Book 1 - Chapter Two

Chapter 2: The Cake is (not) a lie.

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***​I settled in well enough over the next two weeks, unpacking into my smallish but nice enough apartment overlooking the Albion River I had been issued for the next year to help me to cover my basic needs. It had very little furniture; just a cheap but functional bed and a basic chair and table setup with some shelves here and there, but I felt that might have been deliberate. To force me to go out and interact to buy stuff and so on. Rather than just hide up in here.

Janice could really be quite ruthless when she wanted to.

I explored the local area as I brought some of the things I'd need, coming to grips with things like new chains of supermarkets selling both different and familiar food under different brand names. Although I found it both hilarious and heartwarming in equal measure that the Cola wars were still going strong between Coke and Pepsi 1000 years later, bursting out laughing upon seeing both product lines glaring at each other across an aisle, earning me some strange looks from other customers.

I shied away from thinking about the big picture, instead focusing on my more immediate needs. I picked up some equipment; a local cell phone that looked like distant steroid enhanced son of a Nokia 3310. Compared to my iPhone it was clunky at best and highly limited in the functionality (very much 'future of the 80s') … but this 'civilian' device beat out 21st century Milspec hardening. Seriously, it was rated for crazy levels of abuse to the point that extended warranties just weren't a thing! 

I also picked up a computer terminal best described as 'quaint' compared to my gaming rig back home and got it set up. With my existing skills I was able to figure out how to use it quite quickly, although I found it was genuinely was a terminal with little local processing power, with a subscription based business model for access to various mainframes on the planet. It really reminded me of an old school Videotex/Teletex system, just with far rather better graphics.

Nonetheless I was dearly missing google after the first few hours. Cloud computing this was not. Internet it was not. Sigh!

Still it sufficed for my purposes as I continued to do my very best to not make a decision or address the elephant in the room. 

My Knowledge. 

Knowledge that in the hands of various actors could change the lives of trillions of human beings for decades to come, if not longer. With consequences I could scarcely imagine or theorize.

And it didn't help I could see history ticking over simply by turning on my Vid.

Local TV was and wasn't much the same as back home. WIth a mixture of entertainment, news, current affairs and sports. The ten dedicated Solaris channels were extra and NAIS hadn't shelled out for that package for my vid. And if you thought the Brits were bad about stalking the Royal Family for news and scandals, you ain't seen nothing compared to paparazzi in the Neo-Feudal digital age! 

All the major vid stations also had subsidiary stations on distant worlds and/or a whole web of alliances with local stations who fed reports up the HPG chains - some of it even useful. Predictably, a great deal of the real news at the moment was centered on the surprise military exercises Hanse Davion had kicked off, with talking heads either condemning it as an unnecessary expense of theater that risked more conflict, or praising it as a strong message to their enemies. 

There seemed little doubt Liao and Kurita would already have a pretty clear picture on what units were being deployed from press reports alone ... but then I remembered that Hanse Davion had encouraged reporting on Galahad (and later Katrina on Operation Thor), making the Capellans and Combine go crazy with paranoia … only for nothing to happen as they played the 'boy who cried wolf' card in reverse.

And yet, perhaps selfishly, I had been going out of my way to avoid having to make any decisions about what I would do. I like to think I was simply frozen into indecision over the sheer scope of this; the responsibility of so many lives, innocent and not, who would be impacted by any action I took seemed to become more and more clear, the more I came to accept that this was real for me now.

But that all changed two days later.

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​Three weeks had now passed since I left NAIS and I was still mostly spending the days exploring the city, playing tourist and feeling my way forward. Most recently I had spent a considerable amount of time going through the House Davion War Museum. It was, unsurprisingly, massive; with patronage from the ruling family and AFFS making it feel almost a temple to the Federated Suns martial might that the population went to worship at.

No, actually, that's exactly what it was come to think of it.

Even more cool, it had a number of real Battlemechs (very carefully disabled of course with their fusion reactors removed but otherwise authentic) that people could interact with. I had to wait in line for an hour before a retired member of the 1st Davion Guards sat me down in the Jagermech cockpit and it was a 50 pound fee … but it was totally worth it as it ran through a simulated engagement. Although I also wanted to have a go with the ASF simulator and Tank simulator, both were closed down while they were being upgraded, to my disappointment. Still, there were other things to geek out over. Example, the big dome shaped building in the middle of the museum? It housed an honest to god Union - albeit one with significant chunks of the outer hull opened up with this whole scaffold erected around it to allow movement in and out of the ship. It was pretty damn fascinating, let me tell you that. I mean, it's a real honest to god SPACESHIP I was walking all over! And I'm not too proud to admit that I totally waited in line to have my picture taken sitting in the Captain's Chair.

The displays celebrating the war history of the AFFS were extensive and reasonably honest. Even to the point of critiquing the AFFS's poor showing in the earlier 1st Succession War - until Kentares had made them stand up and start fighting like real soldiers, with wall after wall of interactive displays showing enraged AFFS units blasting the DCMS off world after world. No more than a few scant words of course about how the DCMS had half collapsed out of shame when ComStar exploded the news about the massacre across the Inner Sphere. After all, that would have ruined the narrative of the horrified AFFS shaking it off and pushing them back with pure guts and determination alone!

Still, other displays were a little less one sided. Even the reunification war hall, while showing and talking up how brutally the Taurians fought using every dirty tactic in the book, acknowledged that the whole thing had been a mistake on the part of the Great Houses. Best of intentions and all that. With a significant chunk of the blame for the questionable war neatly foisted off onto House Cameron, who were conveniently no longer around to object.

There were also entire chambers filled with trophies of war. Everything from captured unit standards to pieces of equipment from enemies of the AFFS. Examples of everything from captured ISF sneak suits to a Capellan Thrush salvaged from the 'Great Lee Turkey shoot'. Even a handful of examples of SLDF gear from the Pitcairn legions little shadow war with the infamous General Forlough were on display here, with a very much 'david vs goliath' vibe presented about that little side war. Although it really wasn't hard to play the 'white knights' when you were up against fucking Forlough; his very name still a vile curse word in Periphery to this day - according to the displays. Apparently calling someone a 'Forlough' in the Concordant was a good way to be punched in the face.

Anyway, I didn't just play tourist, I also was starting to work on some more practical things. For example, trying to learn French. I regretted I had forgotten pretty much everything from my years of learning it in high school - but it wasn't a time critical activity either. As far as I could tell, everyone spoke perfect English on New Avalon, it was just that if you couldn't speak French it pegged you instantly as both offworld and/or not a member of the nobility or upper-middle class aspiring to become part of it.

Today, after four hours of halting progress with various vid lesson tapes driving me nuts and the time around lunch, I finally decided to hell with it and decided to get some fresh air.

Davion Peace Park was a popular place for people to amble around in Avalon City. It was quite large, similar in concept to something like Central Park in NYC, just much bigger. It wound around the side and back of Mount Davion, separating NAIS, the Davion Palace and Avalon City proper from each other. It also served a dual role as a security barrier for the first two and was often the site of public ceremonies for the ruling family to present awards or announce policies.

Mostly though, it was just a public park.

There were large hillsides for families to throw down a rug and have a picnic or for kids to run around playing games on any number of sport grounds - or clamber over some pretty expansive and extensive playground equipment. There were areas for pets to be let off the leash to run free and lakes for people to play with small little two person boats and such. Inevitably there were any number jogger hoards, mostly in military PT gear it seemed, proudly wearing their units sweatshirts.

I had no intention of exercising though.

I had always enjoyed going to local parks to just sit and relax. Grab some lunch from a nearby joint, find a space and just clear my mind and put aside my worries with some comfort food in the fresh air. I'd never quite had this level of 'worries' to deal with mind you - but the theory was the same. So here I was, having finished my lunch and just chilling on a bench looking out on the artificial (but perfectly natural looking) lake that covered this part of the park. Watching as a people went rowing around in a number of quaint little rowboats and other recreational human powered craft. Married couples, dating couples, groups of family and friends. All enjoying their time here on Friday afternoon.

All utterly unaware how in forty years they or their children or their children's children would watch as their capital was turned into a massive wasteland by the fucking phone companies inbred evil step brother, petulantly raining fire and nukes from orbit because their vaunted clockwork soldiers were simply not good enough to defeat the battle hardened garrison below.

And the troops too, who were everywhere running along the numerous jogging paths wound through the grounds. How many of them would die in the 4th Succession War? Or the 3039 War? Would some survive these tests only to fall as the Clans came rampaging in or live to finally retire … and watch the aforementioned holocaust take place on the heads of their children and grandchildren, after Katherine Steiner threw the mother of all temper tantrums that irrevocably shattered the greatest nation since the Star League?

Unless of course, I decided to do something about it.

Sighing, I pulled a small rock from next to the seat and flung it into the water. It made quite a splash and then the ripples ringed out to have their short lived effect running into further ripples from other activity, all impacting and pushing and changing each other … it was a childish metaphor perhaps yet it seemed to fit my mood right now of the impossibility of knowing if actions taken for the best of intentions were going to make things better or worse. Or if in the long term everything would just even out to nothing.

This really was a hell of a lot easier on the tabletop-

"Good morning Mister Smith!"

Uh ...okay. That was unexpected...

Turning away from my brooding introspection, I looked up at … a stunning young woman. And oh boy do I mean stunning.

I mean think of a young Olivia Wilde as a blond and you'd actually be pretty damn close to who I was staring at right now.

"Good morning Miss…" I fished for a name to buy time as I tried to rally. Two different alarm klaxons were screaming in my head at the same time as she smiled and sat down next to me. After all, very few people knew me on this planet … and none of them looked like they had just walked off the set of New Avalons next top model.

Huh, wonder if that was actually a thing-

"Kym" she again shot me a smile of perfect white teeth as she sat down next to me just a little too close and I inched away, earning a slightly playful smirk and flick of her hair that made my heart jump involuntarily. "Don't worry, I don't bite".

"I'm glad to hear that" I replied even as another four different alarms joined the cacophony in my head. Young, hot, blue eyes, goes by the name of Kym..

No. It couldn't be … it seriously couldn't be … could it?

"Kym…" I hinted carefully and she laughed lightly.

"Sorenson" she smiled at me with devastating dimples.

...crap.

"Ah. John" I held out my hand and she took it, trying to ignore the most pleasant spritzy perfume she was wearing as I wrenched my thoughts distracted by this stunning woman back into the crisis room where they belonged, thinking rapidly. Kym Sorenson - later Kym Sorenson-Hasek. MIIO agent and Countess. Future wife of Morgan Hasek-Davion, whom she had been assigned to watch before falling in love with him after establishing his ironclad loyalty. Unless of course I just butterflied that to hell by having Quintis or Hanse assign her to watch me instead of (eventually) Morgan. Although that wouldn't take place for another year, would it?

Why? Why the hell was she here?

Almost immediately the answer came. The same reason as she was dangled in Morgan's path a year or so down the road.

Honeypot.

A test of loyalty. Or at least, how seriously I took my security warnings-

"Yes I know who you are" she nodded as she studied me - and clearly mistook the the panic in my eyes as my terror that she was about to 'compromise' my secret identity. "I was at NAIS when the … incident happened" she breathed in a secret sort of thrilling way. "I never had any chance to meet you in person afterwards and I've really wanted to talk to you".

Her performance was flawless, I'd give her that. If not for the fact that I already knew who she was, well, I would have probably been willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Even so, I knew what I was supposed to do. One. Stick to my cover story like glue. Two. Head home and report her at once to NAIS security via the number Janice had given me. Three. Understand it never happened.

Wasn't a bad idea, Gods the butterflies that might result from this-

And then, all at once, as I was thinking about the disruption this could -had!- cause/caused, it hit me.

It was blindingly obvious really.

History - the future- had already been changed. By definition. Kym had just proved that. Perhaps only small changes thus far, but who knows what they might cause in the long run? Granted I could try to minimise them … but I could hardly guarantee them - and paradoxically I could only really exert influence to keep the future 'as is' by changing it anyway. And the right butterfly like this one could have second and third order consequences I couldn't possibly anticipate.

And perhaps it was just pure hubris to to think I must.

Watching the lake again as the last of the ripples I had created faded to nothing … I finally came to the only conclusion I know I could have made. Perhaps I had just been pushing it off because I was scared of moving from the 'certainty' of the game universe I knew into the real world. Full of uncertainty. But it was increasingly becoming clear that said 'certainty' was little more than an illusion now.

So. What was holding me back?

Would I be willing to sit on this same bench forty or so years from now, watching as naval weapons fire rained from the sky on NAIS, Mount Davion and Avalon City, followed by hordes of fanatic toaster worshipers unleashing the mother of all tantrums over the fact that the human race didn't bend the knee to their glorious 'Master' plan? Knowing I could have done something but refused to try?

Honestly, the answer was surprisingly clear when I put in those terms. Maybe i was just justifying the decision on some BS grounds … but almost without realizing it I made my choice and set the ripples loose with another stone cast into the water.

"Can I ask you a question Agent Sorenson?" I asked almost casually, regarding the lake and not daring to look at her as I irrevocably started down my chosen path. "Why did you join MIIO? I mean, you're a Countess. Your father is pretty damn rich from his business ventures. You're young, smart, confident, connected and rather more than 'pretty'. You could have easily gone into business. You could have joined the AFFS. You could have gone into politics. But you chose the path of a field agent. So … why?"

To tell the truth, I was actually interested in her answer. But there was also no question that I was really just trying to get her attention (and that of her superiors) in a direct yet -more or less- safe way by casually talking about things I damn well couldn't possibly know.

Still, credit where it was due, it only took her five seconds of dead silence by my count to recover her wits and take up the gauntlet.

"Several reasons actually" she admitted freely, offering me a seemingly casual shrug as I turned back to face her. Kym's gaze and presence were no longer 'airhead', but neither was her gaze suddenly deadly or super serious, affecting a studied nonchalance as if this was merely a mildly amusing turn of events.

Although from the way her eyes were utterly locked onto mine and not moving a fraction of an inch, I had the feeling that casually blowing her cover and identity wide open had gotten her complete and undivided attention. And yet, she was taking a refuge in an equal level of audacity to mine to deal with the situation, facing me on my chosen ground.

But then I shouldn't have been surprised that someone personally tapped by Quintus Allard and Hanse Davion for critical spy work would be bloody good at it.

"My family actually has a proud and long history back through the centuries of working for the intelligence services of the Federated Suns" she continued, swinging around to straddle the bench and fully face me (and get her incredible pencil skirt covered legs in the ideal position to let her launch at me if she needed to, I tried not to notice). "I grew up hearing family stories of their exploits, of the unsung heroes who changed the course of history without anyone ever knowing and all that". Then she actually laughed lightly, at herself. "Although to tell you the truth, when I was younger I got hooked on 'skulk team'; a vid series about a fictional Rabid Fox team fighting week to week battles against Liao and Kurita. I must say I was pretty disappointed that on day one of our training we were made to watch an episode and then write down at least fifty things 'wrong' with it to progress. But then again" she tilted her head at me, "sometimes reality is stranger than fiction".

"Or reality is fiction" I muttered, earning a curious eyebrow from her as I tried to think of how to approach this with her now that I had lit off a nuclear signal flare.

"Perhaps so" she nodded at me. "So Mister Smith, here we are. I think you know the questions I'm going to have to ask you now".

"How?" I guessed and she rolled her eyes almost mockingly to heaven.

"Hardly" she chided me, crossing her arms "The fact that you know things completely impossible for you to know is, of course, rather interesting. And the 'why' is clearly to get the attention of myself and those I work for. Which leads us to the most pertinent question; What do you want?"

Somewhere in the Multiverse, a Shadow was giving her a standing ovation while a Vorlon facepalmed, I just knew it.

"Anyone ever tell you you're as smart as you are stunning?" I asked her with a slightly wry smile.

"Frequently - but you missed your chance for me to practice my seduction techniques when you blew my cover, caveman, so it's too late for flirting" she sniffed, then proceeded to frown and crossed her arms in annoyance with a brief puff of air fluttering her fringe in a distracting cute way. "Which is really quite vexing actually; I spent most of the this morning on standby while we figured out if you were going to come outside where I could casually get to you in public".

"Well I would offer to reschedule for tomorrow, but I have a guess that my free time might have just become slightly restricted. But to answer you question succinctly; I need you to deliver something to Ardan Sortek for me".

"Ardan Sortek" she looked at me, her face clearly faintly amused at the idea of delivering something to Hanse Davion's closest friend and man with probably the greatest soft power in the entire realm. "Really".

"Yes, really" I nodded before glancing down at my bag. "If I might just get it out of my bag?"

"Of course. But, carefully" she advised in a tone that was friendly - and yet edged with seriousness as she uncrossed her arms. Making no sudden movements, I reached down and unzipped the bag, feeling her gaze burning on my neck as I found what I was looking for and slowly, carefully, pulled out my iPad, her gaze following me the whole way (and, I suspect, some crack sniper somewhere up on Mount Davion too…)

"Do you know what this is?" I asked her as I started the iPad powering up.

"Your noteputer - I believe you called it an 'iPad'?"

"Just so" I agreed, angling the screen so she could see easily. "The unlock code is six four three three" I showed her as it finished booting and she nodded once evenly.

"Well I'm sure it's a very impressive bit of hardware - NAIS offered you a considerable sum of cash for it after all. But why would Colonel Sortek want this?"

"It's not the hardware in of itself" I explained, showing her carefully as I opened my ebooks and the single entry that was present. I had systematically transferred everything I could off it and onto my iPhone via BlueTooth (I left the movies and a few TV episodes there for space reasons, hopefully Hanse and Ardan would get a kick out of Game of Thrones), making room by deleting most of the applications on my Phone. Until such time as someone figured out how to transfer files onto a Battletech computer from these things, I had to carefully manage my space.

On the other hand, these two devices were intrinsically secure in a way no other electronics were right now for me. The architecture of the technology was clearly alien to NAIS. I'm sure that the locals could reverse engineer the technology and probably even crack the encryption, but it would take considerable time and effort. Until then, if I locked the iPad with its password engaged, unless someone tortured me, the damn thing was more or less entirely secure.

I did wish that I had more Battletech material of course, but I had hardly known this was going to happen to me. It was mildly vexing; all that money spent on novels, sourcebooks and games and when I needed it...

Still. I had participated in so many Battletech quests and read so many fanfics that I was pretty sure I had most of the key steps down pat in my head (and had been writing copious notes on my iphone, equally secure behind a password).

And this iPad and the single document on it that I had been carrying around with me, in the vague crazy hope of a situation just like this that I knew would never happen. An express postal delivery service to the very top..

"Just go here" I showed her the documents folder "and open this file. It's the only file there. In fact it should be open already when I lock it like so" I said, hitting the lock button at that point and then unlocking it to demonstrate the app already open before I locked it again and handed it out for her to take.

Her eyes for perhaps the first time utterly serious, she regarded me for long seconds before finally, almost grudgingly, she reached out to carefully take the iPad from me.

"Once again" she stated after a slightly uncomfortable silence. "Why exactly would Colonel Sortek want to read this?" she tapped the iPad with a perfectly manicured fingernail, her gaze locked with mine and deadly serious, saying without saying that she needed an answer now before anything happened.

"It's not so much a question of if he wants to read it" I explained carefully, feeling that this question would make or break how this all went. "It's that I need him to read it, without knowing what he is reading in advance. And then afterwards, for he - and probably Hanse Davion too - to make a judgement on if I am utterly crazy or if I am the only sane man in an insane universe". I could see i hadn't exactly convinced her, so I simply shrugged. "I'm sure Quintus will want to review this before he even thinks about placing this in front of those two - and I have no objection. But I feel he also would agree after doing so that it would be better if they reviewed this without any hints. And" I added before it looked like she was about to reply, playing my last card to get the maximum attention. "If none of the above people are convinced by what they read that they think it's worthy of a further meeting with me, then please let me know that they can keep the ipad and do with it as they will as an apology for wasting their time".

That got her attention I could see. In this age of Lostech (even if my iPad really wasn't Lostech per se) simply giving away something like that was a statement of how serious (and how confident) I was about this whole thing. And feeling that there really wasn't anything more to say, I reached down and zipped up my bag, swinging it onto my back and offering her a final, slightly forced smile.

"If they want to meet with me, I'm at their disposal … I'm sure they know exactly where I live" I noted.

I half expected at that point for her to simply wave a hand and half a dozen MI5 or MI6 agents appear from behind bushes or pop out of the lake in scuba gear or something to drag me off to the palace. Or for her to 'invite' me to join her there for further questions. Or that she would play for time for a team to come as she kept frantically hitting some invisible panic buzzer or something.

Instead, almost anticlimactically, Kym Sorenson casually got to her feet, offered me a completely non-committal nod and smile before she started to stroll off, humming casually to herself and instantly looking again like some NAIS college kid out for a stroll.

I wondered a little at that - but then decided not to take any chances. I also left, turning back to head out of the park towards my apartment. I deliberately also forced myself to not look around lest I started to try and pick out anyone following me. Indeed, I made it home without anything abnormal happening, which was slightly surprising given the size of the rock I had just thrown in the general direction of the most powerful people in the Federated Suns.