The ZIL Organization
Club Regular
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2017
If you would like to see my previous missions, the links are here:
Mission 1 (Nigeria) and Mission 2 (Chad) The Zanzibar Organization v01 Mission1 (Nigeria) and Mission2 (Chad)
Mission 3 (Sudan) The Zanzibar Organization v01 Mission3: Sudan
Sugto and Akia were seated at the control area, surrounded by screens.
“We have to discuss cloaking tech,” Akia said. “So far you haven’t activated our cloaking.”
“Well, how much do you know about cloaking?” Sugto returned.
“The Benefactors had some information on the airship for me. I read brief notes on the cloaking ability,” Akia replied. “If we can be cloaked, wouldn’t that have made our airship harder to see?”
Akia was thinking about that last battle against ten Olive Zinas.
So far she had prevailed against the Zinas everytime. But this was not necessarily something that would last. And now that the Zinas had learned about the SPOEX...
Sugto looked conflicted.
“We do have cloaking capabilities,” he replied. “And furthermore, these are very effective on the type of ship we have. Since an airship is always viewed with reference to the clouds and open skies, the weaknesses in cloaking technology aren’t an issue. Something at ground level would find it harder to remain cloaked especially when either it is moving or when surrounding things are moving.”
Sugto spread his hands. “The problem comes because cloaking is just too effective on an airship. We can’t be seen. Which leads to an opposite problem. Because we can’t be seen, it is easy for other fliers or drones to crash into us. And that would puncture our air bladders, leading to loss of buoyancy.”
Akia stroked her chin thoughtfully. “We’re using helium, right?”
“Of course. It’s not fire I’m worried about.”
“Not for me either,” Akia said. “We can’t afford to leak helium because of the cost of reinflation.”
A drone flying through the air bladders was not likely to cause a fire. But if helium leaked, it wouldn’t come back. Helium was the ultimate nonrenewable resource on earth. All helium that leaked was permanently lost to humanity, since the earth’s gravity was not sufficient to retain a light element like helium and it wouldn’t interact with any other element. Unlike hydrogen, which could be retained by fusing with oxygen into water.
Sugto pulled on his pipe-gadget as though he was smoking something.
“I know that drone tech had started even before you went into cryo storage. Nowadays drones are everywhere. Like the kind Heracles Delivery uses, or which deliver Bringto. And in Eastern Africa, they’re really big on hewabodas now – taxis in the sky. So there is a risk of accidents once you get near a populated area.”
“There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” Akia said randomly. “We can’t have the best of all worlds.”
“Yes, we can’t. If I park us really high up and cloak us, it’s reasonably safe. But then we will have to ride the hover platform for a long distance down, others can spot us, and we would be very vulnerable. If I park us low down, our time spent descending via the hover platform would be quite short. But if we cloak at low altitudes, drones will crash into us. If we don’t cloak, we might be easy to shoot from the ground.”
Akia thought a while.
“What about approaching a target cloaked at a high altitude? They can’t see us coming then. But we’ll then park a long way off, and descend on the hover platform out of range of their guns. Hover platform is small, so it’s still easy to avoid being noticed.”
“We’ll have to drive closer then.”
“Yes. But at least we’ll be using standard, nondescript road vehicles. These vehicles issued with the SPOEX are considered nondescript, right?”
“Yes. All very common models with no distinctive features.” This was a lesson learned from the past. The Benefactors did not provide cars and specified no conditions, so Stacy of the ZIL Organization bought a Rolls Royce Phantom for herself.
“So if we drive up, they may see people coming, but they won’t know that it is us. If they saw our big airship coming, they would know it is us from a long way off.”
“We can do that,” Sugto replied. “But I think the best solution lies in the long term. When we have more teammates, we can leave one or even two people to defend the airship when the rest of us are on a mission.”
“I agree,” Akia said readily.
“Awesome, isn’t it?” Maya showed Noir the gym.
“I can’t believe it! Exercising in the clouds!” Noir had a look of unrestrained delight as she ran to the side and looked out. “This is the most incredible gym ever!”
“You haven’t seen this,” Maya went to a particular spot. “Here, help me move the tatamis.”
The two pulled out a tatami mat from its location. This one was colored differently from the other tatamis.
“Oh my...” Noir could not control herself. It was a transparent window on the underside of the airship. The view was superb from here!
“Is this all over...” Noir’s eyes swept over the gym floor.
“Not the entire floor. Just specific places. They have places like this all over the SPOEX,” Maya said happily. “So in a situation where our exterior cameras are not working and we have to steer manually, we still can look below.
The two chatted happily. They were very different people, but Noir was easy to get along with. So Maya felt happy at this. Sugto was not just a man; he was quite an impressive man. His dress, his coolness, his tech skills, his combat prowess all made it hard for Maya to feel she was on par with him as a colleague. Akia was from another time; she was hard to know, and she was quite opinionated and sometimes harshly judgmental so Maya didn’t always like Akia.
Somehow the conversation turned into one of competition. They didn’t mind testing each other out. Whereas Maya would never try a friendly competition with Akia.
After Noir checked out her room and took a new outfit from her wardrobe, Maya and Noir tried out their friendly competiton. They did all kinds of stuff to see who was better. They did floor exercises, headstands, vaulting, pole dancing...
Noir demonstrated her flexibility.
“I’m sure I can do that as well as you!” Maya bent her lithe, trim little body backwards. “See, you’re not the only dancer and gymnast!”
Then Maya thought...
“Let’s have an ice cream eating competition instead! We’ve got loads of ice cream on board!”
Noir grinned helplessly. “I must concede, sorry!”
For someone who needed to stay agile and limber like Noir, every gram of weight had to be watched carefully.
“OK, now with four of us, what next?” Noir asked at dinner. “I understand we’re supposed to have a roster of seven?”
“It depends on the Benefactors. They will tell us when is the right time,” Akia said.
Noir lowered her head. Her own conversation with her Benefactors had been an intense one. Knowing that these meetings could be emotionally draining, Akia had closed off the area when Noir was meeting her Benefactors. But once the session was over, the doors automatically unlocked, and Noir could not change the fact that her eyes were visibly red. Akia was leader enough to look away from Noir and not say anything when Noir passed her in the corridor. But now Noir felt a little embarassed when Akia mentioned the Benefactors.
Sugto might have noticed Noir’s expression, because he quickly provided a new topic. “I’m setting course on a generally Eastwards direction. I get it that we’ll be expected to rescue a teammate in the middle of continental Asia sometime.”
“We still have things to do in Africa,” Akia closed her eyes and lowered her head. She wasn’t praying. She was thinking.
...
Akia breathed.
...
Suddenly she raised her head.
"I haven't asked. But how is everyone with the atmosphere?"
"Atmosphere..." Noir wanted to say that she felt comfortable in the SPOEX as everyone was friendly. But it didn't seem to be what Akia was trying to get at.
"I mean, air. The air we breathe," Akia repeated.
"Uh, we can breathe the air. What's wrong? Are you smelling weird fumes?"
Sugto got it. "I think Akia is asking about altitude sickness. We're passing over Ethiopia at 2.5km altitude now, and will exceed 3km before the night is over."
"The highveld is all above 1.5km. I'm used to altitude," Maya said.
Akia's eyes flicked over to Maya briefly. Her facial expression did not change, but now Akia's mind was figuring things out. Maya had never said which part of South Africa she came from, and Akia had not asked. However, any social scientist knows how to read population distribution maps. Odds were now over 50% that Maya came from Gauteng province. If Maya had been Jewish, odds would probably be around 99%.
"I think all that travelling at 1-2km altitude for the past couple weeks has helped me acclimatize," Sugto said. "I don't feel weak or giddy."
"I'm all right," Noir said. "My nose really helps."
Everyone could not help but look at Noir's nose, which was like any other part of her body: Long.
"What's the matter?" Noir asked cheerily. "A bigger nose helps me take in more oxygen. It's good against altitude sickness, you know!"
Not having a similar nose, Akia could not tell whether Noir was joking or serious. Middle Easterners were normally quite sensitive about the sizes of their noses compared with other races, but Noir hadn't grown up worrying about such things. Her community had always been more concerned about being murdered by other Middle Easterners than with whatever trifling opinion other races of people had about their physical features.
"Anyone feel that they can't undertake physical activity at this altitude?" Akia asked.
Everyone indicated they could handle it. They had all been working out in the gym.
If her team was all right, Akia could accept missions in the Ethiopian highlands right away. Every day brought more notices of proposed missions, most too far or out of the scope of their current capabilities. But tomorrow...
“There’s something we can do tomorrow,” Akia said. “And it involves arms.”
“What kind of arms?”
“Firearms. The lethal kind.”
“Ugh,” Maya said as she put down her bowl of kolo flavored ice cream. “We’ve been lucky so far, but I hate it.”
“The people whom the firearms are being aimed at, would hate it even more.”
“All right, so where?”
“The nearest conflict zone from our current location. Northwestern Ethiopia, Region 3.”
“Oh, that,” Maya knew what Akia was talking about. It was called the Amhara Region in her time. Then because of the ongoing civil war, the central Ethiopian government spitefully stripped off the name Amhara, and insisted on reusing an older designation for that area again.
“Ethiopia is a disappointment to me,” Akia said. “Last I remembered as an adult in the 2010s, they were having stability and economic growth and all that. Now I come back from cryo, and they’ve been having civil war for the past 30 years. They’ve regressed to where they were when I was a kid.”
“The central government wanted more control, the regions started to resent it. Happens everywhere.” Sugto said with equanimity.
“Yes, but this is a civil disturbance,” Akia complained. “Should have been stopped with taser gel weapons. It’s disgusting that their government is calling it a civil WAR. And therefore using lead bullets.”
"You were in cryo by the year 2020?" Maya asked.
"Yes."
"So you haven't seen what happened," Maya said and sighed. "Genocide as usual. Our lovely continent." Maya rolled her eyes to the ceiling.
Noir sat back in her chair. She threw her long arms behind the chair, and spread her legs out wide in a position both relaxed and utterly pornographic. Noir didn’t really seem to care if anybody might look up her miniskirt.
“I can’t say I have too much sympathy for the Amharas,” Noir said.
“Why? You hate them?” Maya asked.
Noir made a face. “I can’t say too many good things about people who stand by while their fellow citizens are being oppressed.”
“Maybe you want to tell our leader about this history,” Maya said with a grin. She was going to use Noir to one-up Akia.
Noir didn’t pick up Maya’s intention, and Akia looked neutral, so Noir spoke up.
“In the late 2010s, Ethiopia got a new leader. He started oppressing the Oromos, Ethiopia’s biggest ethnic group. Nobody sided with the Oromos. Nobody wanted the Oromos to get too strong because they were already the biggest group. Then in the 2020s, the Tigrayans started defying the Federal government. They were brutally suppressed, with lots of atrocities. In the 2030s, Muslim fundamentalists among the Somalis made trouble, so they were crushed. Wasn’t pleasant at all; nearly led to holy war in the Horn of Africa. After that it was the turn of Gambela in western Ethiopia, where the lowland Anuak had simmering problems with the highland Ethiopians for decades. Plenty blood got spilled too, to make sure the highlanders got their way.”
Noir sat closer and put a clenched fist on the table.
“So far, the main people, the defining people you could call it, of Ethiopia, the Amhara, had never been suppressed. After all, as the people who have been the core of Ethiopia throughout history, their loyalty was never in question. So when the central government was beating down regional identities, the Amhara didn’t get singled out. But in the 2040s, Amharic politicians started having differences with the central government also."
Noir paused and looked at Akia. Noir wasn't all that used to working under a leader, and she was wondering about the extent of Akia's knowledge and analytical capabilities.
After all, this was a political risk consultancy. Individual members of a consultancy might stay focused on individual countries or regions or themes. The leader of the consultancy must keep up to date on current affairs, and be well versed with the politics of the world.
"You want my response?" Akia asked.
"Yes. You're our leader, after all," Noir responded casually.
"You know I only just came out of cryo storage. I haven't had enough time to catch up on global events and history for the past 30 years."
Noir held up both hands, palms up. "Just try filling in the blanks with what you know?"
Maya leaned forward, her eyes swivelling between Noir and Akia. This wasn't really a fair question. Yet Noir's challenge was quite reasonable too. If Akia had a strong knowledge base, she could make good informed guesses.
Akia considered events that happened in the years before she was put into cryo.
In the early 21st century, the Kingdom of Spain was rocked by successive political crises in Catalunya. Spain originated as a dual monarchy that fused the thrones of Castile and Aragon. As the core of the former Kingdom of Aragon, the Catalans had been an integral part of Spain from the very beginning. But they consistently contributed far more to Madrid's coffers than they got in return. So they felt mistreated, and wanted to leave Spain.
Such a thing was unacceptable to Madrid, so they used force to suppress the local Catalans...
"From my understanding," Akia responded, "Amhara is one of the more homogenous and stable parts of Ethiopia. The ethnic group, culture, language and so on are long established. So when the rest of the country had disturbances, they didn’t. While the rest of Ethiopia got mired in one conflict after another that destroyed progress and set them back, the economy of the Amhara region grew steadily. Furthermore, they get like 80% of Ethiopia’s rainfall. In an era of climate change, that is a gigantic economic advantage.
After a few decades like this, Amhara turned into the Federal government’s main cash cow, which Addis Ababa milked for war funds. And since Ethiopia was always at war with itself, it was costly. The Amharas got fed up, which explains their differences with the central government?”
Noir sat back and stretched her long legs out and wide apart again, not caring if her skirt was short and her panties were showing. "Whew, you got that all right. Did you read about this?"
"Nope," Akia replied. "But I did glance at an article about Catalunya. Seems that they're still an uneasy part of Spain in 2050. Protests and political crises flare up cyclically, after which Madrid sends in police and zaps everyone.
This entire taser gel ecosystem, has made it so easy for governments everywhere to shoot local demonstrators instead of addressing their concerns."
...
Silence fell. Except for Akia, the other ZZO members had grown up in a world where taser gel weapons were used against protesters and demonstrators all the time. To them, getting shot with taser gel was normal. Nobody's human rights were violated.
...
“So what is the mission?” Sugto asked.
“Stopping an arms shipment.” The messages actually asked for ‘interference’, so the job scope could be much bigger depending on whether the ZZO members were willing. ‘Stopping’ was Akia’s choice of words.
“And are we going to get paid?” Sugto asked.
“Nope. It’s just a ‘do the right thing’ kind of request.”
“Can we do the right thing and make some money?” Sugto asked.
“Thanks to the solar energy, we have not incurred any fuel expenses so far,” Akia pointed out. “And we still have months of food on board. All supplied to us Free of Charge from the Benefactors. We don’t need money for now.”
Noir raised a long arm, her fingers pointing to the ceiling. "Firearms are the worst. I vote for stopping this arms shipment. And more. Let’s blow up all these disgusting firearms with the captured ammo.”
“I also hate crap people who would shoot other people for personal profit,” Maya said. “But I'm not sure what we're getting ourselves into. Can we just monitor the situation first?"
"Maya's right," Akia said. "We don't have to vote yet. We'll take the information provided by the prospective client, and look into things."
Sugto put on a smile and made a gesture of acquiscience.
“I defer to the views of lovely ladies,” he said.
“Now you’re talking,” Noir replied cheerily.
The members of the ZZO split up to take care of different issues. Sugto went to the armory, Noir to the garage, and Maya to the computers. Akia frowned and thought to herself.
Ethiopia occupied a special status in African minds. Partly because it was never colonized, and partly due to its long and continuous civilization, it was seen as a unique and ancient expression of black African identity. The longevity of the Ethiopian state also made it the natural headquarters for many important African organizations, such as the African Union.
Ever the independent thinker – or nonconformist, Akia had her own take on Ethiopia. She always felt that Ethiopian political culture was flawed, and that it set a bad example for the rest of Africa. Despite the end of the Ethiopian monarchy, Addis Ababa still functioned like an imperial capital. Whoever gained power in Addis Ababa became part of this political culture: wedded to the notion of central authority, and intolerant of regional identities. The Ethiopian leader who had oppressed the Oromos was himself an Oromo. Just like a majority of Soviet leaders were not ethnic Russians, but still insisted on imposing central authority on the regions with brutality.
Akia believed that if the Ethiopians could work out a more democratic and decentralized political system, it might set a positive model for other Africans to follow. But as long as Ethiopia, black Africa’s oldest nation, kept responding to regional grievances with overbearing force, it made the use of force seem acceptable to other African governments.
The first truck came to a halt along the mountain road. The navigation computer automatically broadcast a stop order to the rest of the convoy, so all trucks stopped at the same time.
“There’s lots of people blocking the way,” the designated driver of the first truck said into the shared announcement system. She was dressed in a Blue Zina uniform.
The Blue Zina commander beside the driver clenched a gloved fist, as she read out a translated speech on her personal screen.
“Local peasants, led by their priest, are calling for an end to war. And no more firearms!”
The Blue Zina commander got off the truck. Her already extremely short skirt rode further up her hips as she slid off her seat and stepped down from the truck. Zinas didn't mind if their skirts rode up to their waists. After all, it would please their master very much.
“Attention peasants,” the commander called out, and her voice was picked up by the truck, translated and broadcast over the speaker system. “Stop blocking our way.”
The peasants did not comply.
The priest came forward and said more things.
The commander spoke back.
The terse exchange continued for another minute, but it was clear that the people were strongly opposed to the supply of munitions flowing into this region.
“Blue Zinas!” The Blue Zina commander waved her hand. One Blue Zina emerged from every truck, taser rifles in hand.
“Switch to auto!” This was done accordingly.
“Fire!”
The Blue Zinas opened fire on the peasant demonstrators who collapsed immediately. The priest was shot in the forehead and belly, and he collapsed too.
...
“Clear the garbage!” The Blue Zina commander called out. There was a whirling sound, as the front truck automatically unfolded and lowered a boom. This opened up into a sweep that had channels to the side. The bodies of fallen peasants would be pushed to the side as the truck went through them.
Although the truck would be operated at a very low speed, this was probably the most unpleasant aspect of clearance and unblocking operations. Demonstrators and protestors would be tasered, left unable to resist, after which vehicles would simply push them to the sides of the road in a very uncomfortable manner. It didn’t result in serious injury, but anybody treated in this manner would really feel humiliated.
Far above where the Blue Zinas were conducting their clearance and unblocking ops, Noir and Maya were looking through one of the transparent floor portals on the airship.
Confident because they held weapons, the Blue Zinas conducted themselves in a really mean spirited way. One or two Blue Zinas kicked hapless peasants on the ground. One put her foot on a peasant’s back for no apparent reason than to grandstand. Yet another Blue Zina walked straight up to a handsome male peasant and stepped on his face with one foot. She probably wanted to give him a tantalizing glimpse up her skirt, and to humiliate him since he couldn’t move.
“Zinas again!” Noir hissed. “Outrageous!”
“We’ll really make them pay,” Maya promised.
Below, a Blue Zina plopped herself on a man’s chest as though he was a seat. Another Blue Zina seemed to have stepped on something, and she cleaned her shoes on an elderly female peasant’s clothes.
A Blue Zina squatted in an obscene position over a hapless young man in a white shirt. Due to the squatting action, her skirt rode up to her waist. The Zina reached down to move something aside, then the young man's white shirt started changing color.
"I didn't see that," Noir said, shaking her head. "I didn't want to see that."
"It's just water sports," Sugto grinned sarcastically. "That Blue Zina could have done worse."
Remembering her previous experience with Zinas in Borno State, Nigeria, Maya cursed: "Our continent is not your toilet!"
Mission 1 (Nigeria) and Mission 2 (Chad) The Zanzibar Organization v01 Mission1 (Nigeria) and Mission2 (Chad)
Mission 3 (Sudan) The Zanzibar Organization v01 Mission3: Sudan
The Zanzibar Organization v01 Mission4 Chapter1: Ethiopia
Cloaking Technology
Sugto and Akia were seated at the control area, surrounded by screens.
“We have to discuss cloaking tech,” Akia said. “So far you haven’t activated our cloaking.”
“Well, how much do you know about cloaking?” Sugto returned.
“The Benefactors had some information on the airship for me. I read brief notes on the cloaking ability,” Akia replied. “If we can be cloaked, wouldn’t that have made our airship harder to see?”
Akia was thinking about that last battle against ten Olive Zinas.
So far she had prevailed against the Zinas everytime. But this was not necessarily something that would last. And now that the Zinas had learned about the SPOEX...
Sugto looked conflicted.
“We do have cloaking capabilities,” he replied. “And furthermore, these are very effective on the type of ship we have. Since an airship is always viewed with reference to the clouds and open skies, the weaknesses in cloaking technology aren’t an issue. Something at ground level would find it harder to remain cloaked especially when either it is moving or when surrounding things are moving.”
Sugto spread his hands. “The problem comes because cloaking is just too effective on an airship. We can’t be seen. Which leads to an opposite problem. Because we can’t be seen, it is easy for other fliers or drones to crash into us. And that would puncture our air bladders, leading to loss of buoyancy.”
Akia stroked her chin thoughtfully. “We’re using helium, right?”
“Of course. It’s not fire I’m worried about.”
“Not for me either,” Akia said. “We can’t afford to leak helium because of the cost of reinflation.”
A drone flying through the air bladders was not likely to cause a fire. But if helium leaked, it wouldn’t come back. Helium was the ultimate nonrenewable resource on earth. All helium that leaked was permanently lost to humanity, since the earth’s gravity was not sufficient to retain a light element like helium and it wouldn’t interact with any other element. Unlike hydrogen, which could be retained by fusing with oxygen into water.
Sugto pulled on his pipe-gadget as though he was smoking something.
“I know that drone tech had started even before you went into cryo storage. Nowadays drones are everywhere. Like the kind Heracles Delivery uses, or which deliver Bringto. And in Eastern Africa, they’re really big on hewabodas now – taxis in the sky. So there is a risk of accidents once you get near a populated area.”
“There’s no such thing as a free lunch,” Akia said randomly. “We can’t have the best of all worlds.”
“Yes, we can’t. If I park us really high up and cloak us, it’s reasonably safe. But then we will have to ride the hover platform for a long distance down, others can spot us, and we would be very vulnerable. If I park us low down, our time spent descending via the hover platform would be quite short. But if we cloak at low altitudes, drones will crash into us. If we don’t cloak, we might be easy to shoot from the ground.”
Akia thought a while.
“What about approaching a target cloaked at a high altitude? They can’t see us coming then. But we’ll then park a long way off, and descend on the hover platform out of range of their guns. Hover platform is small, so it’s still easy to avoid being noticed.”
“We’ll have to drive closer then.”
“Yes. But at least we’ll be using standard, nondescript road vehicles. These vehicles issued with the SPOEX are considered nondescript, right?”
“Yes. All very common models with no distinctive features.” This was a lesson learned from the past. The Benefactors did not provide cars and specified no conditions, so Stacy of the ZIL Organization bought a Rolls Royce Phantom for herself.
“So if we drive up, they may see people coming, but they won’t know that it is us. If they saw our big airship coming, they would know it is us from a long way off.”
“We can do that,” Sugto replied. “But I think the best solution lies in the long term. When we have more teammates, we can leave one or even two people to defend the airship when the rest of us are on a mission.”
“I agree,” Akia said readily.
The Gym
“Awesome, isn’t it?” Maya showed Noir the gym.
“I can’t believe it! Exercising in the clouds!” Noir had a look of unrestrained delight as she ran to the side and looked out. “This is the most incredible gym ever!”
“You haven’t seen this,” Maya went to a particular spot. “Here, help me move the tatamis.”
The two pulled out a tatami mat from its location. This one was colored differently from the other tatamis.
“Oh my...” Noir could not control herself. It was a transparent window on the underside of the airship. The view was superb from here!
“Is this all over...” Noir’s eyes swept over the gym floor.
“Not the entire floor. Just specific places. They have places like this all over the SPOEX,” Maya said happily. “So in a situation where our exterior cameras are not working and we have to steer manually, we still can look below.
The two chatted happily. They were very different people, but Noir was easy to get along with. So Maya felt happy at this. Sugto was not just a man; he was quite an impressive man. His dress, his coolness, his tech skills, his combat prowess all made it hard for Maya to feel she was on par with him as a colleague. Akia was from another time; she was hard to know, and she was quite opinionated and sometimes harshly judgmental so Maya didn’t always like Akia.
Somehow the conversation turned into one of competition. They didn’t mind testing each other out. Whereas Maya would never try a friendly competition with Akia.
After Noir checked out her room and took a new outfit from her wardrobe, Maya and Noir tried out their friendly competiton. They did all kinds of stuff to see who was better. They did floor exercises, headstands, vaulting, pole dancing...
Noir demonstrated her flexibility.
“I’m sure I can do that as well as you!” Maya bent her lithe, trim little body backwards. “See, you’re not the only dancer and gymnast!”
Then Maya thought...
“Let’s have an ice cream eating competition instead! We’ve got loads of ice cream on board!”
Noir grinned helplessly. “I must concede, sorry!”
For someone who needed to stay agile and limber like Noir, every gram of weight had to be watched carefully.
Region 3 (Formerly Amhara Region)
“OK, now with four of us, what next?” Noir asked at dinner. “I understand we’re supposed to have a roster of seven?”
“It depends on the Benefactors. They will tell us when is the right time,” Akia said.
Noir lowered her head. Her own conversation with her Benefactors had been an intense one. Knowing that these meetings could be emotionally draining, Akia had closed off the area when Noir was meeting her Benefactors. But once the session was over, the doors automatically unlocked, and Noir could not change the fact that her eyes were visibly red. Akia was leader enough to look away from Noir and not say anything when Noir passed her in the corridor. But now Noir felt a little embarassed when Akia mentioned the Benefactors.
Sugto might have noticed Noir’s expression, because he quickly provided a new topic. “I’m setting course on a generally Eastwards direction. I get it that we’ll be expected to rescue a teammate in the middle of continental Asia sometime.”
“We still have things to do in Africa,” Akia closed her eyes and lowered her head. She wasn’t praying. She was thinking.
...
Akia breathed.
...
Suddenly she raised her head.
"I haven't asked. But how is everyone with the atmosphere?"
"Atmosphere..." Noir wanted to say that she felt comfortable in the SPOEX as everyone was friendly. But it didn't seem to be what Akia was trying to get at.
"I mean, air. The air we breathe," Akia repeated.
"Uh, we can breathe the air. What's wrong? Are you smelling weird fumes?"
Sugto got it. "I think Akia is asking about altitude sickness. We're passing over Ethiopia at 2.5km altitude now, and will exceed 3km before the night is over."
"The highveld is all above 1.5km. I'm used to altitude," Maya said.
Akia's eyes flicked over to Maya briefly. Her facial expression did not change, but now Akia's mind was figuring things out. Maya had never said which part of South Africa she came from, and Akia had not asked. However, any social scientist knows how to read population distribution maps. Odds were now over 50% that Maya came from Gauteng province. If Maya had been Jewish, odds would probably be around 99%.
"I think all that travelling at 1-2km altitude for the past couple weeks has helped me acclimatize," Sugto said. "I don't feel weak or giddy."
"I'm all right," Noir said. "My nose really helps."
Everyone could not help but look at Noir's nose, which was like any other part of her body: Long.
"What's the matter?" Noir asked cheerily. "A bigger nose helps me take in more oxygen. It's good against altitude sickness, you know!"
Not having a similar nose, Akia could not tell whether Noir was joking or serious. Middle Easterners were normally quite sensitive about the sizes of their noses compared with other races, but Noir hadn't grown up worrying about such things. Her community had always been more concerned about being murdered by other Middle Easterners than with whatever trifling opinion other races of people had about their physical features.
"Anyone feel that they can't undertake physical activity at this altitude?" Akia asked.
Everyone indicated they could handle it. They had all been working out in the gym.
If her team was all right, Akia could accept missions in the Ethiopian highlands right away. Every day brought more notices of proposed missions, most too far or out of the scope of their current capabilities. But tomorrow...
“There’s something we can do tomorrow,” Akia said. “And it involves arms.”
“What kind of arms?”
“Firearms. The lethal kind.”
“Ugh,” Maya said as she put down her bowl of kolo flavored ice cream. “We’ve been lucky so far, but I hate it.”
“The people whom the firearms are being aimed at, would hate it even more.”
“All right, so where?”
“The nearest conflict zone from our current location. Northwestern Ethiopia, Region 3.”
“Oh, that,” Maya knew what Akia was talking about. It was called the Amhara Region in her time. Then because of the ongoing civil war, the central Ethiopian government spitefully stripped off the name Amhara, and insisted on reusing an older designation for that area again.
“Ethiopia is a disappointment to me,” Akia said. “Last I remembered as an adult in the 2010s, they were having stability and economic growth and all that. Now I come back from cryo, and they’ve been having civil war for the past 30 years. They’ve regressed to where they were when I was a kid.”
“The central government wanted more control, the regions started to resent it. Happens everywhere.” Sugto said with equanimity.
“Yes, but this is a civil disturbance,” Akia complained. “Should have been stopped with taser gel weapons. It’s disgusting that their government is calling it a civil WAR. And therefore using lead bullets.”
"You were in cryo by the year 2020?" Maya asked.
"Yes."
"So you haven't seen what happened," Maya said and sighed. "Genocide as usual. Our lovely continent." Maya rolled her eyes to the ceiling.
Noir sat back in her chair. She threw her long arms behind the chair, and spread her legs out wide in a position both relaxed and utterly pornographic. Noir didn’t really seem to care if anybody might look up her miniskirt.
“I can’t say I have too much sympathy for the Amharas,” Noir said.
“Why? You hate them?” Maya asked.
Noir made a face. “I can’t say too many good things about people who stand by while their fellow citizens are being oppressed.”
“Maybe you want to tell our leader about this history,” Maya said with a grin. She was going to use Noir to one-up Akia.
Noir didn’t pick up Maya’s intention, and Akia looked neutral, so Noir spoke up.
“In the late 2010s, Ethiopia got a new leader. He started oppressing the Oromos, Ethiopia’s biggest ethnic group. Nobody sided with the Oromos. Nobody wanted the Oromos to get too strong because they were already the biggest group. Then in the 2020s, the Tigrayans started defying the Federal government. They were brutally suppressed, with lots of atrocities. In the 2030s, Muslim fundamentalists among the Somalis made trouble, so they were crushed. Wasn’t pleasant at all; nearly led to holy war in the Horn of Africa. After that it was the turn of Gambela in western Ethiopia, where the lowland Anuak had simmering problems with the highland Ethiopians for decades. Plenty blood got spilled too, to make sure the highlanders got their way.”
Noir sat closer and put a clenched fist on the table.
“So far, the main people, the defining people you could call it, of Ethiopia, the Amhara, had never been suppressed. After all, as the people who have been the core of Ethiopia throughout history, their loyalty was never in question. So when the central government was beating down regional identities, the Amhara didn’t get singled out. But in the 2040s, Amharic politicians started having differences with the central government also."
Noir paused and looked at Akia. Noir wasn't all that used to working under a leader, and she was wondering about the extent of Akia's knowledge and analytical capabilities.
After all, this was a political risk consultancy. Individual members of a consultancy might stay focused on individual countries or regions or themes. The leader of the consultancy must keep up to date on current affairs, and be well versed with the politics of the world.
"You want my response?" Akia asked.
"Yes. You're our leader, after all," Noir responded casually.
"You know I only just came out of cryo storage. I haven't had enough time to catch up on global events and history for the past 30 years."
Noir held up both hands, palms up. "Just try filling in the blanks with what you know?"
Maya leaned forward, her eyes swivelling between Noir and Akia. This wasn't really a fair question. Yet Noir's challenge was quite reasonable too. If Akia had a strong knowledge base, she could make good informed guesses.
Akia considered events that happened in the years before she was put into cryo.
In the early 21st century, the Kingdom of Spain was rocked by successive political crises in Catalunya. Spain originated as a dual monarchy that fused the thrones of Castile and Aragon. As the core of the former Kingdom of Aragon, the Catalans had been an integral part of Spain from the very beginning. But they consistently contributed far more to Madrid's coffers than they got in return. So they felt mistreated, and wanted to leave Spain.
Such a thing was unacceptable to Madrid, so they used force to suppress the local Catalans...
"From my understanding," Akia responded, "Amhara is one of the more homogenous and stable parts of Ethiopia. The ethnic group, culture, language and so on are long established. So when the rest of the country had disturbances, they didn’t. While the rest of Ethiopia got mired in one conflict after another that destroyed progress and set them back, the economy of the Amhara region grew steadily. Furthermore, they get like 80% of Ethiopia’s rainfall. In an era of climate change, that is a gigantic economic advantage.
After a few decades like this, Amhara turned into the Federal government’s main cash cow, which Addis Ababa milked for war funds. And since Ethiopia was always at war with itself, it was costly. The Amharas got fed up, which explains their differences with the central government?”
Noir sat back and stretched her long legs out and wide apart again, not caring if her skirt was short and her panties were showing. "Whew, you got that all right. Did you read about this?"
"Nope," Akia replied. "But I did glance at an article about Catalunya. Seems that they're still an uneasy part of Spain in 2050. Protests and political crises flare up cyclically, after which Madrid sends in police and zaps everyone.
This entire taser gel ecosystem, has made it so easy for governments everywhere to shoot local demonstrators instead of addressing their concerns."
...
Silence fell. Except for Akia, the other ZZO members had grown up in a world where taser gel weapons were used against protesters and demonstrators all the time. To them, getting shot with taser gel was normal. Nobody's human rights were violated.
...
“So what is the mission?” Sugto asked.
“Stopping an arms shipment.” The messages actually asked for ‘interference’, so the job scope could be much bigger depending on whether the ZZO members were willing. ‘Stopping’ was Akia’s choice of words.
“And are we going to get paid?” Sugto asked.
“Nope. It’s just a ‘do the right thing’ kind of request.”
“Can we do the right thing and make some money?” Sugto asked.
“Thanks to the solar energy, we have not incurred any fuel expenses so far,” Akia pointed out. “And we still have months of food on board. All supplied to us Free of Charge from the Benefactors. We don’t need money for now.”
Noir raised a long arm, her fingers pointing to the ceiling. "Firearms are the worst. I vote for stopping this arms shipment. And more. Let’s blow up all these disgusting firearms with the captured ammo.”
“I also hate crap people who would shoot other people for personal profit,” Maya said. “But I'm not sure what we're getting ourselves into. Can we just monitor the situation first?"
"Maya's right," Akia said. "We don't have to vote yet. We'll take the information provided by the prospective client, and look into things."
Sugto put on a smile and made a gesture of acquiscience.
“I defer to the views of lovely ladies,” he said.
“Now you’re talking,” Noir replied cheerily.
The members of the ZZO split up to take care of different issues. Sugto went to the armory, Noir to the garage, and Maya to the computers. Akia frowned and thought to herself.
Ethiopia occupied a special status in African minds. Partly because it was never colonized, and partly due to its long and continuous civilization, it was seen as a unique and ancient expression of black African identity. The longevity of the Ethiopian state also made it the natural headquarters for many important African organizations, such as the African Union.
Ever the independent thinker – or nonconformist, Akia had her own take on Ethiopia. She always felt that Ethiopian political culture was flawed, and that it set a bad example for the rest of Africa. Despite the end of the Ethiopian monarchy, Addis Ababa still functioned like an imperial capital. Whoever gained power in Addis Ababa became part of this political culture: wedded to the notion of central authority, and intolerant of regional identities. The Ethiopian leader who had oppressed the Oromos was himself an Oromo. Just like a majority of Soviet leaders were not ethnic Russians, but still insisted on imposing central authority on the regions with brutality.
Akia believed that if the Ethiopians could work out a more democratic and decentralized political system, it might set a positive model for other Africans to follow. But as long as Ethiopia, black Africa’s oldest nation, kept responding to regional grievances with overbearing force, it made the use of force seem acceptable to other African governments.
Transporting Firearms
The first truck came to a halt along the mountain road. The navigation computer automatically broadcast a stop order to the rest of the convoy, so all trucks stopped at the same time.
“There’s lots of people blocking the way,” the designated driver of the first truck said into the shared announcement system. She was dressed in a Blue Zina uniform.
The Blue Zina commander beside the driver clenched a gloved fist, as she read out a translated speech on her personal screen.
“Local peasants, led by their priest, are calling for an end to war. And no more firearms!”
The Blue Zina commander got off the truck. Her already extremely short skirt rode further up her hips as she slid off her seat and stepped down from the truck. Zinas didn't mind if their skirts rode up to their waists. After all, it would please their master very much.
“Attention peasants,” the commander called out, and her voice was picked up by the truck, translated and broadcast over the speaker system. “Stop blocking our way.”
The peasants did not comply.
The priest came forward and said more things.
The commander spoke back.
The terse exchange continued for another minute, but it was clear that the people were strongly opposed to the supply of munitions flowing into this region.
“Blue Zinas!” The Blue Zina commander waved her hand. One Blue Zina emerged from every truck, taser rifles in hand.
“Switch to auto!” This was done accordingly.
“Fire!”
The Blue Zinas opened fire on the peasant demonstrators who collapsed immediately. The priest was shot in the forehead and belly, and he collapsed too.
...
“Clear the garbage!” The Blue Zina commander called out. There was a whirling sound, as the front truck automatically unfolded and lowered a boom. This opened up into a sweep that had channels to the side. The bodies of fallen peasants would be pushed to the side as the truck went through them.
Although the truck would be operated at a very low speed, this was probably the most unpleasant aspect of clearance and unblocking operations. Demonstrators and protestors would be tasered, left unable to resist, after which vehicles would simply push them to the sides of the road in a very uncomfortable manner. It didn’t result in serious injury, but anybody treated in this manner would really feel humiliated.
ZZOrg
Far above where the Blue Zinas were conducting their clearance and unblocking ops, Noir and Maya were looking through one of the transparent floor portals on the airship.
Confident because they held weapons, the Blue Zinas conducted themselves in a really mean spirited way. One or two Blue Zinas kicked hapless peasants on the ground. One put her foot on a peasant’s back for no apparent reason than to grandstand. Yet another Blue Zina walked straight up to a handsome male peasant and stepped on his face with one foot. She probably wanted to give him a tantalizing glimpse up her skirt, and to humiliate him since he couldn’t move.
“Zinas again!” Noir hissed. “Outrageous!”
“We’ll really make them pay,” Maya promised.
Below, a Blue Zina plopped herself on a man’s chest as though he was a seat. Another Blue Zina seemed to have stepped on something, and she cleaned her shoes on an elderly female peasant’s clothes.
A Blue Zina squatted in an obscene position over a hapless young man in a white shirt. Due to the squatting action, her skirt rode up to her waist. The Zina reached down to move something aside, then the young man's white shirt started changing color.
"I didn't see that," Noir said, shaking her head. "I didn't want to see that."
"It's just water sports," Sugto grinned sarcastically. "That Blue Zina could have done worse."
Remembering her previous experience with Zinas in Borno State, Nigeria, Maya cursed: "Our continent is not your toilet!"
