador Dalton, thank you for taking my call, sir. I am sure you are aware of the reason I am calling. Some protestors with WOE - we don't know if they're Watchdogs or Warriors just yet - began spray-painting the walls of your embassy when we intercepted them. The one who intruded on your grounds got away from our officers, but the other three are in our custody." He paused for any questions, before continuing.

"As you know, WOE in all its varieties is deemed a terrorist organization by the Xiomeran state. We are currently questioning the three arrested, and will be happy to share any information we uncover with you. We are hoping that we could be allowed to question the one who is currently in your custody, as well as share any information you may have uncovered so far with your own investigation." Cochcuitli paused, waiting for a response from the ambassador.

[Novella Islands]

12:25 PM
Tlālacuetztla, Xiomera
Novella Islands' Embassy, Ambassador's Office

As the ambassador listened to the Imperial Police commander speak, he uttered no more than the occasional hum of acknowledgement, nodding in agreement to nobody but himself. With little information to go off of, the diplomat was ecstatic that the Xiomeran was laying the cards on the table... although he was ever wary that any of the 'facts' could indeed be misdirection.

Thankfully, with a quiet rap on the door, Tim Ellery - the captain of the watch who had arrested Amada, earlier - entered silently, a notebook under his left arm. With a nod of acknowledgement, Dalton reached out his arm to take the documents from the officer, mouthing a 'thank you' as Ellery walked back out of the room. Skimming the paperwork as he gave another ambiguous grunt of acknowledgement to Cochcuitli, Dalton brought himself up to speed.

WOE... but, the watchdogs? Public vandalism... in Xiomera? What, does she have a death wish, or something?

Deciding to play his hand close for the time being, the ambassador finally decided to change his tune, for the first time actively engaging the man who was down the line.

"Thank you for filling me in, Cochcuitli. Yes, indeed, we have taken Ms Toledano into custody."

Recognising that although he and his staff were afforded certain diplomatic protections - and the building itself, by custom, was not to be entered without express invitation - the land upon which he stood was still Xiomeran territory. Within a certain spirit of interpretation, they would be well within their rights to enter and take Amada into their own custody... and failing that, it was entirely possible for the entire embassy to be expelled, though Dalton highly doubted even the Xiomerans would take that step over a mere vandal.

We could probably get away with playing this hardball... but there's probably a suitable compromise that can save face for all of us, here. This is going to require some coordination, and a bit of thinking time, though.

"We're still conducting our own investigation, at the moment," Dalton lied, without hesitation, "although we would be more than willing to share any information we find out, as a matter of course."

First, he would have to speak to Amada himself, and that would require buying some more time than an interrogation would provide. Thankfully, he had just the trick.

"Perhaps you would consider a visit to the embassy with anything you have already collected, and we can sit and have a discussion in person?"

Roping Cochcuitli in, personally. That bought the Novellans another hour, at least.

"I would greatly appreciate that, personally."

The kicker. A personal request from the ambassador, himself. Cochcuitli simply couldn't refuse.

"Thank you, Commander. I will speak with you soon."

With that, Dalton put down the phone, grabbed the notebook and his pen from the far side of his desk, and made towards the room Amada was being held in with haste.

[Lauchenoiria]

Today, Monday

Unfortunately, the Lauchenoirian crackdown on WOE had come too late for some. The members of WOE intending to attack a Xiomeran ship, as Clay Moss had informed the Empress in an attempt to avoid further time spent with Mariya, had already left their home country. They were already in Xiomera, preparing to undertake what they thought was a plan as-yet undiscovered. They would have, in fact, been better off being detained in Lauchenoiria, all things considered.

They took a rowboat out into the Manabi strait; no engine to give them away. There were only three of them, two rowers and one diver. The bomb sat in the boat as they remained silent, getting into position just out of sight of the Xiomeran ships. It would be tight, and it would be a long swim for their diver, but it was the only option. The bomb would be on a timer, to go off fifteen minutes after the button was pressed. To be successful, he would have to be undetected. Or set off the bomb while he was in range. But he didn’t want to do that.

They reached their position, and the diver strapped the bag carrying the bomb to his back, checking his equipment with the help of one of the others. They did not speak at all during this time. Any noise might alert the Xiomerans. Eventually, the diver was given a thumbs up, and dove into the water.

Unbeknownst to the trio, the Xiomerans were prepared. At first, the underwater swim went smoothly, until the diver came into range of the target ship. The moment he came into range, the diver detection sonar aboard the target vessel pinged. And it wasn’t long before Xiomeran Marine divers were in the water. When the WOE diver noticed them, he first tried to change course to get around them to the ship. But they were faster than him, and better trained than him. 

He realised it was futile and tried to flee. To no avail. They caught him, but he put up a fight. An underwater struggle took place, and he almost got away. Almost. Instead, one of the Xiomerans finally drew a knife, and stabbed him in the chest. The water began to turn red around him. He could not breathe. A Xiomeran pulled off his breathing apparatus and he swallowed water. He knew it was the end. As he began to lose consciousness he tried to reach for the bomb, but the Xiomerans were too fast. He was gone.

[Greater Acadia]

Jointly written with Lauchenoiria

Another group of WOE members had managed to escape Lauchenoiria just in time. Six Warriors from Costeno province had made their way to Greater Acadia the day before the crackdown. They got lucky; they would have been and gone by then, back in Lauchenoiria, but their trip was delayed by a couple of days as they waited to make sure Kerlile didn’t drop a nuke on their target country. When no nukes appeared forthcoming, they got on a plane.

Greater Acadia was hardly somewhere you’d expect WOE to target. In their own twisted way, WOE thought they were helping. Acadia had pledged to reach net zero by 2027. Yet they still had a smattering of petrol stations throughout the country. It would be helpful, wouldn’t it, if they could help the Acadians have just a few less. After taking a few days for reconnaissance, the six of them spread throughout Federation City, and waited for 3am.

At 3am, or close to it, they set fire to six petrol stations in the city, and then made a run for it. Alarms went off inside the stations as the flames spread. Fire departments arrived on the scene to extinguish the flames before they could reach the underground fuel tanks. An explosion in the middle of downtown was something they wanted to avoid. The flames would be extinguished, and investigations launched to discover the cause.

It was quickly determined by Greater Acadian Mounted Police that the fires were deliberate. What the perpetrators didn’t seem to realise at the time, or simply didn’t care for, was that these stations had been equipped with security cameras. Security cameras which were linked to off-site backups. Three of the suspects would be eventually apprehended by the GAMP, and a nationwide manhunt for the other three would be launched.

One of those arrested was more than willing to talk. Or more accurately, brag.

“So you’re saying that the Warriors of Our Earth are behind this?” Detective Lina Walters stated flatly, staring at the man in cuffs sitting across from her. The very smug man in cuffs sitting across from her in the interrogation room.

“That’s right, officer!” He replied cheerfully. Funny. You’d think a man under arrest would seem a bit less chipper about this.

“Why? Why now? Acadia has been pretty straightforward of our plans to phase out fossil fuels from everyday use. Every year we import less and less. Every year we put up more solar panels along roads and on roofs. Every year more charging stations for electric cars.” She questioned. “Hell, word has it that the Mounted Police are gonna be modernising their fleet with electric police cruisers soon.”

“That’s just it!” He declared. “You missed it by two years! Two years! We’re doing you a favour! Accelerating the timeline! Getting that poison out of your system faster!”

“You think burning down a few gas stations is going to speed up the process?” Lina countered, raising a quizzical brow.

“No! Well…maybe.” He shrugged. “Depends on what your leaders do. They speed up the timeline by two years, the attacks stop! If they don’t, well…”

“You’re threatening more attacks, then?” She asked, eyes narrowing.

Again, the perp shrugged, smug grin still on his face. That he talked so openly and brazenly about WOE’s plans like he was doing society some kind of favour really made her want to punch him right in the mouth.

“Again, it depends on what your leaders do…”

[Lauchenoiria]

“Greater Acadia, though!?” Savannah Martinez shouted at Chris Goode in the middle of Watchdogs of Our Earth’s Costenan office in Carville. “I’m sorry, but they are unquestionably one of the best governments on climate action across the entire IDU. Their actions could have caused massive explosions in the middle of the city; innocent people could have been killed! I can’t believe you still want to work with Warriors after this! In the middle of the government hunting them all down!”

“If Greater Acadia wanted to avoid such incidents, they could choose to quit their bad habits now, instead of delaying. And the crackdown is exactly why we need to keep supporting our comrades in Warriors. If you don’t like it, just ignore them. Anyway, I’m going back to the celebration,” he shrugged and left the room.

Delaying? We agreed to call for 2025 as a negotiating strategy to get 2030. But you’ve probably forgotten that in your fanaticism, Chris, thought Savannah as she let out a long exhale. She headed back into the tiny kitchen and leaned against the counter, breathing deeply and thinking. This was not what she’d signed up for. The people around her were becoming more and more extreme by the minute. She’d tried to be a moderating voice, but she was dismissed out of hand now.

Savannah was to the Costenan branch of Watchdogs what Irene was to the Fleuran. She carried out all the boring admin tasks that nobody else wanted to do. She could keep information organised in her head and make sure things went smoothly. But she hated the violence the Warriors were carrying out. The moment Watchdogs let Warriors use their offices, she’d thought of quitting. She stayed only to provide that voice of reason, but at this point they would not listen.

She made her decision. She took an empty washing up basin and headed back through to the computer room while the others were ‘celebrating’ the destruction in Greater Acadia. She began to collect up the random coffee mugs and other dirty dishes strewn around the room. As she did so, she stuck a USB into a computer the user had forgotten to log out of. She knew Chris was in Warriors; and it was his computer. She copied the folder labelled with the code word for Warriors. As it loaded, she collected the rest of the dishes, and then pulled out the stick.

Back in the kitchen, she washed up the collected dishes and left them on the drainer. Then she returned to the computers, as the others were filing back in, and grabbed her jacket and bag. “I forgot to take my antidepressants this morning,” she told Chris. “I’ll have to head back home and get them. Want me to take the recycling down on my way out?”

“Sure, go ahead,” Chris said, distracted by his conversation with someone who was presumably much more interesting in his eyes. Savannah grabbed the box full of paper, and headed out of the office, into the stairwell they shared with a bunch of random businesses. Officially, their office was registered to some shell company with a boring name, which was listed on their door. She didn’t meet anyone on her way out, so instead of heading out back to the bins, she exited the front door and quickly made her way to Carville Central Station, just down the road.

At the station, she got on the first train going east, and travelled a single stop to Carville East, one of the other stations within the city proper. At Carville East, she headed out of the southern exit of the station, turning right, followed by a quick left, until she stood outside the headquarters of the Carville City Police Department. She took a deep breath, and then went inside to the reception desk.

“How may I help you?” the receptionist said in Spanish, her tone of voice indicating general boredom.

“Hi, uh, I have information on Warriors of Our Earth. Like, a lot of information.”

The receptionist looked up at her. A young woman with long dark hair, glasses, clutching a cardboard box of what looked like scrap paper. She wore a denim jacket covered in patches bearing a variety of activist slogans, interspersed with cute cartoon cats. A backpack was slung behind her, recognisable as from a brand based on Butterfly Island that used fully-recycled materials to create their products. Overall, the kind of person who probably actually did have useful information.

“Hold on one moment,” the receptionist said, picking up a phone on her desk and dialling the conference room upstairs which had been taken over by the FPIS for their WOE investigation within the city. “Hello, I have a young woman here with information regarding WOE… yes, I expect so… okay, I’ll send her up.” She hung up and turned to one of the uniformed officers hanging around the reception area. “Could you please show this young woman to Conference Room 8?”

He nodded. “Right this way,” he said to Savannah. She followed him to an elevator, up to the third floor. He took her along a corridor into a side room attached to Conference Room 8. The side room was small, containing a table, three chairs, and a houseplant. There was a small window in the room, with a set of wooden blinds raised to let in the light. Overall, it was much nicer than Savannah had anticipated. The uniformed officer left her, and was quickly replaced by a plain-clothes FPIS officer.

“Good afternoon, I’m Agent Eloy Escarella. I’m told you have information on WOE? May I have your name please?”

This is it, Savannah thought. Oh well, too late to change her mind now. “My name is Savannah Martinez, I’ve been a member of Watchdogs of Our Earth since 2020. But I don’t support the violence of Warriors. That’s why I’m here; nobody is listening to me any longer that they’re a threat. What they did in Greater Acadia was stupid and dangerous, and I can’t have anything to do with them now. Here, this is a USB that has the contents of one of their organiser’s computers. And this box is the recycling after their last planning meeting in the Watchdogs office. I don’t know if there’s anything in it, but I thought it might be useful.”

Escarella raised an eyebrow at the fast-talking woman. She was staring at the table, clearly nervous about coming here. He took the USB and peered inside the box. He pulled out a piece of paper covered in a list of nonsense words following the word “Operación”. He smiled slightly at some of them. Evidently, WOE spent far too much time brainstorming code names. He continued to flick through the box, finding a map of southern Xiomera, an invoice for six plane tickets to Greater Acadia, and an empty cardboard box stamped with the seal of a known illegal cannabis edibles manufacturer.

“Thank you for coming in, Ms Martinez,” he said after his flick through the box. “Rest assured, we’re not going to arrest you for being part of Watchdogs.” She visibly relaxed a little. “This is very useful. I understand how difficult it must have been to come here, but you have done your country a great service. The situation with Warriors has become a matter of national security. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to send in another agent to take a full statement?”

“Yeah, that’s… I’m happy to help. I just wanted to stop people destroying the planet; but now it seems like WOE are the ones destroying things! In the war, I fought with the Resistance. But, like, I couldn’t actually kill anyone, so I ended up being captured by Kerlians, and…” she shuddered, unable to keep from spilling out information now she’d taken the first step. “But the point is that I want to help Lauchenoiria, I can’t… I’m sorry,” she broke down in tears.

“Ms Martinez, I’m going to have someone come and bring you a tea or coffee. Please don’t worry about your past involvement; all we want is to put an end to the violence. You’re helping us with that. It’s going to be okay.”

He left the room to go and fetch someone to take a full statement, and to calm the young woman down. In the room, Savannah tried to continue taking her deep breaths, feeling much more relief at her disclosure than she thought she would. In truth, WOE had been disturbing her for months. Now, it was over. She was free from them. Finally.

[Novella Islands]

Jointly written with Lauchenoiria.

12:35 PM
Tlālacuetztla, Xiomera
Novella Islands' Embassy

“Please don’t hand me over to them! It was a mistake, I know, I was being stupid, I’m sorry, but please!” Amada said the moment Dalton entered the room. The longer she’d had to think about things, the more frightened she’d become. “I know I shouldn’t have been here; I promise, I’m not gonna do things like this again.”

The profuse barrage of pleading assaulted the ambassador’s senses the moment his hand turned the door handle, and he visibly winced as he connected eyes with the woman. Yes, of course what she was saying was true, though the shrill blubbering helped nobody… and certainly not Dalton’s conscience.

“Ms Toledano, please. Now…”

“Please listen, I’m sorry, I just thought, like, it would be cool but this isn’t like the movies, it’s real and I don’t want it to…”

“Now, Ms Toledano. Amada.” The Ambassador shifted his voice to a stern but reassuring register. He didn’t have time to waste on outbursts of emotions, and nor did she. Straight down to business.

“Amada. I regret to inform you that your… associates? Friends? In any case. The other three you were with this morning, have all been taken into Imperial Police custody.”

She cringed. “Oh God, my brother. He only came here for me. I’m such an idiot.”

“I’m assured by Commander Cochcuitli of the Central Tlālacuetztla Imperial Police that they are being treated humanely and in accordance with Xiomeran law… such as it is, in any case.”

“That doesn’t mean anything!” she exclaimed. “I doubt the Xiomerans know what ‘humanely’ means! I’m pretty sure their laws let them use prisoners in creepy experiments!”

“Let me be pragmatic with you, Amada. The Xiomerans aren’t going to fumble the ball here for a bit of sick and twisted fun, at least, not while we’re watching like a hawk.” The Novellan gave a wry smile, knowing full well that it was indeed his presence that was preventing the Imperial Police from their usual bouts of excessive interrogation.

“If you think that watching them will stop them, you’re mistaken. They’re probably gonna execute my brother and the other two whether you’re looking at them or not. I’m such a fool… but, like, what are you going to do? Are you gonna hand me over to them or let me go back to Lauchenoiria?”

“I… I do have a proposal. You’re almost certainly not going to be ecstatic about it, but under the circumstances, I’m sure you will agree it will be in everybody’s best interests.” Dalton gave a slight sigh as he plopped himself down in the chair opposite Toledano, before placing the notebook between them.

Now, to convince her that five years in a Xiomeran jail cell is the ‘easy way’ out. Hopefully, she’s close with her ‘friends’.

“I can probably arrange for you - and the other three WOE members - to be handed a reduced sentence. But that’s going to require a great deal of cooperation from you… including an admission of guilt.”

“You’re going to hand me over to them!?” she squeaked, her voice increasing in pitch as she tensed all her muscles.

"I'm afraid we don't have all that much choice, Amada. This isn't a film; this is real life." He gave a dry chuckle of resignation, before continuing. "There aren't any secret tunnels lying about, we can't just sneak you out the back door in the middle of Tlālacuetztla, and I'm afraid I'm not willing to ship you out of the country in a packing box."

The ambassador tapped his fingers on the notebook rhythmically as he spoke, watching the colour drain from the woman's face. As her hopes were dashed at every stage, and the terror of her situation set in, he could only feel a deep sympathy for her. Yes, Dalton was sworn to preserve Novellan interests in the face of adversity, and yes, she had broken Xiomera's notoriously strict laws... but he was still human, after all.

"Amada. This is your only option. Besides... if you don't go through with this, and even if I could whisk you away to Lauchenoiria, what of your brother?"

“Please, I… oh God,” she moaned, her eyes filling up with tears. “What are they going to do to us? Please don’t let them kill us, I… I don’t want to die!” She realised as she was saying it that her words didn’t match up with his earlier statement. “Wait, you said something about a reduced sentence? Do you think you can stop them from hurting us?”

"As much as I am loath to suggest semantics at a time like this, that truly depends on your definition of both 'stop' and 'hurt'."

She moaned.

The ambassador winced once again as he spoke those words. Now was not the time for being smart, but by the same token, it was the only honest answer to her question. Even the most trivial of offences in Xiomera are punished with sufficient quantities of 'hurt'.

"I'll be the first to concede that I'm not an expert in Xiomeran criminal law, but I'm led to believe such summary offences as what you are charged with are typically afforded ten years of hard labour. And that's Xiomera's definition of 'hard labour', mind."

Picking up the pen he had brought with him into the room as he spoke, he twirled it around his fingers, as he laid out the ultimatum for Amada. Click, click again.

"Five years of hard labour. Each." He circled the word 'five' he had written on the page earlier.

“No,” she said, turning white as a sheet. “No, no, no, no…”

"As to whether that's to Xiomera's standard of 'hard labour', or 'hard labour' in the in the more traditional sense, will be down to how well I can convince Commander Cochcuitli that…" Dalton was cut short by his secretary's knocking on the door, as he glanced over to see what they wanted.

"Ambassador Dalton, sir. There's a Commander Cochcuitli of the Imperial Police here to see you, sir... I've had him placed into conference room two."

"Thank you, Alex." The diplomat turned back to Amada, with a look that might almost be construed as pleading. "For your brother, Amada?"

“I think I’m going to be sick,” she said, and she had indeed begun to go a little green. “I don’t have a choice, do I? Please, I need a bucket…”

As the ambassador walked out of the room to meet with Commander Cochcuitli and discharge his requisite diplomatic platitudes on that front - Dalton had kept him waiting far longer than he would have liked, by now - he did make sure to stop by his secretary's desk, on the way. With the necessary haste demanding an option more immediate than sending to maintenance for a bucket, they brought a small office recycling bin to the room Amada was in, who was indeed promptly sick.

[Sanctaria]

Denise Adams was in her naturally lit embassy office staring out the window into the Xiomeran capital. Her call with her superior, Foreign Secretary Kathryn Stewart, was brief but informative. The Xiomeras had detained 3 individuals, suspected to be from the group Warriors of Our Earth, for attacking the Novella Islands embassy. A 4th individual had managed to get themselves inside the embassy itself. Intelligence from the Sanctarian Intelligence Service suggested, Stewart had said, that the group didn't seem as organised as Warriors of Our Earth and were probably members of the non-violent sister group Watchdogs of Our Earth trying to piggyback off of the Warriors' infamy. Stewart's direction was simple - Lauchenoiria needed Sanctaria to act as their government and consular representative in lieu of their own.

Turning her back to the Xiomeran sky, Adams shuffled back to her desk waiting for the call her secretary placed a minute or so ago to be put through. Waiting for the Xiomeran Foreign Minister was a chore - the Xiomerans liked to keep people waiting, likely at an attempt at intimidation, but Adams didn't care. She could do other work while waiting. She had known tougher and stronger foes than the Xiomerans, having been stationed in all manner of places over her 30 years in the diplomatic - and intelligence - service. She did like their hold music though. Almost like a jingle for a soft drink.

Adams sat down and kicked her feet up on her desk, hitting her phone with her hand so it was on loudspeaker. The official position of the Sanctarian government, Adams had been told, is that Warriors of Our Earth is a terrorist organisation. The Lauchenoirian government too had labelled them as terrorists. But equally, the Lauchenoirians didn't want their citizens languishing in a Xiomeran cell, being tortured, regardless of they were Watchdogs or Warriors. It wouldn't be good for the Sanctarian image either if they too decided Lauchenoirians weren't worth their time. Sanctarians certainly wouldn't be left to die in Xiomera. That said, Sanctarians wouldn't be so stupid as to get themselves arrested doing civil disobedience in Xiomera of all countries. "Idiots", Adams said aloud, just as the phone clicked and she found herself speaking to the Xiomeran Minister for Foreign Affairs.

"Minister", she said cheerfully. "Look, I won't keep you. I know you're busy. You have 3 Lauchenoirians in custody. Morons from the WOE. Listen, we think they're probably Watchdogs not Warriors, but I know the distinction doesn't really matter to the Xiomeran government", she said trailing off just a little. "Anyway we've been asked by the Lauchenoirian government to act on their behalf given their lack of diplomatic representation here in your ... quite orderly country". She wanted to say dungheap, but diplomatic niceties trump all. "I'd like Sanctarian embassy officials to meet with the 3 and ascertain their well being and for our lawyers here to inform them of their rights, such as they are, in Xiomera." She paused to think on something, but not long enough to allow the Xiomeran Minister to get a word in edgeways. Adams always found if you didn't let the other side say much, they couldn't push much of their agenda, and you often got more of your side of the deal.

"Actually no. Let's do this differently", she said, straightening up in her chair. "We both know what you're going to do to them and frankly us poking our head in means nothing in the grand scheme of things. Who do you want?" There was silence on the other end, clearly this was not an expected question. "Who in Lauchenoiria do you want for a prisoner swap, we'll facilitate it. Lauchenoiria had enough time to sort out WOE, they didn't, and you're well in your rights to detain these people, but really detaining foreign nationals and, let's be blunt, torturing them isn't going to win you any favours, and when people find out Sanctaria knows about it, we'd be expected to do something then anyway. So why not cut the next 3 to 4 weeks of diplomatic bullcrap, and you tell me if there's anyone in Lauchenoiria you want released. And just for the 3 you have detained. Whatever happens to the individual currently being held in the Novellan embassy is their problem, PR-wise, not ours; you know how it goes." Or maybe not, given the state of the Xiomeran press. What a bubble these people live in. A scary, murderous bubble, but a bubble nonetheless.

[Slokais]

Miyahira Emiko took her job at Airandogādenzu Palace very seriously; she had grown up as a poor farmer at the mercy of warlords, and now she worked for the most powerful one, Damiyo Kimoto Kamanmaru. Kamanmau was not only the richest in terms of wealth, but the most respected: he controlled the city of Fukagawa, the main trading port for the entire country. Airandogādenzu was located across the river from the city and consisted of the summer palace for the entire government of Fukagawa Province. Currently, Damiyo Kamanmaru was in a series of meetings over tea. Miyahira’s job was to tend to the lush grounds, and as she turned around a greenhouse, a man with an assault rifle and a green headband pointed his gun at her.

“Hands up."

She did as he asked unphased, she had experienced being held up before.

“Where is the Damiyo?” he said in heavily accented Sansongian.

“What is a foreigner like you doing here?” she asked.

The man seemed confused by her question and motioned for a mercenary in full armor.

“What did she say?” he asked, this time in English.

“She is wasting your time,” the mercenary said.
“These foreigners are with an organization called Watchdogs of Earth, some communist thing; I am here for the cash,” the mercenary said in Sansongian.

“This is not honorable; Kamanmaru has always been respected” she replied quickly.

“WOE says there is no honor in profiting off exploitation.”

Miyahira looked across the garden and saw that the main place was on fire.
“So this is how foreigners do justice,” she said angrily.

“They destroyed our Earth, so may they be destroyed,” the foreigner said ignoring her statement.

Kimoto Kamanmaru had been enjoying a quiet meeting with a number of businessmen when his personal bodyguard entered the room. “Sir, intruders have been spotted,” he said.

“Ready the helicopter and ge-”

There was a loud boom, and the walls of Sento came crashing down, his bodyguard dived on him as a spray of bullets rained down. Out of the fog of the explosion, a group of foreigners armed with heavy weapons ran in.

“All of you have destroyed the Earth, now face true justice,” said a woman with a green headband.

“Alright, everyone stands in the middle of the room” shouted another in Sansongian.
“All of you have harmed our environment, each of you shall b-”

The woman was interrupted when a katana cut her down from behind; she collapsed to the floor. Behind her, a man in enhanced Samurai gear pulled out a gun and began firing at the group of WOE terrorists.

Outside, the walkie-talkie strapped to the WOE gunman went off.
“Yeah?”

“Pull out, reinforcements are here”

“What?”

At that moment Miyahira watched as a Samurai cut down the gunman. The blade had gone clean through; the Samurai pulled it out before turning to the mercenary.
“What are you doing here? These foreigners are honorless, you're a Sansongian.”

“It’s a new world; so many wars, so many new opportunities,” the mercenary said as he drew his blade.

“Sansongians have lost so many things, yet you throw your honor, your pledge to the winds.”

“It’s a new era, why not play all sides?” said the mercenary before turning away.

[Xiomera]

The Xiomeran Minister of State, Toquauhtli, pursed his lips as he listened to Adams. Finally, he responded. "I shall have to check with my superiors briefly to see who we might want in exchange for the three detainees. Please give me a moment." He placed Adams on hold, which she surely would enjoy, while he contacted the Palace of Flowers. After a brief conversation with the Empress, in which the head of Imperial Intelligence was roped into, Toquauhtli came back onto the line.

"There are three individuals Lauchenoiria is currently holding that we would accept in exchange. Their names are Dina Redondo, Xavier Everett, and Mariano Serrano. We will accept a trade for these three individuals - but only these three. Prime Minister Alvarez will know of them, and why we want them. If the Lauchenoirians refuse the trade, we will not release the three detainees, and they will go on trial on terrorism charges. I look forward to their response."

---

Usera, Lauchenoiria
April 13th, 4:45am

Usera was widely known as the activism capital of Lauchenoiria. It was therefore only natural that Warriors would have a major presence there, hidden in a nondescript office that no one would notice.

That is, until Mariya had gotten ahold of Irene Ramos. 

Imperial Intelligence was more than happy to take it from there. A crack team of commandos was able to sneak into the office in the wee hours of the morning. Once their happy work was done, they moved to a safe distance away from the building. The team leader paused a moment. Their sweep hadn't revealed anyone in the building, and an hour were most were likely to be asleep had been chosen to avoid actually killing anyone. WOE hadn't escalated that far yet, so Imperial Intelligence wouldn't either. Tit for tat, as they say.

With a shrug, the team leader pressed a button on his burner phone.

The hallmark of their work would not take long to be noticed by the residents of Usera, as a massive explosion tore the building completely apart. Concrete, steel and glass thundered to the ground, and the resulting flames lit up the sky as if it was an early sunrise. As smoke began to billow through the area like a winter fog, the Xiomeran team slipped away like shadows, before the sirens even began to sound.

[Sanctaria]

"I think we can prevail upon Lauchenoiria to accept the Xiomeran terms, but it'll probably come better from you", Foreign Secretary Stewart said frankly to Ethan Ringrose, Chancellor of Sanctaria, in his office shortly after she finished her call with the Sanctarian Ambassador in Xiomera. "We can play this in the press as Sanctaria brokering a deal with the two nations to reduce escalations, but it is true that it means three potentially very dangerous individuals may be released to the public at large. We did anticipate the Xiomeras would demand high-profile prisoners, and the SIS doesn't think they'll pose a threat to our interests."

"Will they pose a threat to Lauchenoiria or her interests?" Ringrose asked, flicking through the dossier that Stewart had given him. "Or any other nation? I don't want to endorse a deal that will come back to bite us in the ass."

"We can't promise that", Stewart replied. "I think it's most likely that Xiomera will milk them for any intelligence they have, and then discard them as being of no use to them because they're too notable. It's easy for any IDU intelligence agency to keep eyes and ears on them. But look, they could want revenge and take it out on Lauchenoiria, that's always a possibility."

"Who's worse? WOE or these three?", Ringrose probed.

Stewart sighed. "Depends what you mean by worse. Fundamentally, it's likely the three Xiomera have are more-or-less innocent civilians who just want a cause to fight for. The three Xiomera want, on the other hand", she paused, "mentally unstable guns-for-hire is how I'd put it. Who knows what prison has done to them."

Ringrose looked through the dossier again. "So either we condemn three naive idiots to certain torture and probable death, or we allow three hardened criminals into the hands of a lunatic regime who could set them loose on anyone." He sighed. "Can we take them out in future if we need?"

"That's for the SIS to answer", Kathryn said, her tone impossible to perceive.

"You were Homeland Security Secretary until a couple of months ago. If I got Alexandra Maye in here right now what would she say?"

"She'd say we have people who could take care of that if it came to it."

"Alright, set up a call with Alvarez. I'll tell her the terms."

****************************

"They want WHO", Alvarez bellowed at the phone in her office. Her face, and the faces of her advisors, turned an uncomfortable-looking pallor when Ringrose's voice came over the phone, on loudspeaker, with the names of the prisoners for an exchange. "No. Absolutely not. They have a bunch of college-aged kids, we're not turning over actual terrorists for some kids, it's totally disproportionate. We didn't even agree to a prisoner exchange, why didn't you run this idea past me first?"

"You lost all credibility on the WOE issue weeks ago", Ringrose snapped back. "You came to us to clean up your mess, yet again, and we have. We warned you to get a handle on this. Those three 'eco-warriors' they have, their lives are on you Josephine, not me. They die, it's on you. They wouldn't be there if you bothered to take an actual interest in your own national security and against your own domestic terrorists. This is the deal you have. Take it or leave it. I'll give you an hour to talk to your people. Kathryn will be in touch." The line went dead.

There was silence for a couple of minutes. "Obviously we're going to say no", Foreign Secretary Juan Pablo Estevez said breaking the silence. "Sanctaria, and Xiomera, can't force us to release actual terrorists for ... three idiots. We had a travel advisory against going to Xiomera, it was their own fault!"

"Don't be ridiculous", Domestic Affairs Secretary Adelita Cabello said. "They're 20-something year olds, they're kids. We can't leave them in Xiomera. Their families will mount efforts to release them, there will be public and media pressure. It'll look awful for us". Silence again.

"What a position we're in", Alvarez said quietly. "We're fast losing friends on the world stage. Ringrose is right, WOE has been a problem, and other governments are losing patience". She looked around the room. "We don't know who is in Warriors of Our Earth. It could be any young person we pass on the street. At least with these three ... mercenaries, we know their names. We know what they look like."

"Releasing terrorists though, Josephine", Estevez said quietly. "We can't stoop to that."

"A terrorist exchange", Justice Minister Paquito Tosell interjected. "We'd be taking responsibility for homegrown terrorists who went to another country, by taking them back and putting them through our justice system. And we get rid of dangerous terrorists from Lauchenoirian cells, and make them Xiomera's problem. That's how we sell it."

"Ok. I need half an hour". Alvarez motioned for everyone to leave the room.

****************************

Kathryn Stewart was just stepping out of her car when her ministerial phone bleeped. She checked her smartwatch to see what was up. A message through from one of her aides. "Alvarez is a yes", was the simple and direct message. She turned to her private secretary who had also left the car. "Tell Densi we're on", she said before walking off with her security detail.

[Lauchenoiria]

Mariya had interrogated many activists in her time. Violent and non-violent, male and female, Kerlian and Xiomeran. Irene, however, was nothing like any of the others had been. She wasn't even anything like the Lauchenoirians Mariya had met during the war. Irene had crumpled like a piece of paper on the very first day. And she was clearly truly terrified of Mariya.

Both Kerlian and Xiomeran dissidents knew the risks, of course. And everyone who chose to take up arms in Lauchenoiria's civil war had made an active choice. Irene, though, was a Lauchenoirian activist who had never intended to leave Lauchenoiria. In their conversations, Mariya discovered that Irene had spent the civil war hiding in her parents basement, wanting to join the Resistance but never being quite brave enough to do so. Mariya believed that.

Mariya entered the girl's cell where she sat, her eyes red and swollen from crying. The girl would not stop crying. Mariya had thought she was on hunger strike for several days, before she realised from the girl's blog that she was merely the world's pickiest eater. Switching her food for the plainest fare they usually gave to uncooperative people had worked. All Irene's defiance had long deserted her.

Today, the girl was clutching a copy of Teachings of the Goddess by Eveline Hart, Councillor Natalia's mother. After Mariya got sick of the crying, she'd decided to distract the girl by giving her a pile of Xiomeran and Kerlian propaganda. At first it had merely been an experiment to see how she reacted, but the books seemed to distract her from her sorrow. The girl was hardly going to defect, but with her head clearer she'd remembered some more useful things.

"I see you finished The Merits of Meritocracy," Mariya greeted her captive, who jumped, dropping the book and curling in on herself in fear. "Personally I think it would have benefitted from more analysis of gender relations, but you'll have more of that in Musings on Matriarchy next."

"Are… are you just going to keep me here reading comparative propaganda?" Irene replied, her voice almost as soft as a whisper. She immediately shrunk back, fearing consequences for speaking.

"My orders are to keep you here until I am certain you know no more than you are telling me," Mariya replied. "And I was sick of your snivelling, so this serves to distract you."

"I promise I don't know anything else! I've told you everything, I swear!"

"I do hope so, Irene," Mariya said, gently taking Irene's hand and holding it in hers. "It would be such a shame if anything happened to these lovely fingers of yours."

Irene shrieked, tears of terror returning to her eyes. She did not, however, snatch her hand away. She had learned. If Mariya wished to hurt her, she would. If she resisted, Mariya would hurt her worse. One of the propaganda texts had described the punishment given to DKS members during the Kerlian Civil War. Irene did not want to experience that.

"Good, good, smart girl," Mariya said, tapping her prisoner's hand and then letting it go. She bent over to pick up the pile of paper she'd left the girl. It was to write down anything else she remembered in the night, initially, but Irene had taken to making notes about the propaganda, which Mariya allowed as she found it amusing.

More WOE Stuff I Remembered: said the title of the first page.
1. The guy who got kicked out the courtroom at Anna's trial was wearing a cross necklace so was probably Christian
2. The pizza delivery person the Buttercity office uses took payment both by card in advance and cash at the door so I think he was also selling drugs but I'm not sure
3. There's a group chat where people with gardens swap trees for some reason?? I don't know, I live in a flat

Yeah, this girl's already told me everything, Mariya thought, turning the page. The second page had a line drawn down the middle to create two columns, labelled Xiomera and Kerlile. In them, Irene had taken notes comparing the contents of the propaganda texts. There were a lot of notes. That would be good entertainment later.

"Thank you for being so open with me, Irene," Mariya said. “I’ll see you later.”

She swept out of the cell, leaving Irene, who was sobbing again, to scramble to pick up the propaganda book - anything to distract her from where she was.

[Xiomera]

Irene and Clay would not need to suffer much longer. Imperial Intelligence agreed with Mariya that there was no more useful information to be gained from either of them. If the Xiomeran regime had intended to hide how they obtained so much intelligence on WOE, the two activists would have never left Xiomera alive.

But Calhualyana wanted WOE to know exactly how far Xiomera had gone to fight them. She wanted them to know this very, very badly.

Xiomerans believe that one learns best through example. Clay and Irene would thus become the examples that would educate the rest of WOE what happens when you attack Xiomera.

---

In the early morning hours of April 19th, two nondescript vans would pull up to two nondescript locations and drop off their cargo. Two Lauchenoirians who would find themselves on their front steps, very confused and wondering exactly when they had left Xiomera and been brought home. The lesson was ready to be taught.

A parting gift in a classic Xiomeran fashion had been left on each of them. On the left shoulder was tattooed a Xiomeran flag. On the right, the words punished by the Empire were tattooed in Huenyan script. It was meant to be a permanent reminder to the two Lauchenoirians of what had happened, and the consequences of their actions. While it was highly unlikely that either of them would ever be able to forget their time visiting with Mariya, Xiomerans don't like leaving anything to chance.

[Lauchenoiria]

Irene’s flatmate Sofia found her on the doorstep shortly after. She’d been sick, and Sofia assumed she’d been out drinking.

“You vanish for two weeks and then come back like this!” Sofia laughed in mock outrage. “I assume you got arrested in the WOE raids and the lot of you went out drinking after you were released. Did you lose your keys?”

Irene turned to look at Sofia, barely hearing her. When Sofia saw the look on her flatmate’s face, she quickly stopped laughing. Irene looked not like she’d seen a ghost, but like she was one.

“Irene? Are you okay? What happened?” Sofia asked, suddenly concerned.

Irene burst into tears, inconsolable. Sofia helped her up and into their flat, making her a cup of tea and waiting for her to calm down enough to ask her what had happened.

“It wasn’t… it wasn’t the police,” she sobbed. “The… the… the Xiomerans, they…”

“Xiomerans?” Sofia responded as Irene collapsed into sobs once more. “What about the Xiomerans?”

Wordlessly, Irene showed her flatmate the tattoos. Sofia, who’d studied a little bit of Huenyan in an evening class for extra credit, gasped. “Oh my god, Irene! We… we have to call the police! Or, like, the army? Jesus…”

*

Clay, meanwhile, immediately went inside his own flat and picked up a smartphone from a pile of them by the door. Yes, he kept spares. He plugged it into a charger and as soon as it was turned on, he took pictures of himself, making sure the camera angle exaggerated any of the injuries Mariya had inflicted before the Empress stopped her. Once he’d taken his grisly photos, he uploaded them to seven different social media platforms.

“Hey everyone, I know I haven’t been online much recently and you are NOT going to believe why. I was KIDNAPPED BY XIOMERANS because I’m in WOE! They had their little Kerlian demon TORTURE ME. You can see the proof! Guys, if you’re in WOE you need to be super careful; the Xiomerans are out to get us, and Lauchenoiria is powerless against them! Nowhere is safe, nobody is safe!”

The post quickly went viral, especially with the accompanying pictures. It quickly came to the attention of the LDSS, who had been searching for Clay in their attempted clampdown on WOE. The nature of the allegations, and the pictures, meant it quickly rose through the ranks to land on the Prime Minister’s desk.

*

“Xiomera did what!?” Alvarez shouted. “Is this… is this real?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Jae Chung, who’d been dispatched to brief Alvarez, replied. “And it’s not only him. A call to a local police department in Buttercity was intercepted by the flatmate of a second Watchdog who alleged the same thing. Similar scars, same tattoos. We are extremely confident that this is no hoax.”

“Calhualyana thinks she can do whatever she wants!” Alvarez growled. “She sends her goons here to kidnap our citizens on our soil. I won’t stand for it! But, Jae, tell me honestly, are they Watchdogs or Warriors?”

“One of each,” Jae responded. “Clay was among the list of those we were searching for to question about Warriors; we assumed he was in hiding for the past fortnight. Apparently not. The other, a woman called Irene Ramos, seems to have no specific connection to Warriors beyond that of any Watchdog.”

“I want to see the girl,” Alvarez commanded. “If she has no connection to Warriors. Given the situation, I can’t be seen to meet with this Clay figure, but if the girl is non-violent, I want to hear her story directly. In the meantime, I am going to convene the cabinet to discuss our response to Xiomera. I will not stand for this,” she repeated, shaking her head. “I will NOT stand for this."

[Xiomera]

The Lauchenoirian government probably expected that Xiomera would deny the accusations that Clay and Irene were making. They would be surely surprised by the broadcast that interrupted normal Xiomeran broadcasting, followed by the announcements of that broadcast online.

Within an hour of Clay posting his pictures online, the image of Empress Calhualyana seated serenely in her office at the Palace of Flowers would appear on television as well as streaming online. "Good morning. I am making this address to the nation, and the world, to respond to recent allegations that Xiomera has 'kidnapped' certain individuals. I am prepared to confirm at this time that the Xiomeran Empire did detain two individuals associated with the terrorist group Warriors of Our Earth. This was in response to the recent bombing attack that destroyed several of our warplanes. We utilized intelligence gained from these individuals to thwart another planned terrorist attack against our military, this time against our Navy."

The Empress paused for dramatic effect, then continued. "On April 10th, three other terrorists associated with WOE attempted to destroy a Xiomeran warship near Manauia Island by placing an explosive device on it. One terrorist was eliminated and the other two are in custody. They will face charges of terrorism due to their actions."

Calhualyana's face took on a severe expression. "We expect that the Lauchenoirian government will make its usual protests and condemnations of our actions, We would like to pre-empt that whole process by pointing out the fact that none of this would be happening if the government of Prime Minister Alvarez had done something about this terrorist threat in Lauchenoiria's midst in the first place. Their inaction allowed WOE to grow into the danger it is today. Not just to Xiomera, but to all of us. I will be clear - Lauchenoiria needs to spend less time complaining and more time ensuring their homegrown terrorists do no further damage. Because if the Lauchenoirian state does not, other states surely will, just as we have."

The Empress glared from the screen. "I would also remind the Lauchenoirian government that attacking the ships and warplanes of another nation is considered an act of war, and Xiomera could very well have taken these attacks as such and responded accordingly. We are not convinced yet that Lauchenoirian intelligence is not somehow behind these attacks, or at the very least allowing them to happen. We are choosing to show restraint to attempt to avoid violence. Lauchenoiria must now do its part, and stop WOE before Xiomera has to retaliate further."

Calhualyana's face took on an expression of resolve. "I can assure my people that Xiomera, and this government, will do whatever it takes to protect you, and our nation. And we will never apologize for that. Thank you, and may the gods and goddesses continue to bless Xiomera."

[Lauchenoiria]

The Lauchenoirian Cabinet was in the middle of its meeting when Calhualyana’s broadcast took place. Jae Chung had burst into the meeting to show the video. The assorted government ministers had watched in silent horror. When it was over, there was a pause before Alvarez turned to Jae and simply asked, “is it true?”

“We believe WOE did indeed attempt to attack a Xiomeran ship. The part about Lauchenoirian intelligence being behind WOE’s actions is, of course, nonsense. They likely do have two Lauchenoirians in custody, aside from those we previously knew about. If they are charged with terrorism, there is a chance they will face execution.”

“You know, Jae, right now their fate is not the first thing on my mind,” Alvarez snapped harshly. “Did you hear her? If we don’t get a handle on this WOE business, we could very well be faced with a Xiomeran attack on Lauchenoiria.”

The mood in the room was already sombre, but with the statement put clearly, the mood shifted to one with a sprinkle of fear. Everyone in that room knew fine well that Lauchenoiria was no match for Xiomera militarily.

“What do we do about the kidnappings?” Adelita Cabello said reluctantly, after a prolonged silence. “Are we still going to make a statement?”

Alvarez groaned. “If we do, we are poking the bear. If we don’t, we look like we are granting Xiomera carte blanche to do as they like to our citizens. A no-win scenario, in other words. But the statement is not the most important thing here. We cannot allow any more WOE incidents. What we have been doing so far is not enough.”

“What are you suggesting, then?” Rodrigo Montaña, the Defence Secretary asked.

“We have been guessing who among the Watchdogs is most likely to also be a Warrior. Put simply, we do not know with enough certainty that we have them all. But what we do know about is the Watchdogs. Last week I rejected a suggestion to question each and every person on their list. It was overkill; and I am not Calhualyana,” she shook her head.

“But if we don’t act, Lauchenoirians may well find themselves answering to the actual Calhualyana,” Montaña filled in what hadn’t been said.

“Exactly,” Alvarez sighed. “Better they are questioned by us now, than at the hands of a Xiomeran invasion force. Chung, tell the FPIS and LDSS that they should implement the questioning of everyone on the Watchdogs list. Detain, question, and release them. I don’t want anyone who is not involved with Warriors held for longer than twelve hours max.”

She took a deep breath and continued. “Make it clear we are looking for Warriors: gain as much cooperation as possible; and anyone who is confirmed or suspected to be a Warrior after that should be detained. Also, put markers on the passports of everyone on the Watchdogs list. We can’t risk any Warriors getting out of the country. I don’t like this any more than you do, but we no longer have a choice.”

*

Later the same day, twenty-seven people at a protest outside a petrol station were detained and questioned by police on Butterfly Island. This led to a further fifty-two arrests of people in the same Watchdogs local group.

The office Savannah Martinez had left days before was raided; a handwritten sign-up sheet confiscated and the names cross-referenced with the electoral register and social security databases.

A fifteen-year-old girl about to go on a spring vacation with her parents was detained at Annatown International Airport after her passport was checked. She had joined the WOE mailing list as a dare.

Five men called John Smith who all lived in the same district of Carville were questioned by police who did not know which one of them joined Watchdogs of Our Earth in 2021. Four of them were very confused.

A Kerlian woman with PTSD attacked a police officer attempting to arrest a man volunteering at the Centre for Kerlian Refugees in Usera. In her head, she thought he was being taken to a labour camp.

And also in Usera, a familiar face who had attended one single WOE meeting in 2020, before Warriors had even formed as a distinct unit, was very surprised to find herself being arrested.

[Lauchenoiria]

Leonie Bennett was not happy. She attended one Watchdogs of Our Earth meeting, which had been a bit extreme and off-putting, three years ago. She hadn’t been to any of their events since, and if she was honest, the more she read about them, the more disdainful of them she had become. Oh, and after that meeting she’d been accosted in the street by a literal Kerlian spy, so it was hardly her favourite day of her life.

Yet now she was sitting in a jail cell for the apparent crime of being on their mailing list. At least when Kerlile detained her it had been because she was literally fighting against them in a war! True, the Kerlians had treated her far worse, but Leonie felt a righteous indignation at her current detention that she’d never felt in Kerlile. How dare her own government treat her like this!

“Leonie Bennett?” a voice asked through the door.

“What? You gonna make like a Kerlian and torture me now?” Leonie responded bitterly, without moving.

“You’re free to go.”

“Excellent,” Leonie said, standing up and folding her arms as they unlocked the door. “Perhaps next time you could, I dunno, not arrest everyone on a stupid mailing list? Xiomeran is not a good look on you.”

The police who’d arrested her did not respond, instead leading her out of the cells to return her belongings to her and let her out onto the street. She fastened her watch strap back on, and checked the time. Sometime after 3am. Great. She sighed and began to walk home. She did, however, check over her shoulder multiple times, and avoid dark streets. She’d seen the news about Irene and Clay, and she did not fancy an unplanned trip to Xiomera.

“What are you even doing, Alvarez?” she muttered to herself as she walked. “Do you really think this is gonna solve the problem? At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if WOE turned out to be Xiomeran plants in the first place to justify an invasion.” She grumbled more, not really believing her theories, but feeling hurt and disappointed in the actions of her own government. What was the point in fighting for democracy when everything just ended up like this regardless?

*

Irene Ramos sat silently as her parents haggled with a tattoo removal professional. At first, she hadn’t wanted to go, fearing that Xiomera would somehow come and punish her if she tried to remove their parting gift. Her parents had insisted, and Sofia had convinced her that if the Xiomerans wanted to leave a truly permanent message they could have done much worse. She threw up again at that point.

There was something about being free from a traumatic experience, and being allowed to process the emotions of such an experience, that made it feel almost worse. When she was still at Mariya’s mercy, she’d managed to hold it together at least a little bit. She’d been able to control her responses, preventing herself from pulling away and making things worse. But now she was back in Lauchenoiria, she’d lost what control she’d managed to keep, and would wake up at all hours of the night screaming uncontrollably. She couldn’t eat, she couldn’t be alone for five minutes and her panic attacks ran into each other, there was so little time between them.

She’d deleted everything about WOE from her devices when she got home. She unsubscribed from their lists, logged out of their accounts, deleted the passwords from her password manager. She permanently erased their documents, cancelled the payments to their cloud storage, deleted the photos from their protests. Then she went around her flat gathering everything that so much as mentioned them, took it all to her parents’ house, and threw it in their fireplace.

On her own social media accounts, she unfollowed them, deleted her posts about them… in fact, after realising how much time it would take, she deleted the accounts and made new ones. Everyone she’d met solely through WOE had their numbers blocked on her phone, their contacts deleted. She made new email accounts that they didn’t know. She cancelled the card for an account she’d once used to donate to them and ordered a new one. Irene Ramos erased WOE from her life. She only wished she could erase them from her memory.

*

Clay Moss, on the other hand, had embraced his role of the suffering martyr for the cause who’d faced the evil Kerlian demon and her boss, the terrifying Empress Calhualyana. He wore tops that showed off his scars as he made video after video about his ordeal for his online audience. It didn’t even occur to him to get the tattoos removed. Not yet, at least. First, he had to make sure everyone understood how much he’d suffered for the great cause of climate action!

The police had questioned him, of course. In fact, if the FPIS had been obeying their orders literally, they would have kept him in custody. But nobody wanted to be the person who locked up the guy who’d just escaped torture in Xiomera. So, Clay sat in his bedroom, making videos, the only known member of Warriors of Our Earth in Lauchenoiria who wasn’t sitting in a jail cell. He gathered a following online of the type of people who would stare at a car crash in the hopes of seeing something gory.

*

One of his followers was the Kerlian demon herself, Mariya Adema. She found it greatly amusing that he was publicising his ordeal so openly. Most of her prior subjects had remained silent about it forevermore. Well, that wasn’t strictly true – most of her prior subjects had ended up dead, or wishing they were. But the few who ended up free had usually disappeared into a hole of denial or severe PTSD. So, Clay amused Mariya greatly.

She hadn’t heard so much about Irene, so she’d gone looking in her downtime. She still had the passwords to many of Irene’s accounts, so she witnessed their domino-effect deletion, one after the other. She saw the email Irene sent to WOE telling them to never contact her again; threatening them, in fact. She saw the drafts of the blog post, never published, where Irene decried WOE for their failure to live up to their standards of looking after the wellbeing of their members.

Mariya smirked. Perhaps she hadn’t turned Irene to Xiomera (or Kerlile), but she’d certainly turned her away from WOE. She still had it; her ability to get inside a person, rip their world apart, and replace it with something of her own design. Speaking of, she had a standing appointment to get to with her favourite former subject. Yes, Mariya was very happy with how events had turned out.

[Lauchenoiria]

In a country that shall, for now, remain nameless…

Some in WOE did not get Calhualyana’s memo.

“We are the last ones left. All the others have either been arrested somewhere or other, or are in countries that are actively looking for them and preventing their escape. Now, I expect we’ll be hunted too soon, regardless of what we do. And so, I think it’s better if we went out with a bang,” began Calvin Goode, Chris’s brother and one of the most active organisers of Warriors of Our Earth. The group had no leadership, officially; but unofficially he was the closest thing they had. If anyone wished to claim the bounty from Lao Sansong, he would be the person to kill.

Goode unfurled a map in front of the gathered WOE members, the last remnants of a group that had been hunted nearly to extinction in the span of a single week. Lauchenoiria, Xiomera and Greater Acadia all had a number of their comrades in prisons, and soon they would have even more. This last group were gathered in a country that had not yet been given reason to hunt them, but they didn’t bet on that situation lasting.

The map produced a slight commotion, with the gathered eco-terrorists muttering together, some in appreciation and others apprehension. Goode surveyed them, watching to see who was keen and who might be better off staying away.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” asked Suzana Allegra, one of their newer recruits who Goode had never been quite sure of.

“They’re coming for us,” Goode replied. “All that’s left is for us to do something that gets the attention of the whole world. This will be our last act as Warriors. If you don’t like it, you can leave.”

The murmuring started up again, and a couple people, Suzana included, turned to head for the door.

“Wait!” Goode said sharply. “You can leave after the action. I’m not having you go off snitching to every intelligence service on the planet. You can wait here while we carry out the plan, and then you’re free to go.”

“Free to go?” Suzana scoffed. “You don’t own us, Calvin. You don’t get to choose where we go and when.”

“Maybe not, but I simply can’t allow you to go right now,” he shrugged and then made a gesture. A couple of the other guys, people he trusted, stepped forward to grab the three intending to leave. They yelled and struggled, one of them managing to stab their would-be captor with a pencil. But before the pencil-stabber could escape, he was grabbed by two more of Calvin Goode’s loyal terrorists.

“Let us go, now, Calvin,” Suzana said, glaring at him.

“I can’t do that,” he said, shaking his head. “Lock them in the basement, someone will find them once we’re long gone. Eventually.”

“Are you mad? You can’t do this!” Suzana yelled as she was dragged away. “What is wrong with you!? Are the rest of you gonna just let him do this!?”

The rest of the gathered group made no move to help. Some of them wanted to, but none of them intended to cross Goode when he was like this. Suzana and the other two continued to struggle to get free, shouting as they were dragged away. Goode turned back to the group.

“If anyone else wishes to join them, just say.”

Nobody spoke. Later, many would wish they had.

“Good, then the rest of you will be assigned jobs. When it’s over, you can run if you want or wait for them to come, up to you. They might shoot at the runners though, so choose wisely if you’d rather die or be captured. I, for one, intend to live, but more martyrs are always good.”

Several people in the room regretted their life choices. Too late now. Calvin did not intend to allow anyone to change their minds. And so, planning for WOE’s last attack began.