Monday peered above the top of his book, mildly preturbed by the the harshness of the tone. A trio of jackbooted thugs in their red and black uniforms towered confidently over his park bench, casting short shadows in the morning sun.
"Your papers. Now. Before I make you eat your book and arrest you for resisting arrest," spat the one with the largest hat. The pins on his lapels said sergeant, and his voice did nothing to hide naked disdain for anyone not in his uniform.
Monday feigned a blank look as he reached into his coat pocket - his fingers briefly deliberating between the papers of Victor Mansen, 35 year old gardener with a Doctorate in Petunia cultivation, and Kristoff Steubenson, 33 year old specialist codebreaker and Captain in the Intelligence Service.
"O-one moment officer," Monday stammered, pulling out a leather bound booklet. "Here it is - I h-hope this is satisfactory."
The patrolman reached with a gloved hand and snatched the Ident-Card packet, jabbing it into his obviously long abused datapad.
"Good. Now you will explain why you've been sitting across the embassy for -"
The reader beeped, the self-satisfied smirk drained from the officer's face. He stood up straight and saluted.
"My apologies, Captain S-Steubenson, s-sir." The patrolman stammered urgently.
The other seated patrons of the cafe began to stare - a patrolman adopting such a tone of voice was both most unusual and intriguing.
"Are you m-mocking my s-stammer, Sergeant?" Monday could barely contain his amusement. Captain Steubenson was a risky choice, but it was infintely more entertaining.
The two patrolmen to the sides looked at once mortified and amused at the Sergeant's gross misfortune. The Sergeant shuffled nervously, contemplating what he could possibly say to avoid digging himself further into a hole.
Monday decided to be merciful, waving his hand in a half salute and half dismissal.
The Sergent looked dumbfounded, but relieved at his reprieve. He was quick to shuffle off with his two compatriots, trailing nothing but apologetic gibberish. Monday returned to his book.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
As the last rays of the evening crested over the building behind him, Monday closed his book with a soft thud.
"That was phenomenally stupid," said a raspy voice behind him.
"It worked, didn't it?" Monday continued to look forward, away from the voice. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his Ident-Card packet, holding it up for a glove to gingerly grab.
"There should be foot patrol schedules, passphrases, and outer gate codes in there, straight from a security datapad."
"Where did you even get an Intelligence Service tag?"
"i'll tell you back at the ship, once the others take care of the rest of the job.."
"But why did it have to be this zoner junk?" Ingrid furrowed her brow, her temper flaring at Monday's obvious giddiness.
"We had a strict budget, and we had a Condor chassis handy. With the civil war on-"
"Don't give me that again. I can tell you don't even care enough to lie to me - just admit that you like how it looks."
"And I liked how it looked."
"Captain! I've decrypted the package we picked up." Max kindly broke the heavy atmosphere with his youthful enthusiasm. He gave a habitual salute with one hand as he presented a tablet with the other.
"Ingrid, please take us out of Pecos orbit - but don't burn for Barrier Gate yet. Max, I need you to update our vessel registry and change our colors." Monday took the tablet and tucked it under his arm.
"Do you have a new designation in mind, Captain?" Max piped in quizzically. Monday had hoped Max would take the initiative to find one on his own - but he was much too green to have broken out of his rigid training.
"Something generic and unmemorable. Something just pretentious enough to show we're learned, but not so much to be suspicious."
"What about Wotan?" blurted Max, with his characteristic enthusiasm.
"That's a bit too obvious, we want to try to pass for non-Rheinlanders."
"Seinfeld - the old earth philosopher!" Ingrid volunteered.
"What? No."
"Sophocles - he's an ancient greek playwright," said a quiet voice from behind. It was rare for Constance to weigh in on topics outside of tactical systems.
"I don't think a tragic playwright bodes well for our mission."
Smoke billowed from all corners of the room, mingling into a thick, acrid, eyewatering soup of bad odors and a certain hazy ambiance that caught rays of the dim lighting.
"Do you have the time, barkeep?"
The bartender's piercing glares had become progressively hostile with every Shirley Temple Monday ordered. The stuff was insidously sweet, an assault of artificial cherry and sugar that left him thirstier for water with every sip. It had to have been a sadist to make it the code phrase for Monday's 18:00 appointment.
"'alf pass six," he said, washing a dirty tumbler with his even dirtier apron. Monday boredly slurped the last of his sixth glass, the grating sound piercing the low din of slow conversations and clinking glasses elsewhere.
The bartender put set aside his dirty tumbler and rested his massive arms on the bar.
"You gonna order real drink, or you gonna waste my time with cheap child beverage?"
Monday was starting to feel a bit queasy, possibly from the six sugary sodas with added grenadine sloshing around. The bartender maintained ominous eye contact, with uncomfortable amounts of throbbing at his vein-y temples.
"I'd like another Shirley Temple," Monday began, hesitantly, tracking the further deterioration of the barkeep's mood by the increasing frequency and amplitude of his facial twitches, "but with a shot of vodka this time, if you please."
"You drink entire stock of grenadine," the barkeep said through gritted teeth, "I make you black hole."
"I don't know what that is," Monday cringed.
The bartender started mixing the contents of various bottles. Moments later, he set down a glass of jet black sludge smelling of cheap alcohol and licorice.
"Doesn't matter. You drink black hole, or I give you black eye. Your choice."
Making a judgement call, Monday passed him twenty credits and a generous tip, before staring down into the viscous void. The stench of licorice hung stickily in an invisible cloud around the glass.
"That's not a Shirley Temple," said a well dressed stranger, slipping into the seat next to mine. He slammed down a fifty credit chit on the bar.
"Two shots of mezcal for myself and my friend here, please. Keep the tip."
"You again. Why can't you ever be on time?"
"I would have, if you could follow directions and not bungle up a simple drink order. What even is that?"
"It tastes like the floor of a synthpaste processing plant. More to the point, you're an hour and seven minutes late."
"I was held up at the terminal, the Libs and Brets have stepped up their snooping on databursts to Barrier Gate. Put your right hand palm side down on the bar."
Monday annoyedly plopped his hand on the bar, as the other man sprayed it with something from a bottle he pulled out of nowhere. Before Monday could open his mouth to ask what was going on, the man savagely stabbed a large needle in between the knuckles and then quickly pulled away.
"Ow what the f-"
"Quiet down and stop drawing attention to us," he said, spraying Monday's hand again. The injection site burned, but there was no sign of blood - only a small bump in between the knuckles.
"It's a biometric RF ident-key you'll need for your next assignment. Use it to unlock these sealed orders in your ship."
He slid an odd looking paper drink coaster to Monday.
The barkeep turned around with two shotglasses of what was decidedly not mezcal, and scowled when Monday quickly slipped the coaster into his pocket.
Monday rubbed the injection site gingerly as he stood up.
"Thanks for the offer, but I'm full and I need to take a piss. Watch my jacket for me."
The handler shrugged and downed both glasses before turning to finish the Black Hole that Monday had left behind.
"That's absolutely vile," he winced.
Monday smirked and continued out the door, barely catching the handler order his next drink,
"I'd like to order a Shirley Temple, please."
He could hear the sound of glass shattering from outside.
SEALED ORDERS 8271101 Wrote:ID: BIOMETRIC TAG RECOGNIZED KEY: MAGPIE
You have done well to establish a presence on Barrier Gate in Coronado. You will need to continue your extracurricular activities to build your reputation and to fund your operations.
The appropriations committee has allocated a single lump-sum equivalent of 50,000,000 Rhein Thalers in Maltesian Lira to facilitate your efforts to establish a sustainable revenue stream - but beyond this, any substantial logistical support will be limited to HRIMFAXI.
The last verifiable intelligence briefing we received in the area has detailed a power keg of political tension within the region. We need you to maintain observation of the situation so as to ensure our knowledge of the situation. You will also need to put down roots with some of the adjacent organizations so that we can rapidly re-facilitate relations once the war is over, or if we need to enact Fall Gelb.
Your current general orders are as follows:
1. Maintain a self-sustainable cover;
2. Gather intelligence on the surrounding region and report back;
3. Create and maintain working relationships with the underworld elements in the region;
4. Maintain lines of communication to await further instructions;
If you are able, we would like for you to accomplish the following:
A. Locate and secure operatives CROW and RAVEN - they were dispatched to your operational region before the outbreak of the war, but have fallen out of contact;
B. Establish safe houses in Cortez, and Inverness for future operations;
C. Establish a safe escape vector for Fall Gelb;
Even for a Monday night, Mimi's Diner at Barrier Gater was quite deserted. The low din of scattered clinking, hushed whispers, and the cloud of miscellaneous smokes set a cozy, foggy scene that not even the Bartender's disgusted glares could pierce. Monday stared into the bubbly swirling of his third Shirley Temple - it wasn't code for a rendezvous, the cloyingly sweet soft-drink started to grow on him.
The war on the home front was over, if the news was to be trusted. The silence from HQ told a slightly different story. No recall orders had come yet, meaning that the contingency protocol was still in place. Or, perhaps something had gone terribly wrong.
Hrimfaxi made regular cargo drops weekly at Barrier Gate on her way to Sabah Shipyard for months, until last week.
Punctuality was almost a universal constant with the Hrimfaxi and Kapitan Evening. Evening was a curious man - always rather anxious about meeting delivery schedules. In over two decades of service, Evening had no record of any missed appointments or schedules. Not even so much as a sick day or vacation. That is, other than a medical stint with a combat wound induced leg amputation - though somehow, he managed to fit the entire process of surgery, recovery, and prosthesis rehabilitation within the Federally mandated two weeks of restructuring following immediately after the war with Liberty. Piracy was not likely at all, either. Hrimfaxi logged more confirmed kills under Evening's zero negotiations policy than the rest of the entire logistical wing combined, and even more than some of the Ukorps boats. There had been no news on the net concerning the discovery of a wrecked Uruz chassis surrounded by mounds of pirate corpses and debris - so the Hrimfaxi is unlikely to have been intercepted.
The harsh cacophony of a straw slurping through a now empty glass pierced the haze of the bar - several eyes turned to Monday with more than a little ill intent, while the bartender's laser gaze narrowed into Monday's soul.
"Barkeep, I'll have another Shirley - with a cherry this time, if you don't mind"
The Barkeep's snarl was a futile effort to mask some fraction of naked disgust. He growled with some semblance of an attempt of restraint.
"Bozhe moi enough of child drink. Every day with this nonsense. This is not McRonalds chain, I do not serve little shit libertonian burgers and soft drinks to little fat libertonian children."
Veins at the side of his sweaty temples pulsed with each word he spat out.
Eyes continued to watch the debacle unfold, their gaze grew more uncomfortable by the second.
"Err... I'll have a black hole then."
It'd been about six months since Monday had last visited Mimi's Diner at Barrier Gate - but he was comforted by how little anything had changed since then - or since had been assigned there almost a decade ago. The same bartender served at the same bar to the same five or six regulars that sat at their same places. It was always a slow thursday evening at Mimi's Diner.
"We have case of grenadine arrive from Los Angeles," snapped the barkeep, in a thick coalition-ish accent. His voice cut over the ambiant noise of idle chatter and the clinking of glasses - there was substantially less hostility in the harshness of his tone now, perhaps from the years of patronage.
"I'll have my usual, then." Monday sat down at his usual second to last seat at the end of the bar - sliding a ledger diskette from his coat pocket onto the counter for the barkeep.
The room quieted - as the regulars stood up and scattered to close down the Diner in practiced unison.
The barkeep bowed his head and closed his eyes for a moment, raising his head once more but with a cold composure. The Bartender placed the palm of his hand over the diskette, as his left eye darted widly in its socket for several moments.
"I've transferred the bounty funds from Auxesia and the Molly bounty board to the cleaners for our operational funds. Do you have anything else to report?"
Monday failed to hide his rather visceral discomfort for but a few fractions of a moment. "We've seen increased Liberty patrols around the border worlds, corroborating the rumors that we may be seeing an incursion into Inverness soon enough - the Auxesians have increased patrols and locked the system down. Per our standing orders regarding assisting with the independence of Inverness and Coronado, I've begun earning their trust as an independent operator."
The Bartender narrowed his gaze on Monday's face.
"Herr Siegfried has returned to resume his duties as Flotillenadmiral and made a site visit while you were in Dublin. He was quite satisfied with your current progress. The briefing he provided indicates that relations with the Auxesians and the Buro have soured, of late - but that your standing orders remain unchanged. He's also brought you some new equipment to supplement your current kit - STALACTITE and VOIDBLAST turrets which should prove useful enough to assist your work while providing a flashy and more importantly non Rheinlandic ship profile that will help you build reputation."
The beginnings of a grin briefly cracked on Monday's face. The Old Man's return boded well for Monday's operations - it was the Old Man that was the architect for his extended missions out here in the first place.
"Regarding my work in Dublin, I believe that working with the Mollys and Auxesia will be effective in proving our usefulness to the regional underworld. We just repelled a major Bretonian offensive but they'll likely start again soon."
"Coincidentally, Herr Siegfried has an interest in supporting the Provisional Republic as well. The Extended Logistics wing has been shipping defensive materials to the Republic for a few weeks now. He'd like for you to temporarily assist them in defending Dublin - though, you are to avoid firing upon Rheinland vessels where at all possible unless fired upon first."
Monday stood from his seat and started towards the door.
"In that case, I will return to Dublin as soon as we're cleared. The hole in the Bretonian blockade will probably not last much longer."
The engineering bay of the Aristophanes was a jungle of thick cables between large boxes, criss crossing haphazardly over what used to be walkways and crawlspaces, paper notes taped seemingly at random to surfaces, and a colorful decopauge of every kind of Synthcrunch ™ Meal bars stuck on what used to be a tidy floor.
Monday tread warily with the knowledge that an errant step could as easily end with unplugging a critical system resulting in a regrettably premature death by radiation exposure from destabilized containment fields, as having a half-eaten Synthbar stuck to the treads of his boots - to be tracked about the ship should he be unaware. The byzantine layout of equipment and systems clearly not designed with a small civilian gunboat chassis in mind simultaneously amazed and troubled him. One errant burst could potentially trigger some explosive chain reaction, or worse, kill the one person in the entire universe that could put the ship back together.
"Constance, are you in here?" Monday yelled, trying to be heard over the deafening grey noise of a symphony of coil whine, steam venting, and hydraulics whirring.
"Mimi's Diner gave us some additional equipment that needs fitting - and the rest of us refuse to loosen even a single screw until you've had a look"
A crawlspace behind what looked like the main bandpass filter array for the ship scanner transciever rattled - a bag of tools floated out of the manifold, drifting slowly until the magnetic feet locked on to an access panel of the main reactor subcontrol. Constance followed through, her face covered in some sort of carbonized soot, and a half-eaten Synthcrunch bar in hand. Her small figure made the claustrophobic crawlspace look almost spacious - as she floated gracefully out.
"Ingrid also requested that I tell you to be more careful with your wrappers - enough of them are sticky enough that they don't come off during our daily airblast cleaning, and one detached during a coolant test and got stuck in a processor heat sink." Trying not to come across as nagging, Monday could see Constance deliberately going for another bite.
"I know we've had to eat way more paste than we would like - but junkfood is a privilege that I will have to rethink if this becomes a problem."
Constance's eyes widened. She popped the rest of the bar into her mouth and stuck the wrapper into her pocket - nodding reasurringly as if to say that her newfound addiction would not in fact become a problem. She swallowed for a moment, and bowed her head apologetically.
"I will be more considerate in the future."
Monday was taken aback by Constance's uncharacteristic verbosity - he expected a insincere perfunctory apology of maybe one to three words.
"The matter is resolved then - let's install the new equipment." He handed her a pad containing a manifest of gear.
Constance shook her head repeatedly as she looked it over - it didn't seem promising.
"I can't."
"Why not? Is it a question of power capacity? Cargo space? Control CPU utilization?"
She mulled it over for a few long minutes before settling on an answer.
"Floor space. I'd have to remanage the cables."
Monday blinked. The job would be a huge hassle, though possible. The stick rarely worked on Constance, which left only the carrot.
"If you can have this done before we reach Dublin, I will personally take you and the rest of the crew on shore leave in New London, and you can pick a weeks supply of snacks for yourself."
It was raining again on New London. It was always raining.
Monday sat up from his cafe table and stretched his legs, looking up from his book - droplets fell like heavy tears from the dreary sky, splattering on an invisible border like waves against a rocky shore. The projected canopy above him blocked the water, but allowed the fresh breeze to carry in the scent of damp soil. The staccato of the percussive rain, the dull chatter of small talk, and the intermittent clinks of teacups on saucers weighed heavily on his leadened eyelids. In an almost futile gesture, Monday took a sip of a earl grey. Even tepid, the tea was fragrant and refreshing - a vast improvement over the standard stimulant infused acrid ersatz-coffee rations that Monday had grown accustomed to during his long service.
Monday could not help but overhear a spirited debate between two women at a table behind him.
"- but that's the allegory," said a smooth yet almost gratingly soprano voice. "The 6th century pessimists tended to fixate on the concept of anacyclosis with regards to the third century crisis of Bretonian succession-"
"That's insane," said the other voice, more tenor than the first. "It's a show about anthropomorphic magical camels."
"It's all metaphor..." Monday could only make out snippets of the high pitched exasperated explanation, "... when they have an issue with the Prince losing his mane brush to his jealous rivals-"
"Yes, they resolve it through the power of friendship. Because it is a show for children."
Monday snapped back to focus, as a waiter approached him, tray in hand.
"Excuse me sir, I apologize for the wait - your scone is ready." The waiter set a rectangular piece of shortbread next to the teacup, and walked away.
There was no jam or butter, so Monday could do nothing but take a bite plain. It was dry and quite tasteless. Not unlike drywall.
Wetting his parched mouth with an additional sip of tea, he reluctantly took another bite - and gratefully sighed when he could feel a small capsule inside. He used his tongue to move it to the inside of his cheek - and set the rest of the pastry down. With another sip, he stood up to leave.
Perhaps there would be better snacks back on the ship.
![[Image: mxJllY7.png]](http://i.imgur.com/mxJllY7.png)