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LBQ2-5

Left Beyond Quest II - Thread 5 (The Other One Broke)

Discussing his difficulties with his radiation study, Dr. Robertson says that it's going to be a tiny bit hard to find volunteers to be irradiated, especially after the Event allegedly caused complete disintegration, but agrees that at this point he's willing to look into absolutely everything.

"Truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them. Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so."

The Foreman asks what he thought of Tsion, so Dr. Robertson regales him with another Galileo quote, just because he can.

“I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him.” He does add, though, that perhaps the theologian-turned-evangelist had a point about paradigm shifts.

"I hate to put it so crassly, but if you want me to get to the bottom of this, I'm going to need minds, equipment, and time. I can get by with two out of three, if I have a lot of the two."

"We'll do what we can, Dr. Robertson. You understand that this is a politically sensitive topic, we have to move cautiously."

"That it is. I'm glad that neutrino research is not something that most laymen follow—a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Did you hear about people at CERN protesting about the possibility of a resonance cascade? There isn't even such a thing in the first place!"

One thing that Dr. Robertson reassures the Foreman about is that the anomaly seems limited to gamma and cosmic radiation, ironically excluding neutrinos themselves. "It's almost as if something's sitting on us and gobbling the small wavelengths up. Good thing it didn't happen a hundred years ago, or we'd never have discovered quantum mechanics."

Zakharov, at least, was kind enough to provide Robertson with samples from Pripyat a few months ago; the readings were roughly halfway between the "new normal" and the "old normal."

Returning to the spectacle the Foreman wants to make of the increased pylon production, he once more taps Ryan Andrews to be the master of ceremonies for this. At this point, he has a bigger public profile than the Foreman does when it comes to telecommunications work, which overall suits the Foreman fine, since any lightning is likely to hit him first. To show off the capabilities of the global Internet, reaching from the Arctic to the deepest jungles, he produces a simple demo: a cell phone operating a little robot, controlled by someone in Italy and moving about in an Australian living room.

The Foreman hasn't seen this kind of cell phone before—instead of a keypad, it has a little trackball on the bottom, to move a cursor. The unit has a fold-open keyboard, essentially turning into a miniature laptop computer, and runs on a variant of the Linux operating system. Private industry is adapting very quickly the infrastructure the Foreman is making available. The demo is underwhelming, but the fact that it was all done with consumer-grade equipment is indicative of how far they’ve come.

Later, the Foreman takes the time to formally meet with Terry April, the subpotentate of the United Great Britian States (OOC note: Apparently Britian is a word in this universe).

April is dimly aware of the Foreman’s admittedly minor role in helping wind down the Troubles; he hasn’t done much work over there, so the meetings are largely ceremonial. The British royal family is still nominally on the throne (much like US President Hugh Fitzgerald is still sitting in a slowly emptying White House as the federal government devolves its responsibilities to Subpotentate Dimmsdale, as cabinet position appointments expire and aren't renewed) and he gets to attend the knighting ceremony of author Terry Pratchett.

It is generally thought that Queen Elizabeth will be the last British monarch, so she's stepped up her schedule when it comes to conferring peerages and the like; the 50-year-old author is knighted alongside industry luminaries such as Richard Branson and indicates that he did not expect the honor. At a brief interview afterwards, he speaks of the challenge of writing children's literature during the Rapture gap ("I'm wealthy enough to focus on writing for future generations and not have to chase today's market"), his opinion on why he got a knighthood and J. K. Rowling did not, despite the latter's indisputably greater success ("She says she didn't think she was writing a fantasy novel. I would have thought that the wizards, witches, trolls, unicorns, hidden worlds . . . would have given her a clue?"), and his plans for the future ("The power of story is perhaps more important today than ever. I'm going to take a short break from writing . . . but it's only because, now that I am a knight, I am going to forge a sword! Can't carry it around though; that would be knife crime").

The assimilation of Iceland into what's left of the British Commonwealth has happened with relatively little drama: Carpatescu's Global Community has removed most barriers to trade anyway, and Subpotentate April is the first to admit that the northern island is a lot easier to govern than Britain proper.

The Foreman does not get to meet the Queen, alas, although she has a handsome letter of thanks sent to him for his efforts.

Moira is assigned to assist with another mission in Africa. This operation sees the first use of the Garibaldi. The carrier (which, for some reason, ended up getting nose art of a Capybara) is docked in a Lybian port, ostensibly to complete her refit after her partial demolition, and Moira's team drives out in the APCs, escorting a number of hastily up-armored school buses that happen to work on the same grade of diesel fuel. Since they only have small arms, the plan is to use the APCs to distract the attacking force while the buses evacuate most or all of the villagers.

Rehoboth's irregulars are clearly the worst elements of the Peacekeeper force, likely hand-picked for a lack of scruples and wearing white bands with a stylized hawk in place of the United Nation's blue band on standard-issue Peacekeeper body armor; they barely even bothered to swap the uniforms out.

Their attack forces consist mostly of technicals, pickup trucks mounting heavy machine guns or rocket launchers on the bed; the Foreman’s APCs are better armored but carry no weapons other than what his infantry can fire from the armored vehicles' gun ports. His team's ability to improvise has paid off: one of the APCs is mounting one of the Garibaldi's SCLAR launchers, loaded with as many flares as could be found on the decommissioned carrier.

This is happening during his European visit; he manages to feign calm after being walked through the diplomatic paces, knowing that his men and women are facing something like an opposing army just two hours' flight away. The Nomenklator team helps him avoid committing a faux pas.

His intel indicates that Rebohoth's goons were planning to "pillage, THEN burn," as Moira put it once. It seems that there's been a change of plans: along with the technicals is what looks like a TIR truck on which a 57mm artillery piece has been installed. Instead of driving in, the enemy forces park around the improvised artillery and start shelling the village.

That was not supposed to happen.

Bravely, the bus drivers move forward anyway, while the APC carrying the flare launcher is driven on the dune between the village and the attackers and fires half its ordnance at a high arc towards the improvised, self-propelled gun; hopefully they will think that they are being fired upon by something with equal force, or that they have been targeted by an air strike.

The ruse is unsuccessful: the flare launchers are designed to drive heat-seeking missiles away, not hit a target with precision. Since the attackers are all clustered together, they're not using phones or radios, just yelling at each other. The Foreman has no SIGINT on what they are saying, but can see that they admire the brief daytime firework display then resume firing.

Three technicals are dispatched to go after the APC; the second APC charges in from behind the dune to offer fire support, but after a brief firefight that’s reminiscent of an Age of Sail ship battle that's been sped up and recolored, it becomes apparent to the attackers that the security team has no heavy weapons.

The artillery piece is quickly turned around to aim at the APCs, who have to dodge heavy machine gun and RPG fire from the technicals; fortunately, it wasn't intended to fire at a moving target.

Modern armor is resistant to anti-materiel projectile and Cold War-era rocket propeller grenades, but not invulnerable to it. The evacuation is proceeding well, thanks to the fact that the enemies' only long-range gun is busy, but after half an hour of feinting and exchanging fire—and a few casualties on the enemies' side, largely thanks to lucky shots from the gunners inside the APCs and the fact that the gunners on the Toyota truck have no armor protecting them beyond flak vests—one of the Foreman’s two APCs is hit in a wheel well by a rocket propeller grenade and disabled. Moira is not in it; her skillset is better suited to driving the evacuation buses across the tolle ondulee.

They’ve managed to get most everyone out: the Garibaldi's cargo hold is now full of refugees, most of whom are unharmed or have only sustained a few bruises. Some of the young men of the village are prepared to make the enemy fight house by house, and the Foreman’s other APC is intact, although it had to retreat into the village. Rehoboth's forces have resumed shelling the village; the damaged APC has been surrounded, but after two point-blank RPG shots fail to do more than scratch the armor, it becomes obvious to the attackers that all they can do is further damage the wheels. It's winter, so the stranded squad can withstand a siege until they run out of water.

The Foreman opts to have the remaining members of the squad drive by, drop off a satellite radio with a signal flag, and try to negotiate.

His remaining APC takes a few shots, but they'll buff right out. After a sensible amount of poking and prodding to make sure it's not a bomb, Rehoboth's goons pick up the satellite phone. The Foreman is treated to a low-framerate rendition of someone who could be a former male model, identifying himself as General Hassan.

He demands that the Foreman’s "terrorists" stand down, but does not identify himself as a Peacekeeper. He seems to have made peace with the notion that most of the villagers have been evacuated; his main demand is that the team and the remaining fighters surrender, leave their weapons where they stand, leave the keys for the APCs in the ignition (key blocks have been added by mechanics right after the Foreman got the vehicles—either Hassan knows this, or he's ignorant of the fact that most military vehicles don't have ignition keys), and walk away. "I will be generous—keep any water you have with you, head north back to civilization, and never return."

The Foreman instead chooses to try buying time, see if we can get into a better bargaining position.

"General Hassan, you are generous in your offer. I would assume your mandate is to maintain the peace on behalf of the subpotentate and our mutual boss, Carpatescu. Perhaps we could come to an arrangement that could be mutually beneficial to both our mandates?"

"I just told you it. Tell your boys to stand down and walk it off before I decide they should limp it off."

Moira notes that if Hassan is smart, he'll drain the downed APC's gas tank, then dig a hole and light a fire under it. This isn't just an armored car, it's got fancy NBC filters, but heat will smoke anyone out regardless. If he doesn't, the Foreman has about a day and a half to solve this crisis; if he does, there are hours at best.

Moira looks at the GPS coordinates; looks like Hassan is in one of the technicals, not in the artillery truck. The bad thing is that the 57mm gun is back mounted, so any sort of chase would pit the APC against the only vehicle that can hurt it reliably. The good thing is that a Centauro can bulldoze through a Toyota pickup truck without slowing down and slam into the artillery truck sustaining only minor damage. Of course, she volunteers for the mission.

"I drive one of the buses back there after welding some plates on one side, the village boys use it to provide covering fire, and then let's play demolition derby!"

After a bit of conversation, it has become obvious that Hassan doesn't know who he is dealing with; his assumption is that it's a different (former) warlord.

The team agrees to let Moira follow through on her plan of attack with a 60-minute timeline, enough time for her to get there with a bit of extra prep.

At the Foreman’s command, Moira starts shouting at the Garibaldi's crew to get out their tools, remove the seats from one of the buses, and weld on an additional set of tires on each axle to improve off-road movement.

Her plan is simple: take the lightened bus into the village, quickly get everyone else aboard it, then have it fire pot shots at the enemy before leading as many technicals as possible into a chase, using the widened tires to beat any pursuers in off-road mobility. From there, she's going to take the good APC and ram first the artillery truck then whatever technical Hassan is sitting in.

The only part of the plan the Foreman isn’t sure about is the spar torpedo which she has built out of a bunch of propane tanks—it will undoubtedly damage the APC, but it will guarantee a mobility kill on whatever she hits first, unless they manage to shoot at it.

The Foreman’s job is now to stall for time by offering communication equipment which will be delivered by bus. He emphasizes its many uses in coordinating troops while also suggesting that even if Hassan doesn't see the practical use, he can probably fetch a good price for it.

"Interesting. I understand that Carpatescu's head geek has a grudge with Elder Rebohoth, so we're under some sort of embargo. That sounds like it'd fetch a pretty penny."

While the bus is prepped, the team gets a bunch of radios and phones and strips one of the Garibaldi's comm arrays to put in the bus. It's the equivalent of trying to pass a box full of pinball parts for a nuclear bomb, but it should work.

On top of that, the Foreman tells Moira to take an additional 10 minutes to rig one of the boxes with a stick of dynamite. Why she’d bring dynamite in the first place is something that will need to be answered later, but being as the Foreman’s men only have automatic rifles and DMRs, it's the closest thing they can do to a grenade trap.

The Foreman orders that the horn be handed off to one of his sysadmins who happens to speak Arabic, and he starts reading specs for the current generation of consumer phones to Hassan until he's told to shut up. This still buys a few minutes. In the background, Hassan pretends to nod knowledgeably in the sight of his underlings.

"Very well, we are preparing the shipment."

Hassan barks something to a subordinate, which the Nomenklator team helpfully translates as "Stand down and stop banging on the APC! They're surrendering. Don't give any explanation."

The Foreman directs one of his technicians to tell Hassan what he will be getting, with instructions to be verbose but let the man ask technical questions and talk in case he reveals any other precious bits of information.

They don't get much from that, unfortunately, aside from the fact that Hassan was ordered to raze the village, which they already knew, and that Rebohoth has kept a small cache of military weapons as insurance. The Foreman figures that so has Santiago, for sure, and likely so have the other subpotentates.

Moira gets to the village in a very visible way, driving the bus slowly as if it had taken some hits. She quickly debarks, lets the village volunteers and the rest of the security squad get on, and takes on one volunteer to operate the APC's radio, cameras, and spar torpedo.

One technical has been lightened of its heavy machine gun in order to take the cargo; Hassan's men seem to have relaxed to a degree, although most are still clutching their rifles.

The bus has just unloaded its supposedly precious cargo in front of the pickup truck, where a last-minute negotiation goes on.

"You unloaded; you load."

"No, we unloaded; you load."

It takes Hassan shouting at his men to just make it quick to solve the matter; meekly, the stranded half of the Foreman’s security team hand over their guns to Hassan's men, exit the damaged APC, and board the bus, which starts puttering off. Moira drives the good APC behind one of the village houses so that its camera gives a decent view.

The only vehicle big enough to tow the APC is the artillery truck, so its cannon is lifted and tow straps and chains are attached to the rear differential—the APC can move on seven wheels as long as it sticks to what passes for a road and some weight is put on the opposite corner.

Then, the bus suddenly leaves the road north and veers left.

"Fág an Bealach!" Moira shouts, and charges the Centauro APC forward; she's affixed a crude spar torpedo to the front of it.

That would probably have worked, if it wasn't for another lucky shot on the side of Hassan's men; when it became clear that the APC was going for a ram on Hassan's truck, people instinctively emptied their magazines at it. One lucky shot blew out the propane tank.

Wanting to get a diversion, Moira chooses that moment to blow up the dynamite stick hidden in the electronics; the blow takes out the pickup truck and the two people loading it.

The Foreman does get to save one video frame of Hassan making a fish face after realizing it's a trap, before he drops the satellite radio, so there's that.

Moira goes after Hassan's technical, since the artillery truck is currently unable to fire; unfortunately, Hassan is smart enough to tell the driver to stay on the road or on hard terrain, where the technical is able to go as fast as the Centauro. The gunner in the back sprays the APC with 50 caliber machine gun bullets, pockmarking the armor and making it impossible for Moira's gunner to return fire.

The Foreman directs the people in the bus to go straight for the artillery truck while it's unable to fire.

While Moira chases Hassan up the road, the Foreman’s men slam the bus into the back of the artillery truck, crumpling the two vehicles together into a mess that will take a half day and a third tow truck to sort out.

Then, they pour out of the bus, a few appearing to fire wildly as they suppress enemy reaction, a few taking aimed shots.

The Foreman’s people have superior training, but Hassan's men have the advantage of heavy weapons: they scramble for the back of their pickup trucks and start using the belt-fed machine guns, making holes in the bus and even their own artillery truck, which the Foreman’s soldiers are using for cover. His side is taking some casualties; Hassan's men are enraged at the betrayal and keep shooting those who fall.

Things really went south quickly; the other other squad is following the reports with apprehension—they can do security and infiltration, but if they are to go against paramilitary forces, they'd need ether better weapons, or air support!

The Foreman opts to recall Moira so that she can ram the APC into the technicals and let his guys regroup, at the risk of Hassan rallying his own troops.

General Hassan's men barely outnumber the Foreman’s, and by the look of it, they're all clustered around the artillery truck. The situation can devolve into a disorganized firefight; if the Foreman’s soldiers can regroup, they have better training and can at least try to do fire-and-maneuver towards the village. Hassan has been giving orders with a megaphone, and is now being chased by Moira.

Moira seems to have a minor case of target fixation: the Foreman has to remind her not to stray too far from her teammates. Then, he describes the situation on the ground to her.

She turns the Centauro around, and accelerates back towards the engagement site while her gunner sets up a DMR to get a few potshots in.

At the site, it looks like the situation has degenerated into a chaotic firefight. That's bad news for the Foreman, since his team doesn’t have squad weapons and Hassan’s team does. The Foreman’s squad contains many experienced soldiers, so they try to use the bus and artillery truck wrecks as cover and get ready to bolt for the village before they are surrounded. The artillery piece's barrel has been bent in the impact: it can be fixed, of course, but definitely not today.

When the Foreman checks up on the phone again . . . huh. Hassan has hung up on him, unsurprisingly, and is now trying to use the satellite phone that was punted at him to try to call someone, presumably Rehoboth.

He sets one of his phone-bank operators, Gladys, to give Hassan the runaround; she can do such a good monotone that over even a mildly noisy connection, it'd be hard to tell for people if they are talking to a young woman or a vocoder.

Hassan's screams of "LET ME TALK TO A HUMAN BEING!" in English and Arabic cause some laughter in the Foreman’s situation room, even as tense as the situation is.

Moira accelerates the Centauro to its top speed, then blares the horn and slams the heavy APC into three technicals setting up to surround the Foreman’s men, obliterating one and breaking the weapons off the other two.

The tide of the firefight turns around; deprived of most of their heavy weapons, Hassan's men finish their circling maneuver to find that the Foreman’s men have reorganized somewhat, with one of them making a daring dash for one of the technicals' HMGs and training it on the enemy.

Hassan's driver keeps carrying the "General" outside of the combat zone while he tries in vain to reach his superior; he eventually stops trying, throwing the phone out of the window, when he sees one of the overturned technicals blow up in the rearview mirror.

Since the Foreman has no heavy vehicles, the crew of the Garibaldi is busy trying to find a flatbed truck to take the damaged vehicles home with!

The butcher's bill is fairly severe, although it could have gone worse: this covert team will be busy recruiting and training new recruits for at least a month, likely two if they want to get back to full combat strength. This is the first time the covert division has sustained deaths; the hit on morale is mitigated by the knowledge that they were deployed to protect civilians and have by and large succeeded in that task.

They decide to take the villagers to Sicily using the Garibaldi; they will be safer there.

One good thing is that the 57mm gun can be recovered; it’s mounted to be rigged for direct fire on one of the Centauro vehicles, almost bringing it back to full combat capability, although it won't be able to carry half a squad anymore.

Fortunately, the Centauro chassis is specifically designed to be modular, much like the Garibaldi, due to the Italian armed forces' chronic lack of funding and emphasis on the doctrine of flexibility. The Foreman’s welders find the specs for the Freccia variant's turret and adapt it to fit the 57mm gun they were able to salvage. While it's not exactly high-power artillery, it has the invaluable plus of having been captured in a way that is entirely plausibly deniable.

The resulting IFV can still carry half a squad, albeit less comfortably, and can provide long-range fire support if necessary. It still wouldn't win a tank battle with anything built after 1930, of course, but should it ever be necessary, it can do things like one-shot a suicide-bomb car.

The Foreman chooses not to discuss the issue with Colonel Santiago, regardless of what insight she might offer; if she is aware of what happened, she says nothing.

Moira thinks it was a job well done, but shares the unit's sentiment about not ever wanting to do this again without artillery or air support. "You know they'll be back with actual army assets next time, and even if it's just Soviet crap from the sixties, it's more than we can currently handle."

A day later, the Garibaldi steams into port; the refugees are debarked and the wounded are quickly taken to the nearest hospital. Subpotentate April does owe the Foreman a favor, albeit a small one, so the incident gets reported in the news as a rescue attempt, rather than a firefight.

The local populace are largely indifferent; they've had their own stupidity to deal with, but it's now over, and since the refugees and the Foreman’s people aren't taking hospital beds away from the locals, they are treated to a perfunctory display of traditional hospitality.

On one hand, the Foreman’s men are heroes; on the other, a few openly complain that they didn't sign up for this. A few former soldiers note bitterly that under the old system they'd at least get a commendation, which the Foreman can't really provide, so he ensures that they receive a bonus, since that he can provide. He also makes an effort to set up a private ceremony for CATS staff and family.

A day or so later, the Foreman gets an email from Colonel Santiago, apropos of nothing, really. She however takes the opportunity to remind him that a wise leader leaves herself the option of leading from the front. Did she find out about the engagement by herself?

Given what happened in the north, the second security team asks him to reconsider getting into more trouble in Rebohoth's territory until they are better prepared.

Picking a further fight with Rebohoth, by proxy or not, while having no heavy weaponry seems unwise, especially since Hassan has escaped. The Foreman aborts the deployment, much to the relief of the men and women who were getting ready to go.

Later in the week, the warehouse used as a motor pool for CATS work teams is cleared out so that those who fought to protect civilians can be honored and those who died be given a proper farewell. The Foreman lets those in his employ who are former soldiers handle the ceremonial protocol; officially, these people died during a rescue attempt at sea, although the Foreman hopes that nobody cross-correlates the dates of death with the excellent weather across the Mediterranean that week.

At the end of the month, Carpatescu announces that due to an ongoing security threat by nationalist forces opposed to the united world order, some form of organized military will be reinstated. This Global Defense Initiative will be headed, when appropriate, by former military officers, so those who used to have a job in the various countries' militaries are urged to reapply for it.

"This is not a restoration of the old world order, with its defense-industrial complex and its lack of accountability from civilian authority. If people wish to fly the Maple Leaf on July 2nd or their old flags during the FIFA world cup, we welcome the upkeep of patriotic traditions. But we must have peace, we must demand peace of the universe, because it will not be given to us."

The re-hiring standards are extremely high; the Foreman’s analysts expect that maybe five percent of former military personnel will get their job back. Interestingly, he goes over the personnel list and finds that Bruno Folgore is going to be heading one of the security detachments in the Middle East.

Upon the activation of the Cellular-Solar global coverage, Carpatescu sends his congratulations. He mentions being extremely busy setting up countermeasures to deal with "the death throes of the various nationalist movements," such as centralizing the Peacekeeper hierarchy and, regretfully, reforming some standing armed regiments as part of what he calls a "global defense initiative."

"I have observed your Network Node demo: it was excellent,” he says to the Foreman. ‘I want one here in New Babylon as soon as humanly possible, and I want one in each potentate's capitol. I am supremely confident that you will smooth over any obstacles should the relevant potentate be reticent to accept your gift."

The Foreman takes the opportunity to point out that network nodes are expensive and request more resources.

"You have been a good investment, Foreman. I look forward to seeing the New Babylon network node operational by the end of the month. Keep up the good work. You should consider visiting New Babylon informally, be a tourist for a few days perhaps, after you have completed that task. I understand you were in the neighborhood, recently." Does he mean Europe, or Lybia?

The budget increase wasn't as big as the Foreman hoped, but being able to field three more crews each trimester isn't anything to sneeze at . . .

As soon as it comes in, the Foreman allocates 1BN of his new budget to set aside a pension fund for the family members of the deceased; the entire operation ended up costing money, but it's the first time that’s happened, and besides, people lived who would have died, because of their efforts.

The Foreman receives updates on other situations around the globe too. The situation in Cassibile, Sicily, for example, has more or less solved itself; a few people died. A few dozen people are unlikely to cause a refugee crisis all by themselves. It just so happens that Sicily is the closest landmass of reasonable size that isn't under Rehoboth's control.

After a chaotic month, the Foreman is ready to plan out CATS’ operation for the new month.

He assigns three teams to making a network node in New Babylon with Dr. Robertson, three teams to recruit a covert team (assisted by himself), and two teams to research nuclear systems with Ryan Andrews, fulfilling a prior promise to him. Another covert team is set to get in touch with the Foreman’s black market contact and acquire some larger weapons.

Intrigued by the idea of drones, the Foreman hears that the Israeli armed forces have been working on an unmanned aerial vehicle program for a few years, with some American interest. He sends a few feelers out and find that Zevo Toys of Moscow, Idaho, briefly tried to pitch the idea to the Army (not the Air Force, oddly) after the factory's founder died and the older son, a retired general, took over briefly. The factory was shut down shortly after the Event, like many of its kind, due to a sudden lack of customers; the then-manager, Leslie Zevo, committed suicide in his home in Tiburon, California.

The Foreman considers whether or not to stockpile food and good soil. Stockpiling food is certainly possible, but he’d have to rent warehouse space. Why bother, though? The Eden fertilizer and his own efforts to streamline the global market have brought humanity within a hair's breadth of finally eradicating world hunger! But should he wish to stockpile, now would be a good time: prices are so low that half the subpotentates are buying to stockpile, just to avoid a price crash. Government cheese for everyone! He does have a list of existing warehouses, so there's that.

It seems worth it to him to have food on hand to feed refugees and provide the ability for his crews, both covert and regular, to stay out in the field longer.

It can even be used for humanitarian aid and support to groups under siege like the Waco folks or Boers who are having their farms seized.

He decides to focus on non-perishables, store them in places like the secret base in that mine base.

Carla lets the Foreman know that she's happy to add the food stockpile to the tracker, but deploying emergency stockpiles efficiently and reliably will need more preparedness work.

As for weapons, seems like armed drones are barely a concept right now, mostly focused on target practice and reconnaissance.

Might be easier to get military trainers and light attack aircraft. The Garibaldi was designed around the Sea Harrier jump jet, but given that she's roughly the size of a WW2 carrier, she can support propeller aircraft and helicopters with no problems. If the Foreman isn’t planning to go against modern jets, low-n-slow may be the way to go.

He has a sysadmin look around classified ads and nascent Internet bulletin boards for bush planes that can be converted for carrier operation and up-armored.

Since his mandate is to make sure that the whole world has Internet connectivity, including hard-to-reach places, there's no suspicion to be gotten from seeing if he can buy bush planes; trainer aircraft may look a little odd to some, but if he’s hiring pilots, it makes sense to train them and train well, right?

He decides to go talk to Klaue in force too, escorted by the covert team that wasn't deployed last time. The meeting happens just outside what's left of the village that they rescued the population thereof—the place has been razed, with the sand already at work covering it.

Good thing the Foreman came prepared: Klaue's men seem as likely to pounce as they are to sell weapons.

"So that's where those dago IFVs went . . . interesting. Maybe we can make you an offer for them?"

"I'm here strictly to buy, Klaue. And to let you know you're not my only supplier," the Foreman bluffs.

Klaue's men have technicals, and they are, unsurprisingly, in better shape than Hassan's.

“Actually, I see that some of your trucks have BMP-1 turrets. Give me squad weapons AND three of those that I may put them on my IFV's. I’d also like to get some more APCs or turrets/guns like the M242 Bushmaster,” the Foreman states, right to the point.

"Tall order, Foreman. Now granted, long as there's two people left on Earth, someone's going to want someone dead . . . but if you want the good milspec stuff, you're best off asking your boss."

He points to one of his vehicles, an angular, intimidating armored truck.

"This is the best my grease monkeys can do. Good build, easy to repair, and you can rat-at-at at it for hours with a kalash to no effect, but it'd still get ripped in half by a proper tank. Now the Bushmaster is a beaut; good fit for your rigs, too, low profile and doesn't need a man in the turret. Frankly, if you could get your hands on any, I'd buy them from you. Aren't you people flying out of Yank town? I'd look there, not here."

Since nobody wants to be there longer than they have to, the three turrets are removed from Klaue's trucks and handed over via an engine hoist. Just to make the point that he's not letting his guard down, Klaue has his personal vehicle—a dark-red Humvee mounting a M134, both of which look pretty damn shiny and new—spin up the weapon and shoot a few rounds into the sand.

Afterward, the Foreman asks Moira if she can set up some kind of underground factory for him. Moira points out that she can handle that part better than any bush-war hack. "A'course, I'll need a few extra hands and a bag of cash . . ."

“What if I just give you the cash? Can you work with the Ghilottis or some of your own people?”

Moira draws two cartoony bags of cash on a piece of scrap paper. "Ooooh, I think I know just the guy for you then. Tavish Finnegan DeGroot, from Ullapool. He's . . . retired from worksite ops, but there's none better when it comes to reliable equipment for demolition. Only, the kerns may not like the ordnance very much if you want things to look all ship shape and official like. Most of our people are used to Mk2s, not pipe bombs."

The Foreman decides to consider that again later.

"This is the last freebie you get from me, Foreman, but I'd take a trip to Cuba if you want some good airplanes." The email came from Colonel Santiago; from the formatting, you note, with some amusement, that she's sent it from her phone.

Unfortunately, the Foreman’s recruiting efforts largely fall flat. With Carpatescu's announcement of a global defense initiative, most former military are flocking to the Peacekeeper testing centers to see if they qualify for the new force, which they see as more prestigious than—for all they know—playing mall cop for the phone company. Most are likely to be rejected, but for this month, he doesn’t get much done, save for recruiting a few folks to replace his losses in Libya.

Ryan is doing a good job of setting up the New Babylon network node; Carpatescu even sends a brief note of approval, praising the Foreman’s ability to take the best of public service and private industry and making them work harmoniously. Andrews unsheathes his inner Howard Hughes, makes a show of losing a lot of money in New Babylon's brand new glittering gambling halls and laughing it off, and quietly makes most of it back at the smaller tables, all the while making sure that the work teams work efficiently.

CATS runs out of spare parts for the month, but by the end of it, the quasi-world-capital can show off the best communication infrastructure on Earth, with most hotels and resorts offering complementary wireless Internet at the unheard-of speed of 11Mbps.

Things seem to go well.

And that's when Dr. Robertson calls and tells the Foreman that there's been a serious accident during nuclear testing.

The Foreman decides this is worth showing up in person and heads over, staying on the line for some information on the way.

"Foreman, here's the bad news first: I've lost some of your men. A few got hurt, and a few more, well, they've quit. One I had to kick out of the lab when she started screaming that the end was nigh and the world had stopped making sense . . ."

The Foreman is a little perplexed to see a series of cubes, glowing red hot, in an ancient meteoric crater out of Sudbury. Dr. Robertson hands him lead-lined overalls without comment when he finally arrives. "Now, you'll be wanting to stand back. This stuff can still kill you. What you see in front of you is approximately one point three critical masses of fissile material. Note the part where there is no mushroom cloud and we haven't all turned into dirty glass."

The few workers and students milling about are all wearing radiation protection, but some are doing so in an unprofessionally shoddy manner.

"What do you mean?"

"The critical mass of plutonium has changed. I suspect, of course, that it did so during the Event. What's disturbing is that it seems to have done so retroactively, in a way. That explains the lack of radiation in most samples from the nuclear test sites. We're going to literally have to rewrite the textbooks here." Dr. Robertson is tired, but there is fire in his eyes—he's probably been up all night, if not all week.

"I'm not going to try to do math with you, Foreman, and please don't take it as patronizing: right now, we wouldn't know what math to use. At minimum, I can tell you that this has affected most other elements; carbon-fourteen, cobalt-sixty . . . Right now, we would have to throw out pretty much everything we know about radiometric dating. My next course of action after we're done here is talk to some paleontologists and archeologists and tell them to re-calibrate, well, everything. The worst part is that the variance has gone up considerably, since there are fewer fission events per second to work with; we may have lost the capability to reliably date soil samples or dead organisms, at least until we develop much better statistical models and better detectors."

“What does it mean from an engineering perspective?”

"Well, for one, the whole denuclearization thing that Carpatescu based his world takeover bid on—" Dr. Robertson harrumphs. “Not that it was a bad thing of course . . . not much of a choice there. No more nukes is correct, at least as far as I can tell. No bombs, no nuclear reactors. No thermonuclear bombs either, since the energy of a fission bomb is required to initiate a fusion event. Now what this means for fusion reactors . . . not a whole lot, as far as I can tell. Much as it pains me to break the news to Robert Zubrin, no fission fragment engines any time soon, either. We would need decades to work out the new physics."

The Foreman urges him to continue.

"This does open up a few interesting possibilities, though: radiothermal generators are a lot easier to build, since we don't have to worry about criticality. It might even be possible to build an RTG large enough to work as a traditional power plant, even. If, of course, you can persuade people to be near the damn things, I can show you it's safe—I just did—but some people just broke into hysterics. The obvious other use would be a gamma-stimulated particle beam; now before you start looking at me like I want to build a death ray, I'm thinking of uses like a portable plasma welder, or a thermal lance that needs little fuel and can use rods the size of a chopstick rather than a crowbar. The other option . . ."

"Yes?"

"Remember when I told you that some samples were unaffected? It's possible that gun-type uranium bombs, or even the abandoned uranium hydride bomb design, might still work. Working towards this goal would assuredly be a scientific boon, but you'd have to hide a nuclear explosion, or else make the project public, eventually."

“We should look at the long term. If a new Manhattan Project is the way to give us back atomic energy, let's do that.”

"Interesting that you'd bring that up, Foreman. Happily enough, there's a way to do that which doesn't involve starting a space program—I understand that Carpatescu is trying to decide whether to deorbit Mir and begin work on the Global Community Space Station, or expand the Soviet system. I suspect that orbital mechanics will decide for him."

"I was thinking something further out than low Earth orbit,” the Foreman says.

"So was I. How does 165,000 light years sound, give or take ten percent?"

"What, the new physics let us build a warp drive?"

Robertson chuckles, managing a pretty good Santa Claus impression. "No, not at all. One of the best-known extended objects in the universe, due to its relative proximity—and keep in mind that 165kLY is close—is the stellar remnant of Supernova 1987A. We've been using the spectroscopy of the ejecta as a way to calibrate speed of light measurements on long time scales, since the cobalt isotope ratio is extremely predictable . . . or it used to be. We'd just have to restart that program."

"So you need an observatory?"

"Yes. Specifically, one in the southern hemisphere, since as luck would have it that's where SN1987A is visible from. Now, I'm a nuclear physicist, not a cosmologist; my involvement would be simply as a lab manager. There's a closed observatory in the Atacama Desert which can be reopened, or we can set up our own facility in South Africa or New Zealand."

The Foreman explains that South Africa right now would be problematic. "So, if you had this observatory . . .?"

"I believe that, combined with my continued work, six months of readings there—you understand, we have to let the Earth cross half a solar orbit in order to perform parallax measurements—will give us a quantitative answer about what to expect. In turn, this will allow any engineering projects to start from a baseline of reliable measurements, rather than guesswork. So, it's a matter of whether you want results fast, or good. Either way, it will not be cheap."

The Foreman decides to reopen the Atacama Observatory, tying up a work crew and 2BN of budget for six months to make it happen. There is a high likelihood of major science returns in six months, and although Subpotentate Santiago doesn't strike him as someone who cares terribly much about science, she's likely to appreciate the business.

“If the reversal ever happens with nuclear physics returning to normal, then would that make any new power plants turn into nuclear bombs in an instant? Would there be a way to account for this and make safety measures?” the Foreman asks.

Dr. Robertson attempts to raise an eyebrow, but can't quite do the Spock thing, so he just raises both.

"Good question. The answer—and please understand that I don't know this for sure but believe in erring on the side of caution—is yes. Let's take an instant to be perhaps a few milliseconds, and you will see that there is no way to take safety measures, save for burying the new power plant about as deep as my neutrino observatory . . . which, by the way, must remain free of any such things, so we're clear."

It's technically not "his" neutrino observatory, but the point stands.

"I suppose that on the other hand, it would be an excellent way to cause a massive simultaneous nuclear initiation, if you could trigger a reversal. You could easily pop a mountain off its foundation that way, if you don't mind causing a nuclear winter in the process."

The Foreman gives it some thought and, well . . . he might not mind.

"Very well, Foreman. The rules may have changed, but we can still play hockey."

Next time the Foreman sees Dr. Robertson (by telepresence, of course), his lab seems to have gone back in time a little; tomes from the 1930s and 1940s have been brought out of storage, there's a picture of Dr. Oppenheimer on the wall, and the man himself seems to have aged a little bit, possibly due to lack of sleep at an advanced age.

As for the newly acquired weapons, with the turrets on, the APCs look a lot more military than before, when they could have passed as police vehicles. They can be taken off quickly, of course, but right now they have to be on for training.

The covert team has recovered its manpower, and the new guys are training out in the yard; the Foreman will have to explain to them that "covert" doesn't really go well with singing cadence at five in the morning.

"I don't know but I've been told, Nicky's got a network node! Likes to flip the on-off switch, dig that Rom son of a bitch!"

Could be worse, really. Mr. Carpatescu seems too pragmatic to care much about this sort of thing, and he's made such a big deal about freedom of speech that the Global Community Weekly editor-at-large (very at large, since as far as the Foreman knows, he hasn't penned an editorial since the Event) is a member of the Christian Remnant.

Soon after begins a new month, and the Foreman is planning CATS’ operation. Carla is still setting up the warehouse monitoring system, so she’s tied up, and the Foreman has already put a passive tap on Rev. Barnes' church website; they haven't been doing much. One thing he has found out is that only Barnes' friends know about the bunker under the church, the fitting of which (in the guise of installing a water tank and renovating the parking lot) is eating up most of the church's weekly donation income.

As for what remains to be done, the Foreman assigns two work teams to researching preparedness with Dr. Robertson, one team to making a network, three teams to making a node in South America with Ryan Andrews, and two covert teams to doing jobs with Moira. He also buys one power and decides to both check if he can assist Carla on disaster preparedness and go do combat training.

With the Peacekeepers recruiting for Carpatescu's global defense initiative, a lot of local security forces have found themselves in the same personnel bind as the Foreman. He sends Moira to deal with a situation in South Africa that has finally come to blows: Rebohoth’s land reform measures have begun with a "pilot program" that is basically a naked land grab away from white farmers and towards Rebohoth's cronies. Some of the black farmers who were left out have attacked existing landowners, figuring that the subpotentate will turn a blind eye. The landowners are asking for help, either to be evacuated or to defend their land until they can petition Carpatescu for relief. The Foreman will have to do this under a false flag, since Rebohoth has it in for him.

Moira points out that it would be expedient for their security force to have its own corporate identity when hiring itself out, a note he saves for later

Dr. Robertson is actually in a good spot to assist with disaster preparedness: the Atacama Desert has been used before by NASA for simulating the Martian environment. Add to that that it hasn't rained in decades there, and that it's the dog days of summer (January), and the teams working there end up testing dew collectors and what Dr. Robertson calls "little more than dowsing rods" but are in fact honest attempts at detecting well-digging spots using magnetometry.

In the meantime, the Foreman has people work on the basics: the network nodes that Carpatescu requested and that ultimately will offer a robust Internet are being built. The Foreman prefers to do the assembling in house. Routine work perhaps, but very much necessary.

Carla has been in communication with Dr. Robertson; she tells the Foreman that he recommends putting the network node away from the observatory to avoid electromagnetic noise.

"So,” she adds, “it looks like Carpatescu has been stockpiling. I appreciate his reluctance to destroy surplus food, it's an insult to dignity, but MRE production is just as high as it was when the world had multiple functioning militaries—those military contractors were never demobilized. The other group that is stockpiling, mainly food staples, calls itself the International Commodity Co-op. Apparently it's being run by a few former Stanford students so I'd imagine they got some venture-capitalist money.

“I'm working on integrating emergency stockpiles into our nodal map; with our current fleet assets and using the Nomenklator as an expert system, we should be able to efficiently route supplies where they are needed, should there be a tsunami or earthquake."

"How about disasters with a global scope?" the Foreman asks, mindful more of Dr. Robertson's recipe for nuclear disaster than of Tsion Ben-Judah's apocalyptic warnings.

"Survival of the fittest, I suppose, then." Carla shrugs. "Paradoxically, I'd recommend heading towards hostile environments: they are a lot more predictable than people."

Carla and Dr. Robertson make progress together; the experiences in the desert and in northern Canada allow the creation of a Web-based, easy-to-print survival guide of sorts. Within a week, a guy named Jimmy Wales has forked the webpage and added a CGI script to allow users to expand upon it. Topics include dealing with extremes in temperature, recovering clean water from the environment, making the most of scarce electrical power, and field medicine.

Colonel Santiago does not get along with Mr. Andrews, at all; they are polite and professional to each other, of course, but it's pretty obvious that they see the world in drastically different ways.

Despite their personal antipathy, Andrews and Santiago are sufficiently professional that the network node is installed in Rio De Janeiro without any issues; the bandwidth is sufficient for basic video distribution, to the point that within the month, a local studio pops up to start distributing horrible ripoffs of American cartoons. The lawyers will have a field day with that one, but on the Foreman’s end, it means that the infrastructure works and, encouragingly, people are taking advantage of it.

He decides to get between Ryan and Santiago and undergo combat training in South America.

He joins Ryan Andrews in Brazil, ostensibly to be there for the ribbon-cutting for the network node. Actually, he spends a significant amount of time with Colonel Santiago . . . and ends up having to listen to her griping about the Yankee's capitalistic ways.

"So he goes" *BLAM!* "’Human behavior is economic behavior. The particulars may vary, but competition for limited resources remains a constant.’" *BLAM! BLAM!* "Si me dice, verdad? Needed an MBA for that?" *BLAM!*

She notes that the Foreman shoots better when he’s distracted, which she doesn't take as a good sign—he should be more focused.

"So, not impressed. Now your band of eggheads in the mountains," *BLAM!* "they're at least taking the time to learn from the locals—stop, stop, trigger discipline, if you're not shooting you shouldn't hold it like that—"

And that's the part where the Foreman gets shot in the head.

Santiago wanted to make his training realistic, so she slapped a PASGT helmet, infantry, standard issue, on his noggin so that he’d have to deal with the slight obstruction in visibility. Good thing, too, because it saves his life.

Mindful of what he’s been taught, he ducks behind the lane separators, takes a moment to check if he has a concussion, and peeks out in the direction that he figures the attack came from.

The would-be assassin must have been either fantastically stupid or suicidal to try to shoot a VIP inside the training facility of Santiago's personal guard, although he gets partial credit for getting in there in the first place, the Foreman supposes.

Santiago orders the Foreman to get the hell up as if he were a rank private, and he does; his would-be murderer has been disarmed, courtesy of a shot to the palm that looks like stigmata, and is now holding his hands up in front of the Foreman’s gun.

"You're the Antichrist! Your network is the real mark of the beast! You must die! Thousands will come after me!"

He's white, but has an Afrikaans accent, which means that he was likely sent by Rebohoth.

Santiago makes a few rapid hand signs, and her guards grab the man and hold him up in the Foreman’s sights.

"Your shot, Foreman, if you like. As an apology for the security breach."

He gets the idea that Santiago's guards are in for the mother of all dressing-downs . . .

The Foreman decides a brief interrogation is in order. He aims at the guy's head first. He doesn't blink. The Foreman aims between his legs. He does.

"Who are you with?"

"I-I'm—"

"I didn't ask your name, I don't give a shit. Who sent you?"

"P-please! Rebohoth sent me! They have my wife hostage and my farmstead surrounded! I swear!"

"What was the Antichrist bullshit about?"

"It's what he told me to say!"

"Are you a Christian?"

"I always went to church! I have nothing to do with the Rapture crazies!"

"How were you planning to escape?"

The guy starts crying. "I wasn't! I had to say a pass phrase so that Rebohoth would know I made the hit!"

The Foreman growls something in passable Spanish, making it sound like an insult to his would-be assassin—he actually told Santiago to play good cop. The expression isn't native to the language, but she figures it out anyway.

She pretends to yell at him to calm down, and tells the guy that since he has surrendered, he will be considered a prisoner of war despite being here on false pretenses. "We are strong, we can afford mercy."

The Foreman says something else, and she "has the brilliant idea" of sticking a gun loaded with rubber bullelts in the guy's good hand and having him shoot one of her guards that happens to look like the Foreman. The Afrikaaner understands her intentions and plays along; if his family is alive, this will keep them alive a little longer, at least.

Courtesy of some tomato sauce and a cell phone camera, the Foreman has a video of his own demise, in glorious 144p. It wouldn't stand accurate scrutiny—namely the camera turns on and turns off at slightly too convenient moments—but it's pretty decent.

It can go on GNN tonight—his death isn't breaking news.

He sends a brief secured email to Dr. Robertson to tell him that this is a sting operation and he is alive and well—the scientist hasn't lost his patron.

After telling Dr. Robertson that he's still doing science, the Foreman texts Carpatescu (on a secure line, of course) that he’s still alive.

"Good! You are hard to replace. I suspect you are busy; don't let me detain you."

Carpatescu is probably the only person on Earth who uses semicolons in text messages.

That done, the Foreman sends a single text message to Moira. "Proceed with full force."

His adversary has very little understanding of modern communications technology, so there's little to worry about when it comes to SIGINT . . . yet.

After a shower, Santiago says that she has to kick the ass of her internal security for a half hour or so, and while the press release is prepared, the Foreman is left alone with his thoughts. She'd like to talk to him afterwards, if he feels up to it.

". . . in other news, the administrator for the Global Community Web initiative has been targeted by a Christian Remnant suicide attacker. When reached by GNN, Global News Weekly editor-at-large William Cameron had this to say: ‘We are a peaceful amalgamation of Bible-believing churches, and while we disagree with the Carpatescu administration's heavy-handed approach to globalization, we do not believe in violence. This is clearly the work of secular nationalists, or black supremacists—I mean, white supremacists. As a newspaperman, I consider the fledgling digital media worthy of our respect and consideration, and will indicate my staff to engage our best investigative reporting efforts in assisting local law enforcement with their inquiries.’"

The grainy video is made even grainier by NTSC/PAL conversion, which should hopefully let Rebohoth think whatever he wants to think; the only people who know that the Foreman’s would-be assassin is in custody rather than in a body bag are those in Santiago's remarkably Spartan headquarters in Rio de Janeiro.

The Foreman has his HQ team stream to his laptop what they can of the Centauri's cameras. Moira has gone a bit hammy on this one: the vehicles have been hastily repainted black with red highlights (by the look of it, someone literally splashed red paint buckets on the sides) and an extremely garish orange flag with "TIGER MAFIA!!" written on it with a paintbrush.

A few of the troopers (by the look of it, the designated marksmen) get out of the IFVs and reinforce the farmers.

The attackers are mostly carrying small arms and a few AK74s; the Foreman’s IFVs are essentially impervious to these. Above, a single helicopter is hovering; the resolution is too low to tell what kind it is, all the Foreman knows is that it's not shooting. Maybe it's the news?

He tells Moira to use her best judgement. Nobody needs a backseat driver an ocean away.

Moira flashes a peace sign and starts calling out targets to the turret gunner. "Arright, boss! OPEN FIRE!"

The Centauro IFVs shoot all their flares and smoke grenades in the air and towards the attacking guerrillas respectively, making as much flash and noise as possible; the IFV with the 57mm fires in the guerrillas' general direction, while the other three lift their 30mm autocannons at the helicopter. The Foreman can't really tell what's going on, since the flares have saturated the cameras.

"Huh, that looks interesting." He did want to talk to Santiago, but not quite right now . . . she came in barely making a sound, but he is, when it comes down to it, in her home and it looks like he’s going to get a free tactical commentary, so he lives with it.

When the image comes back, he sees a lot of smoke. The helicopter is either gone, or has been knocked out; one of the gunners reports at least a glancing hit.

Moira is . . . did she actually get out of the IFV? Yep. She's using the PA system on it as a megaphone. "All right, boys and girls, this is the part where you run away! Run away! Hardloop wig! Kimbia! Squaiate!"

She ducks a stray shot hitting a foot to her left, points, and the APC with the big gun fires in that general direction. Oddly, there are two explosion noises.

And that's pretty much how it ends. The casualty report is in the single digits on both sides, none of which are the Foreman’s.

"These weren't professional soldiers or fanatics, they were just hoping to take the land by showing up en masse . . . Nobody was that committed to a fight. In that case, the woman who makes the loudest noise wins the battle," Santiago comments tersely. "I doubt it'll be the case again, but your field commander made the right choice." The Foreman doesn’t let Moira know that the South American subpotentate was watching, just yet.

"Plus, she was the only one with any idea what was going on on the ground. That's an important advantage to have, Foreman, even if you can only keep it for a second. Information, the first principle of warfare, must form the foundation of all your efforts. Know, of course, thine enemy. But in knowing him, do not forget above all to know thyself. The commander who embraces this totality of battle shall win even with inferior force."

The Foreman recognizes the quote, although she's probably quoting a translation of a translation. "Sun Tzu said that?"

Santiago nods. "And I'd say he knows a little bit more about fighting than YOU do, pal!" She just jammed a finger in his chest, and it hurts. Huh, he didn't fancy her for someone who bites her fingernails.

"Now, as long as you're no longer among the living, you're under my roof, so you obey my rules, you hear? Tomorrow afternoon, sixteen hundred sharp, gym A3. What's your boxing glove size?"

He stares at his hands for a moment. What?

"Eh, we'll make a fighter out of you despite the tiny hands, don't you worry. You're not stupid, Foreman, and you keep your promises. I can respect that. You'll never be a warrior, but if you listen to me every once in a while, you won't be a corpse any time soon either!"

“Uh, who am I supposed to fight?” he asks, caught off guard.

"You'll see."

“You know what? You're on.”

"Excellent! Be sure to get some sleep."

Given what's happened to the Foreman in the last six hours, yesterday's worry about replacing turnover losses from his work crews (which is fortunately a lot easier than replacing casualties) seems very mundane. Nevertheless, it needs to get done; most of the recruiting has happened between North America and here, and the Foreman’s been shown a few promising candidates that moved on to exchanging a few emails with him.

Everything else seems to have gone well, surprisingly: the network node got built, he has sufficient subsystems to build the next one, and . . . well, he and all of his are alive, which is damn nice.

Finding competent engineers or scientists south of Panama is difficult, if one listens to yanqui managers; he hasn’t found it to be particularly the case, but what is easy to recruit in these parts is skilled craftsmen who are used to working in the cold, heat, humidity, or even under threat of violence. He puts together a work crew without difficulty.

The next day, he gets to the ring a few minutes early. His head hurts. The guard in the barracks has been doubled, and he notices that everyone standing guard has had their head shaven chin to skull—roughly so in some spots. Given the pretty impressive beards he’s seen around here, the Foreman figures that it's part of how Santiago disciplined her men. He wonders what happened to the women, most of whom already had a buzz cut.

If he expected Santiago herself, or maybe some mountain of a boxing instructor, he’s surprised; he’ll be facing off against the man who shot him! The man’s boxing gloves have clearly been tied on in a way that they can't be removed, and as soon as the Foreman enters, armed guards seal all exits, but . . . what's going on here?

Santiago explains. "I know how men think. You've both shot at each other, and in my experience, that means you'll never move past it until you have a proper fight and unload some adrenaline. Who wins isn't important." She points at the Foreman’s attacker. "You're still going to jail after this, regardless—either mine or the Foreman's—but if you impress me, I'll help with your family."

She looks at the Foreman. "You got to learn to fight. That means knowing how to take it as well as dish it out. You'll live longer, which suits me fine, because if not, Carpatescu will probably replace you with Mr. Moustache"—she means Andrews, most likely—"and I can't stand the guy. You're both white boys, so Marquis de Raspberry rules, no nut shots, all that stuff. First pin to ten loses."

The Foreman resolves to fight to the best of his ability.

The match is brief: the Afrikaaner has some height on the Foreman, but most importantly, the man has lived in an environment in which this sort of thing is a fairly commonplace way to settle small disputes. He knows how to fight better than the Foreman does, and that's that.

Neither of them pull any punches; the Foreman get a few jabs in, but after the man gets him to overextend, all he has to do to knock the Foreman down is scrunch down a little and hammer him with a barrage of stomach punches. The Foreman falls backwards, moves to get up, and finds that he has no way to do so without puking. The entire thing lasted a very long three minutes.

The referee, a soldier—likely for the Foreman’s protection—holds the would-be-assassin's arm up while another guard helps the loser to his feet.

"Absolutely no chin, Foreman," Santiago comments, "but you got some guts."

After a shared meal of bread, meat, and what he assumes is strawberry wine—incidentally, with no utensils—at which the Afrikaaner is briefly toasted, the Foreman decides to ask Santiago if there's a way to both help extract this guy's family and set Rehoboth up to get replaced or killed.

Santiago smiles. "That's really not a conversation I want to have with you in public, Foreman. That said, as I'm sure you have noticed, the Potentate encourages some amount of . . . friendly rivalry. Maybe ask him why next time you get the chance."

The Foreman parts ways with Subpotentate Santiago by means of a calorous handshake. On the flight back (first class, of course), Mr. Andrews glances at the Foreman’s bruises and compliments him on getting lucky with the scary warrior lady.

"For the record, if you need to know why I don't want your job, look at your face in the mirror," he adds. How'd he hear Santiago's comment?