Superpowers: Exile (Part VI)

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Enemy of the state, Ellaraitch strode into Governor Stockton’s office with that same smug look on his face he always had. What else could be expected from someone who refused to divulge either his first or last name to the public; insisting that people refer to him by the one name alone? One thing to note about the Amadesis religion was that there were many extremely disparate sects. The main characteristics that held them all together were that they were all evil, they all believed in a single path to enlightenment, and they all considered harming others to be best practice. The largest sect engaged in a sick form of polygamy that not only allowed, but encouraged, child rape, along with good ol’ fashioned incest. Another tortured victims so badly that they were corrupted enough to join up themselves. There was even one that believed in some sort of presumably unknowable hierarchy where only a select few members would get into heaven, so that even being part of it didn’t guarantee you happiness.

Ellaraitch was the head of a sect of Amadesis that was the lesser of many evils; at the time, at least. He originally became famous as a prolific science fiction writer, churning out crap stories like cancer cells. He was known for charging new members with increasingly more money each time for therapeutic treatments, and for creating a level of privileged secrecy surpassed by none other. He would go on to be far more dangerous to the world, but for the moment, Stockton thought of him as the only way to reach his goals. Ellaraitch had always been against the violence of other Amadesins; particularly the ones that sent the bomb to Utah, but not because he wasn’t himself violent, but because he considered their methods to be tactless and unsophisticated. He fancied himself more strategic than that, and he would prove this to be true once his sect began to spiral out of control, and become dominant.

“I can help you remove the nuclear weapons of the U.K., but you’re not going to like how I plan to do it.” Ellaraitch sat in what was supposed to be Stockton’s chair, and drank his glass of alcohol. It wasn’t technically illegal on the island, but only because it never seemed necessary to pass a law.

“I’m not going to hurt anyone. I regret every casualty of the Korean invasion. I need the next step to be seamless and painless. If it can’t be, then I would rather just give up.”

“I do not intend to hurt anyone. It will hurt, yes, but not physically. It’ll only hurt you, because it’s going to take much longer than you wanted, and it’s not going to make you look good.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Have you heard of Tygreve Melsbach?”

Stockton thought back to his primary school days. “A leader of Belgium; the one who was exiled? That was centuries ago.”

“The important part of the lesson is not that he was exiled, but that he later returned to power. Like you, he took on an impossible mission, and suffered many setbacks before just losing completely.”

“Yeah...” Stockton was waiting for a point.

“And so he was sent to an island, much smaller than this one. He lived there for the better part of two decades, until secretly escaping, gathering support, and taking back his throne.”

“Go on.”

“If he had tried to steal back power immediately after exilement, he would have failed. It was that time he spent away that made it work. In that time, the world changed. Trade deals were made, canals were dug, leaders came and went. By the time he left the island, he had been all but forgotten. He used this infamy to his advantage, knowing that the day’s leadership would severely underestimate his strength.”

“Are you asking me to go into exile?”

“Not exile. That wouldn’t work for you; not in modern times. But you have to fully accept your role as the world’s pariah. You have to suffer a scandal, get yourself sanctioned by the Confederacy, and then Federama has to wait at least five years before doing anything else that gets it noticed. You have to throw your little nation into obscurity so people let their guard down and stop worrying about what you do next.”

“This sounds like a trick to get me out of the way, so that you can take control of the Amadesins. You need the spotlight, and my mission is in your way right now.”

“This is true,” Ellaraitch conceded. “I see a benefit to my movement, but that doesn’t mean you cannot benefit as well.”

“Five years. Of just...doing nothing?”

“After the scandal, yes,” Ellaraitch reminded him.

“Of course, and what do you suggest this scandal be?”

“The United Kingdom.”

“Oh, that explains it. Thanks.”

“An attack from the United Kingdom, is what I mean; well...an apparent attack from them. They won’t actually have anything to do with it.”

“Dawuthuh?”

“I have people in high offices of the U.K. They can make it look like they’re attacking you, but it’ll actually be your people. They can come in with a bunch of those—what are they called—helicopters. Soldiers will descend on the island, start shooting up the place, and steal all the weapons back.” He put up air quotes for the last few words.

Stockton just stared at the man for a minute or so. “You sound like an idiot. Well, even more of an idiot than usual. That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.”

“They don’t have to be helicopters. They could be narrow-body jet airliners. We’ll claim the British threw the bombs into a volcano, along with a bunch of poor unfortunate souls. If you think what you did was bad, just wait until the public hears about the U.K. throwing people into a volcano.”

“This isn’t one of your bad books, Ellaraitch,” Stockton raised his voice. “This is real life. You can’t just come up with plot twists and narratively presentable fabrications to fit the story corner you’ve painted yourself into. This is why your religion is complete nonsense. No one would believe something like that. Airliners? In a volcano? Come on!”

He shrugged. “We can make it work.”

“No, we can’t. You’re asking thousands of people to keep quiet a huge and ridiculous lie.”

“Haven’t you already done that? No one knows what you’re really planning to do with these nuclear weapons. And your mission was a perfect secret until you actually began to execute it.”

“That was based on a system of compartmentalization. Not everyone is on board with this, and people have loose lips. The secret of the fact that the British never invaded my shores would be revealed eventually.”

“Sure, maybe in 1995, or something. But you won’t have to worry about that. We’re not going to just write a news story about the invasion, we’re going to actually stage one. Your citizens will be convinced that it happened because they’ll see it with their own eyes.”

It took a few more hours of discussion, but Governor Stockton was eventually persuaded to agree to the plan. It was the most frustrating thing that had ever happened to him, even up against the past year’s of problems. He knew in his soul that what Ellaraitch had come up with was ludicrous, but the more the man spoke, the more reasonable he sounded. It was evidently his superpower to make people believe preposterous lies wholeheartedly, and Stockton found he had no choice but to exploit that for his own gain. A few months following the conversation, “the United Kingdom” came in with helicopters—not airliners—with precision strike forces, conveniently similar to the ones that Stockton had deployed for his earlier missions. They recorded a series of carefully placed explosions with grainy and fuzzy security cameras.

A few Federama citizens were claimed to have been killed, while others were just kidnapped, along with the bombs and missiles. In reality, they were all removed from the island and taken to what Stockton had always referred to as the second location. He hadn’t needed much time to prepare for this, because this small island in Antarctica was already being used to house the actual weapons stolen from other countries. It was just another method of compartmentalization. If anything went wrong, he wanted the least number of people to be at risk of being within the blast radius. Even the strike teams didn’t originally know where the second location was. After each stage, they would place the weapons on a ship so that a different team could take them away.

The handful of people said to have been kidnapped had agreed to sacrifice their lives. They were either single people with no families, or entire families that were willing to relocate to a secret base in the middle of nowhere. They told the world that the United Kingdom military was responsible for this travesty. The Confederacy began an investigation, and they were unable to come up with any other legitimate explanation. As a kind of punishment, the U.K. was ordered to relinquish their own nuclear weapons, despite the fact that the ones supposedly stolen from Federama were never recovered. These British weapons were transported to an unknown location in Usonia, which was both disgusting and helpful to Stockton’s plans. Now, according to the world consciousness, Usonia was the only nation in the world with nuclear arms. That didn’t seem safe, but it did mean that there was only one more step in disarming the world entirely.

Governor Stockton continued to lead Federama, but with little global intrigue, for less than a year. He was then asked to step down from his position, and was replaced by his frenemy, Roma Tanner. Stockton left the island and joined the sacrificed in Antarctica. He waited there for three years, working on his plans for disarming the most powerful country in the world. The United States of Northern Integrated America. Usonia.

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Microstory 190: Monique Attar

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Monique Attar was sister to Solange, and aunt to Zoey. She spent her whole life in the shadow of her younger sister. Solange was a performer, famous for her beautiful singing voice and spot on impressions. In order to “find herself” Monique left home and traveled across Europe. She had the ability to tamper with the feelings and, to a degree, the thoughts, of any living creature, including humans. She could create, alter, or otherwise manipulate pheromones, and place her target in a hypnotic state. She was never able to control their actions, or change the target's true feelings on a subject, but she could convince them to do things for her with greater ease than other persuasive people. She never used her ability to steal or harm others, but she was regularly able to crash on strangers’ couches, or enjoy a meal at a discount. and sometimes for free. The more she used this ability, the more she learned about what was really happening; the science behind it all. She also became stronger, and was later able to hypnotize more than one person at once. After a couple of years, Monique had grown tired of Europe, and decided to check out some of Africa. She soon found herself working as a safari tour guide. She became famous in certain circles for being able to allow visitors to draw unusually close to wild animals without coming to harm. She returned to France when her sister became pregnant with Zoey, and was struggling with her accelerated development. After Zoey’s rapid growth continued following her birth, Monique insisted they go to Bellevue headquarters in Usonia. After the problem was corrected, the family decided to remain in Kansas where Zoey attended school, and Solange worked in Records and Archives, keeping track of the organization’s history. Used to staying on the move, Monique went out into the field and provided security and protection for operatives and innocent civilians.

Microstory 189: Levi Jacobson

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Levi Jacobson was a moody child, and an even moodier adult. He was generally happy when his father was around, but not always. He was pretty hard to please, and the smallest of inconveniences could set him off. He was anomaly by his mother's blood, and this allowed him a level of flight. While his later love interest, Ellen could initially only fly upwards, Levi could only levitate a few meters from the surface, at most, and fly forwards. He spent a lot of time over the ocean, because that was the best way to avoid people seeing his ability in action. At one point, this led him to Hawaii where he met, and fell in love with, Ellen. She was the first other anomaly he had ever seen, and their love ultimately allowed their respective abilities to evolve. But Levi was not just an anomaly. His father had abilities of his own; ones that predated anomalies by millennia. His ability to travel through time was an accident; and it led him to break a number of other rules. His kind was not allowed to procreate, and this was the kind of rule that could fundamentally not be broken. Anyone who made an attempt would be met with failure; be it interruption, the simple inability to conceive, or miscarriage. But he could not be caught, and could thusly not be stopped. He fathered many children, with more than one woman, who were able to manipulate time in their own ways. But not all of these children knew where they came from, and those that did would regularly lose their memories. Levi had some understanding of his father's past, but lacked discipline and control, which only served to fuel his anger. He encountered one of his siblings as an adult, but neither of them knew this, and she was torn from him before they had the chance to learn the truth.

Microstory 188: Fiona Mill

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When Fiona Mill’s parents were driving their little baby girl home from the hospital for the first time, they were involved in a vehicular collision. Little Fiona was thrown from the car and suffered an irreparable spinal injury. Fortunately, she survived, but was left a paraplegic, and was forced to remain in a wheelchair. Having grown up in this condition, and not knowing any other way, Fiona was a primarily positive and agreeable person. After her parents entered an assisted living facility, she took over operations of their little eleven-room motel on the edge of Gallup, Ashiwa. Business was not great during her tenure due to a new highway, but overhead was minimal and she employed only one worker. They were able to keep the business afloat with little struggle. As a little girl, her parents would often underestimate her strength, and never noticed when she would sneak over and listen to their discussions. They would regularly discuss something referred to as the Firefly Program, but always danced around the details. One night, she witnessed a mysterious yellow light emanating from her mother’s hands. Simply seeing this with her own eyes allowed her to understand how to make this light happen herself. It started with a violet light, but gradually slid up through indigo, blue, green, yellow, and orange. She was never able to generate any other colors, and she did not understand exactly what was happening, or why she was able to perform this magic. She decided to never reveal to her parents that, not only did she know her mother’s secret, but that she shared her gifts. Fiona was placed on the special list of anomalies, and approached by Bellevue without prompt. Being so agreeable, and really having nothing better to do, she closed down the motel and and moved to Kansas, under the condition that her one employee could accompany her. He ended up seamlessly continuing his maintenance duties at the Bellevue Hotel. After some investigation, it was discovered that Fiona’s ability was not just glowing. The lights were only precursors to astral travel. When she steadied her mind and focused her light, Fiona could actually open up windows to other dimensions called astral nodes. Each color gave access to its own specific dimension, and each successive dimension could facilitate faster-than-light travel to a greater distance.

Microstory 187: Peyton Resin

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A long time ago, werewolves roamed the world; one species in a very short list of those that could shapeshift. But unlike fictional depictions of werewolves, these adhered to the law of conservation of mass. Most shapeshifting is impossible, because it would require the shifter to either inexplicably lose mass, or gain mass that does not exist. One particular anomaly was able to subvert this, but those were special circumstances. For most shapeshifters, matter is folded, stretched, or other rearranged to accommodate the shift, but nothing is added or gained. This meant that werewolves appeared to be either slightly larger wolves, or relatively small humans. To the untrained eye, Peyton Resin appeared to be a shapeshifter who could turn herself into a rock. But this was not what she was doing. Like Zoey Attar, Peyton was invoking a rock from some other location, and then she was hiding herself in another dimension. She did not become the rock itself, but was merely using it in order to tether herself to this dimension. While in this state, Peyton could see everything around her, even though she did not have eyes. As her power increased, she was able to reapply this aspect of her ability to everyday life, so that she was always aware of what was happening around her, effectively giving her eyes in the back of her head. With the help of Rick, Hankford, and Flora, Peyton learned to invoke her special rocks without slipping into the other dimension. She could place these rocks at any location, and be able to remotely witness the goings on of the immediate area. Rather early on in Bellevue’s history, the four of them chose to give these rocks as gifts to other members. They would wear them around their necks, and unwittingly give Peyton access to a powerful security system. Even though this breach of security was discovered and subsequently scrapped, Peyton ended up creating the security department of Bellevue with her partner, Milo Chombers, and still placing the rocks in strategic locations in lieu of traditional security cameras. Hankford also developed an injection containing a special type of microscopic minerals of Peyton’s creation which allowed her to keep track of all members, along with their enemies, without being able to view them remotely. Peyton was a geologist by trade, having chosen the field for obvious reasons. Besides her duties in security, she continued to publish geological papers, and contributed to the progress of science in a myriad of ways.

Microstory 186: Cleopatra Marino

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Some anomalies believed their abilities to be amazing gifts, and really focused on trying to figure out how to utilize these gifts to their maximum potential. Some used them for good, others for not so good, but there were some who remained neutral. Cleopatra Marino was born with superhuman strength. Instead of joining some kind of military faction, or saving people from burning buildings, Cleopatra used her abilities in the moving business. She was the primary reason why the company she worked for became one of the most popular moving companies in Australia, specializing in extremely quick and efficient moves. All of her coworkers were aware of her superstrength, and worked carefully to make sure that no one else noticed. One of them would pretend to help her with a piece of furniture, or a heavy box, but they would be able to carry it at a much faster rate, and get the job done faster overall. For the most part, Cleopatra’s life was uneventful. There were never any rumors about what she could do, or any question as to how the company she worked for was so successful. And so she found herself in a rut. Her coworkers kept encouraging her to head for Usonia and join Bellevue, but she hesitated. She knew that her ability could prove useful, but she wasn’t sure whether she was interested in that at all. After some prodding, however, they were able to convince her to at least make a phone call. A representative from Bellevue made the trip to speak with her in Newcastle and they eventually came to the conclusion that there was no reason for her to leave her home. But the world would be better served if she changed careers. Cleopatra was not the head of operations in Australia, but she was its singular anomaly operative. She roamed the states and territories, carrying out missions and protecting people where she could.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 24, 2048

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Aura asked Mateo and Leona to hand over the information regarding her daughter’s disappearance, and also for them to stay out of the investigation. They would only be able to help once every year, and she still felt uncomfortable about Mateo’s prior relationship with his own half-sister. She didn’t voice her concerns over the second part, but it was implied. When the two of them returned in 2048, there was apparently no news on the matter. Frida/Aquila was nowhere to be found. It was a longshot, because it was pretty clear that she was one of them. If the powers that be didn’t want someone to learn something, then they wouldn’t, and nothing was going to change that.

For the first time in a long time, Mateo and Leona had nothing to do. They didn’t have to break someone out of prison, or run for their lives from that person. They didn’t have to search for information, or go to a funeral, or have kidney surgery. “Honestly,” he said after waking up, “I can’t help but be bored.”

“I know,” Leona agreed. “I was sort of getting used to a life of constant urgency. Our brief moments of respite were filled only with anticipation for the next crisis. I don’t know what to do with myself.”

“What does one do with a life such as this?”

“No clue.”

Mateo’s birth father, Mario had been behind them for an unknown amount of time. “I have an idea.” He touched both of their shoulders and pulled them away.

They found themselves in some kind of body of water. It didn’t seem too deep while they were swimming over to the nearest bit of land. There were tall cliffs all around them, like they were sitting in some kind of giant bowl. “When are we?” Leona asked.

“Same time,” Mario explained. “Well, I think we’ve jumped a few hours into the future. Well...maybe several hours. I don’t know where we are, though.”

“Some kind of crater lake,” Leona said, just off the top of her head.

Mateo pulled out his phone and looked at the GPS. “It says Rapa Nui.”

“That’s another name Easter Island,” Leona said, again just off the top of her head. “Why did you bring us here?”

“The powers brought us here. I’m just the medium.”

“In your experience,” Leona began, “what might a reason be?”

“My sister teleported all over the place, helping people. I, on the other hand, help people help other people. I save boy scouts...proverbially.”

“So it is actually the two of us who are supposed to help someone?” Mateo asked, but it wasn’t so much of a question.

“Yeah, I would think—” Mario began, but then blinked out of sight.

“Well, that was helpful,” Mateo said. “How the hell are we supposed to get out of here?”

“We climb, of course. You were the one complaining about not having anything to do.”

“So were you.”

It took them a few hours of slipping, stumbling, and cursing, but they did manage to climb out of the crater, and survived to tell the tale. Upon reaching the summit, they found themselves face to face with a series of guns. “Mateo?” a familiar voice came from the back. He gently moved the gunmen to the side and stepped forward. It was Gilbert Boyce, the man they had agreed to free from Reaver’s prison a few days ago. “What are you doing here?”

“We’re...uh,” Leona stammered. “We’re here to help.”

Gilbert studied their faces for a moment and a half before shrugging. “I don’t know how you do it, but it wouldn’t be the first time you appeared out of nowhere and helped me out, so I guess I’m gonna go with the flow.” He helped her off the ground as his men lowered their weapons.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Into the crater,” Gilbert answered.

“We just came from there,” Mateo whined.

“It’s the only way.”

“What’s down there?”

“You’ll see,” Gilbert said ominously. The team slowly and carefully made the trek down the slope of the crater. Mateo was getting a decent workout today, and was not particularly happy about it. He took back what he said about being bored. That was the ideal. Once they were at the bottom, Gilbert took out a map and started comparing it to landmarks around them. “This way.”

Leona took a peek. “Please don’t tell me that’s a treasure map.”

“Of course not,” Gilbert said, much to their relief. “Okay, that’s a lie. It is. There’s a secret entrance nearby.”

“And you’re going to be the first to find it.”

“Since the ancients, yes.”

“That sounds crazy.”

“I literally did not ask you to come.”

Leona pulled Mateo to the side and whispered to him, “it’s dangerous for us to be underground during a timeslip. Erosion, flooding, bats. It’s just over an hour to midnight central. We can’t risk it.”

“The powers that be have a plan. We either follow it or try to subvert it. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t had much luck going against their wishes. They want us here, we’re here.”

Gilbert called to them while unpacking supplies, “are you two coming, or not? Honestly, I can’t say which I prefer.”

“We’re leaving,” Leona said, but only to Mateo. She took his arm and began to lead him away, but stopped short.

Frida was standing in front of them. She had not changed a bit. “Go with them, Leona,” she instructed before disappearing, like any salmon would.

“You saw that, right?” Mateo asked.

“Yes. We have to go.” But she was not happy about it.

“I’m not a huge fan of this one.”

“This one what?” she asked.

“This day. This year. I guess it’s good that we’ll be done with it soon, though.”

“Let’s just hope we don’t accidentally timejump off a cliff.”

Gilbert nodded to them, fortunately without having seen Frida’s sudden appearance. He addressed his men, “two of you will need to go down with your own lungs. We didn’t bring extra rebreathers.”

“Actually, we have our own,” Mateo said.

“Rule number seven,” Leona noted. “Pack the essentials, and always keep them within reach.”

“Serendipitous,” Gilbert said. “It’ll take us a few minutes to get through the tunnel and up into the grotto.”

“Assuming it even exists,” Mateo pointed out.

“Exactly,” Gilbert agreed.

They all put on their rebreathers and dove into the water. It took them awhile before finding it, but there was indeed what appeared to be a secret tunnel. It could likely not be found by anyone not looking for it. They snaked their way in one by one, and about ten minutes later, were able to surface in the grotto. The walls were covered in some kind of greenish-bluish glowing something or other. It was stunningly beautiful. Leona walked over to the cave wall and examined it. “Glow worms. Like the ones in New Zealand.”

“Are they dangerous?” Mateo asked in fear.

She shrugged. “Might could be. Don’t touch them.”

Gilbert stopped looking at the worms and went back to his map. He turned it around, wrestled with it, and peered closer.

“Do you know where you’re going?” Mateo asked.

“Of course I do,” he said, to their relief. “That was another lie. This is pretty much as far as the map goes. There’s another map, but I was not able to procure it.”

“Well, what are we looking for down here?”

“You’ll see.”

“Stop saying that!”

“Again, I don’t even know why you’re here!” Gilbert yelled. He pointed down the corridor. “I’m going forward. You may leave at any time. But I’m done with your complaints.”

That was actually kind of fair. Kind of. The team pressed on down the corridor. The glow worms never disappeared completely, but there were fewer and fewer of them as they moved. When finally they found themselves in another large chamber, full of twice as many worms as the first, nearly an hour had gone by. Leona’s watch beeped. “It’s time, Mateo. Whatever we’re supposed to do, it will have to wait for next year.”

“What does that mean?” Gilbert asked. “Why do you only show up once a year?”

She ignored him. “Get in the middle of the room. It’ll be the safest place for us.” She and Mateo huddled together and prepared themselves.

Midnight came and went. They were still in the same place, and the team was just staring at them. “Are you two okay?”

“We’re still here!” Leona cried with excitement.

“The cave must be protecting us.”

“Frida is protecting us.”

Gilbert turned his head to get a better listen with his lizard brain. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that.” The sound of rushing water could be heard in the distance, back down the corridor from where they had come, and it was growing closer. “Um...run.”

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Superpowers: Swarm (Part V)

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Not ten years prior to the beginning of Governor Stockton and Federama’s plans to disarm the entire world, Usonia began to interfere in the business of other nations. Even though they were against Federama’s tactics, they were also glad to no longer be the focus of international outcry. The nation that felt the most slighted by Usonia’s persistent military presence was Korea. The great irony during Federama’s grand mission was that the nation with the lowest number of nuclear arms simultaneously had the highest number of military personnel overall. The more nuclear weapons that Federama took from the world, the more powerful Korea became.

To make matters worse, China’s feelings regarding Federama’s mission had not wavered, and they were traditionally close allies with Korea. In fact, China was often noted by scholars as playing a pivotal role in the reunification of Korea into a nation run by a single government. This was a major blow to the original allies of South Korea; Usonia and the United Kingdom in particular. World War IV was on everyone’s minds. If Korea began an aggressive campaign against just about anyone, this war was inevitable, and Federama’s nuclear stockpile would not be enough to stop it. Assuming Stockton’s new peace allies somehow agreed to provide military aid to Usonia and the U.K., Korea’s and China’s forces still outnumbered them two to one.

“Did you not see this coming?” asked Yorick Elder, the prime minister of the United Kingdom. He had traveled to Federama to personally discuss the looming threat.

“You mean, did I predict that Korea would threaten the world with total annihilation? No. Not to this degree, I didn’t.”

“I still presume you have a plan.”

“Why?”

“Because you apparently have thus far.”

“This is different. We’re talking guerilla warfare. I know very little about that. I’ve spent my entire life researching nuclear weapons.”

“What did you think was going to happen?” Elder asked. “You would destroy all nuclear weapons and we would all throw up our hands and agree that peace was the only option? Did you think war was no longer a concept we were capable of fathoming.”

“Well, n...no—” Stockton stammered.

“Because people were doing a fine job killing each other before the Amadesins sent that bomb that killed your family.”

“Now, listen here—”

“No, you listen! You thought you had something here. And I’m sure your final plan for this mission was going to be spectacular, and paradigm-shifting! But you clearly bit off more than you could chew, and had no idea what the world was going to look like for decades to come. You’ve been relying on your painstakingly detailed sneakery, and the global public forum, but now we’re in the nitty gritty. Now someone has made a choice you did not foresee, and you called me in to clean up your mess. You called me instead of President Cross because you figured I would be more likely to help you, and know how to do so.”

Governor Stockton waited with passive-aggressive patience, but then spoke again, “well? Do you know what to do?”

“I do, but you’re not going to like it.”

“What is it?”

“Swarming.”

“Swarming?”

“Swarming.”

“Like bees, or ants?”

“Like soldiers. The only way to overtake the Korean military, and prevent China from coming to their rescue is to swarm the peninsula quickly, efficiently, and chaotically. All borders need to be completely surrounded while strategic strike teams invade central locations—specifically nuclear facilities. Before China has time to react, the swarm is already dispersing. Also, a group of ants is called an army.”

“Even better. Unfortunately, our army is barely larger than Iceland’s Coast Guard. We would never be able to accomplish such a great feat.”

“You’re right. Federama alone would not. Fortunately, you have a hefty list of allies to supplement.”

“That’s a peace alliance. I would never be able to convince them to do this.”

“You could convince India, and they have the third largest military contingency in the world. Of course, we will assist as well, along with Usonia.”

“Really?”

“Don’t look at me like a child who's been given an extra cookie after dinner. Yes, we will be a part of this. Korea is a threat to everyone. In fact, it will be your job to attack the central points. The rest of us will comprise of the swarm.

“The Korean perimeter must be at least 3,000 naykos long!”

“More like 4,000. Your point?”

“My point is that...will this work?”

“It will probably take about five months of secret planning and refinement, but it can work. Our biggest concerns are China and World War IV, yeah?”

“Indeed.”

“Then swarm tactics is our only hope. We have to hit ‘em, and we have to hit ‘em hard before they have a chance to recover.”

“You sound like a Usonian.”

“You take that back!” Elder replied, only half-jokingly.

“Why would this prevent war?” Stockton asked, moving along. “China and Korea still have nearly half of the world’s military personnel, as you’ve pointed out. Combined with Russia, and maybe even Pakistan, they would be unstoppable.”

“Since the three of us will be the only ones with nuclear arms after it happens, we should be able to stave off war,” Elder explained.

Stockton had no answer.

“Ooooooh,” Elder began. “Oh, you still thought that Cross and I were still going to give up our weapons. Yes,” he said sarcastically, “I can see where you would think that. But no, we’re not going to surrender to you. You want our help, you’ll get it. You want our bombs, you get nothing.”

Stockton still had nothing to say.

“I can see the gears turning in your head. You’re trying to figure out how to get our help with disarming Korea, and then disarm us later. But you see, you did that with Pakistan, and it worked beautifully. But fool me once, as they say.”

“I’ll do it.”

“That either means you concede to the dynamic, or you think you can get the upperhand on us later.”

“Yes,” was all that Governor Stockton said.

Prime Minister Yorick Elder’s estimate of five months was much lower than the truth. Negotiating, compromising, and coordinating with the war alliance took twice that much time. One of the members of the peace alliance, Mongolia was asked to mediate peace negotiations with Korea. This not only continued to curry public favor, but also gave the war alliance time to set about their plans. A year after the idea was first conceived, Usonian and British air forces descended on the Sino-Korean border. The Indian Navy was already on their way to the Eastern and Southern coastlines of Korea, under the guise of disaster relief for the Philippines. Somewhat unlikely ally, Japan agreed to swarm Korea’s western coastline.

World War IV did not begin as a result of this assault, but there were a number of casualties on all sides. Federama did their part and sent in strike forces to steal the nuclear weapons from within Korea. They agreed, however, to not kidnap any scientific experts, as they had with Pakistan, China, and Russia. The deaths of Stage Six would go down in history as the biggest argument against the entire mission, but on the whole, it was another successful one. Governor Stockton also agreed to let the United Kingdom and Usonia keep their own nuclear weapons. But he had proverbial crossed his fingers behind his back. There was no way he wasn’t going back on his word on the matter, even if it meant Federama would lose acknowledgement from the Confederacy. There was too much at stake. He knew he had to formulate new plans to remove these weapons; he just didn’t know how. He was ultimately forced to ask for help from someone he had hoped to never see again.

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