Confliction: Chapter 4

         Garlan Norrick walked down a corridor with a thousand paintings on the walls, every eye following him as he moved.  He had walked down this hall a hundred times since Scramble had left Purity, and he felt he would never belong here.  Every painting was home to a High General that dates as far back as history could be located; but no one from his family.  Pretender, they all seemed to whisper to him, enemy.  The roof stretched above him with great glass behemoths of chandeliers hanging above him, spreading an array of prismatic rainbows across the floor and walls.  The hallway was empty but for him and the paintings, and so he held himself high to make them proud.  A candle jutted out from the wall between every painting, lighting up it's features and making them seem angry.  A picture of Scramble was at the end of the way, just before the door to the meeting room.  She was leaning forward with her fingers clasped in front of her.  Her eyes were kind, but her expression angry.  He gulped before he pushed open the doors ahead of him.
         Every eye moved to him at once, as he pushed aside the heavy doors with one hand and clomped inwards with the sound of metal on stone and a hiss of steam.  Every step of his enormous steel boots reminded him that he was an enemy to these people, and that he had something to be ashamed of.  The boots were new, and he was still adjusting to the sound they made and how heavy they made his feet feel.  It was clear many of the uniform-clad men in this room had never seen them before either, because they would catch a glance downward at his feet, looking at the black plated stompers with wonder.  A hiss of steam rose out of vents on the side of his soles with every step, where his eternally wet footprints were evaporated by hotplates on the bottom of the steel.  He didn't feel the heat that rose into the souls of his feet since he had become a mage.  The boots were a better alternative to him than leaving a wet floor sign behind him wherever he went.  He had read that most mages and artists had trouble controlling some aspects of their powers, and his weakness was his wet footprints.
         “Gentlemen, I apologize for my lateness,”  he said to the scowling faces that were on him.  “Today has been unbearably busy, I'm afraid.”  He took his seat in a particularly comfortable red chair that sat on the right hand side of the overly elaborate throne that reached from the floor, and spread across the width and height of the room.  The right hand side of the High General, if only she were here.
         “If one of my lieutenants used that excuse on me, I would have him clean every shitter in the barracks,” one of the younger generals sitting at the table laughed to his blank faced and wide eyed friend, before looking back to him.
         Garlan looked back with a shocked expression on his face.  He had been to a thousand of these meetings before, and he had never heard anyone speak to the High General that way.  But he was no High General.  He was only a Lord General, taking charge of these meetings in her absence.  She had left to Karakeas earlier in the week to assess the situation there; a decision that had been met with hostility here.  No one wanted to admit that things were in sorry shape here, and without an authoritative voice from a Sparta, they would squabble and disagree, as had been the case in the past. A rage boiled inside of him.  He wanted to drown this thing, to freeze his blood in his veins and watch his eyes shatter like ice.  Garlan closed his eyes instead and let out a short breath that escaped into the air as it would if he were inside a refrigerator.  When she had left him in charge, Scramble had told her not to take shit from these people.  And he wouldn't.
         “It was only a joke, Lord General.”  The comedian said in a condescending tone, shrugging.
         “If you joke like that with me, General Mastader, I dread to think of how funny you are to your lieutenants,” he said with his voice cold and detached. “Maybe, I will ask one of them.  Please go downstairs and send General Saxen up to take your place at this table.  One can hope that your military experience rubbed off on him more than your sense of humour,  Lieutenant Mastader.”  He spoke his new rank with extra emphasis.
         His face went red and he opened his mouth as if to protest.  He looked around the table for someone sharing his gaze, but everyone was staring at the papers they had placed in front of him.  The only eyes on him belonged to the cold blue stare of Garlan Norrick.
         He stood up, gathered up his papers and strode out of the room, pushing through the heavy doors as he went.  Every other face was now facing him.  He smiled.
         “To the rest of you, I say good morning.”  A murmured response was what he got, and a few of the older men sipped cups of coffee or shuffled their papers that were laid out in front of them.  “Today I have some good news.”
         This stopped the grumbling and they all turned forward to examine his face for clues as to what it might be.
         “We are ready to make a final advance on the Port Separation Foundation to push them out of Otter Port.”  This news was greeted warmly by the men at the table, and several smiles broke out and hands were shaken.  “The news came to me this morning. General Crif, you will be given back control of your troops, and can move them away from Ironfold.  You will advance on Otter Port in one weeks time.  By the end of that week, I hope that the city will be recaptured.”
         General Crif stood up.  He was an older man, but immensely tall, who had so many medals hanging from his chest, he jingled when he walked.  His grey fur shone in the light from the chandelier that hung just above his head.  “Thank you, sir.  I will not let you down.”
         “I know how much you will be looking forward to getting your soldiers back.”
         “I definitely will, sir.”
         “General Nanitas and General Desada.” They stood up as he spoke. “You will also be getting your soldiers back.”
         They couldn't hold back the smiles on their faces, but Nanitas spoke up with a worried look on his smiling face. “Sir, I don't mean to mess with a good thing, but I feel I must ask,” said a slightly fat general with a black trail of fur going down his back. 
         Garlan leaned his elbows on the table.
         “With three units of troops moved, what will become of Ironfold?  There haven't been any attacks in recent weeks, but there are still plenty of reports of IRF scouts skulking around waiting for a moment of weakness.”
         “Alleged IRF scouts.  We don't know who they are, or even if they are scouting.  Ironfold is well defended.  Too well.  Our reflex actions to defend Ironfold since the Realistic Split were just that: a reflex action poorly thought out.  Ironfold can and will hold out with a mere four units to defend it.  Besides, I've made an arrangement with the Family that should keep Ironfold safe.”  Garlan looked into the faces across from him, and saw the scepticism that he had expected.  That was a good thing.  There wasn't a decision made at this table that wasn't met with a degree of scepticism.
         “Can Hegitor be trusted with Ironfold, sir?” came the voice of General Crif.
         “The arrangement does not turn control of the city over to his mob, General.”  He smiled a reassuring smile at him.  “Nor does it even put his guns on the ground around the city.  All that needs to be said about the arrangement, is that Ironfold will be safe from the IGPIM Reclamation Force for the time being.”
         The men at this table knew better than to ask questions.  This was the way things were done at this table.  These were military leaders, not political leaders, and they knew how to dance on political strings.  It came with the job.  Garlan remembered back when he had just started as a general, he had seen more than his fair share of his peers who felt that they could fight the system, trying to sever the political cord that bound their hands.  Every one had met with failure.  They were too rash, he thought.  There are ways to bend the system, but never could one hope to break it.  Now it was a good thirty years later, and as he approached his sixtieth birthday, he not only knew the dance well, but he knew the puppet-masters
         “General Crif, are you ready to bring in Otter Port?”  He had asked several of the Generals to provide him with a basic attack strategy for the city the day before yesterday; a common exercise for the people of this table.  The High General would often give her men 'homework assignments' to outline a plan of action on one place or another.  Sometimes there would be a 'tertiary' fictional situation outlined for them, such as a surprise outer space invasion, or a zombie outbreak.  Other times there would be a more realistic 'secondary' request, such as defending a village from an imminent terrorist attack with limited troops.  Other times still, there would be a request for an actual 'primary' plan of action against the anarchist groups in the west, or a plan to advance troop movement thirty miles forward in the south.  Scramble would sometimes not even read these reports, and even the primary reports were disregarded more often than not, but they kept the generals on their toes, and their wits keen.  There had been grumbling last meeting when Garlan had assigned a homework assignment to retake Otter Port from the terrorists.  Only the High General was supposed to assign those, and he had no business doing such a thing.  The reports had been sloppily done with the exception of Crif, Nanitas and Desada, and he had rewarded them.  Crif's had been especially compelling.
         He stood up again.  “Yes, sir.”
         “Please explain your outline, then.”
         A map was displayed on a screen that hung from the roof behind the general.  Garlan Norrick watched silently as Crif and the other generals explained, argued and complained over details that would be behind the attack: ways to minimize civilian casualties, enemy troop movement sightings, whether or not to have a naval component to the battle.  He stayed quiet here, which was something Scramble would have been loath to do.  He leaned forward, rubbing his chin with his hands, and deflected the numerous 'help me' glances that he got from the other men at the table with a shake of his head and a motion back to the rabble.  They would get no support from him now.  He drew a line of moisture across the desk in front of him, which promptly froze, creating a finger width of frost in front of him.
         At last they had come to a solution that everyone had accepted, albeit begrudgingly from most.  Only now did he speak up.  He pushed his chair out from behind him and got to his feet, releasing a great hiss and a cloud that gathered around him. “Well done, gentlemen.  General Crif, I will expect a final report before your soldiers leave Burrow Mountain.  Are there anymore pressing matters?”  Silence was his only answer.  “Very well.  We will reconvene in two weeks upon the High Generals return.”
         He strode out of the doors, clomping on the tiles and working his way back through the hall of High Generals, and out into the morning air of City Sparta. 

         He drove his car into a lot underneath the highway leading out of town, parked and turned off the engine. The roar of the vehicles above howled through alleys around him, and gusts of wind meandered down the side-streets, suspending trash in the air as they went.  Everything was drowned in a haze of pollution, and the sides of the abandoned buildings were stained with everything from coffee to urine, turning even the grey concrete into a sloppy cobbling of sickly colour up to the base of the windows.  The overcast sky left it difficult to tell between shadows and sunlight, but for a floodlight that a business owner had hoped would stop crime outside his store, but had only helped the criminals to see better.  People bundled up in thick hooded coats walked by, eyes on the street ahead of them, no contact with anyone.  A siren rang in the distance, although this far down, it was hard to tell exactly how far it was away.  It wouldn't be coming out here. 
         Garlan sat patiently in his blue two door, watching everything that moved out the windows.  He folded two sheets of paper over and over again, until they wore out and tore along the creases.  Three other vehicles were parked in this lot.  One, a white van, was apparently abandoned, and it was a miracle it hadn't been ripped up for scrap metal.  The side of the van had been spray painted with a giant gang tag in yellow, black and blue; impressive details.  Rust had begun to fall from its wheel wells and it had been keyed in numerous places.  Another car was a more recent victim of crime, and had had its licence plate removed, windows smashed in, and doors pried open.  Glass still littered the street where the vandals had made off.  The owner would come back soon and would never make the mistake of trusting this area again.  The third was a rather inexplicable heavy truck that seemed to have been parked there earlier that day.  It had oddly clean windows and expensive custom lights and wheels.  It had been recently painted a deep, powerful black, and had miraculously avoided any damage.  Garlan Norrick sat in a car that put them all to shame.  A luxury car would be an understatement.  A luminescent blue that reflected onto the ground, tinted windows and a design that most people would never be able to afford.  He felt out of place as every passerby glanced at the car through their masked faces.
         As out of place as he was, he felt no fear.  He was scarier than the most terrifying person out there, he had no doubt.  The inside of the car was fogged up and he felt the chill in the air around him, seeping into the leather of his seats and freezing the moisture in the corners of the windows.  He wanted someone to come smash in his window, for someone to run up with a crowbar and jam it between the doors, bending the frame and scratching the paint.  Then we would get some much needed exercise.  There was a certain frustration that went along with being a 'civilized' mage.  You had access to all these immense abilities, and it was hard to find an opportunity to use them.  He could kill a person in more ways than even he could fathom, and he had never had an opportunity to do so.  He was no longer welcome in his local fight clubs, as he was conferred an unfair advantage.  He hadn't chosen it, and yet here he was with a mountain of untapped aggression building inside him.  He would need to remember to come back here another time and search for his opportunity.
         The fogged windows revealed a black limo pulling into the lot, and coming to a halt as soon as it entered, without pulling into any spaces.  The windows unwound and a cloud of cigar smoke poured out of the top and swirled into the air.  Garlan opened his door and stepped outside.  His boots gave a crunch as they connected with the asphalt and a jet of steam shot out and left a wet patch where it cooled on the cold metal of his car door.  He walked towards the open window and peered through it.
         Inside was a prickly looking man with brown and black fur and narrow eyes.  He wore a casual suit and had a huge grin on his face.
         “Garlan!” he said, sounding overjoyed as if he hadn't seen him in months. “It is good to see you, it truly is. Sit down, sit down.”  The door flung open, and with one nervous look back at his car, he sat down inside. “Don't worry about the seats, water washes right off,” he said with a little laugh.
         “Don Dimino, it is good to see you again.  I hope you don't plan on...”
         “It certainly is.  How long has it been, four months?  No, wait, five!”  He gripped his hand and shook it vigorously, wiping his wet hand off on the back of the seat in front of him when he let go.
         “Can we keep sight of my car?”
         “Don't worry, Garlan,” he said laughing again.  “We are staying put, this won't last long.”
         Garlan was genuinely happy that Hegitor was town again.  He was a personality, for sure, and made it his business to attend every gathering that he was welcome to (and several that he wasn't) for the military and upper class Puritans.  He poured an overly generous amount of money into the system either through donations or investments, and was always the first to meet with any new face on the scene.  His excitable personality made him a pleasure to be around, and he had a million stories to dazzle his peers with.  He seemed to know everybody, and would often throw elaborate parties for one reason or another (one every year for the Winter Feast) in which he would introduce everyone to one another, which was more often than not, the beginning of a new lucrative business arrangement.
         But there was a darker side to this man that he would never let on.  By now, everyone who knew him, knew better than to mess with a good thing, and simply never questioned Dimino Hegitor about any of the mysteries surrounding him, or sought to slight him to his face but for everything he would donate, he would somehow receive ten in return.  Every estimate on his wealth that Garlan had seen since he had taken office continued to show a disproportionate income to spending, which was strange for someone with no employment to speak of.  He never made a bad investment, and no good opportunity passed him by.  He was a businessman without a business and an emperor without a country.  But he did have an empire.
         “I am sorry to bring you so far away from home, Dimino, but I wanted to confirm our arrangement in person,” Garlan said.
         “Nonsense, Lord General!” he said in his intense northwestern accent. “I was already in town attending to other matters, and you know that I would never pass an opportunity to meet up with you.  Please, help take some of these cigars off my hands, I have too many since my manufacturer went out of business and I had to buy his remaining stock.  They are good, of course, but he went out of business, so they can't have been that good.”
         He smiled.  Hegitor never told the full story. “No thanks.”
         “Oh that's right, you quit didn't you.  Blasted mages, running all these businesses into the ground, am I right?” He nudged his side with a wink and a laugh that said he was profiting off of it somehow.  “Of course, no one blames you.  Anyway, what was our arrangement again?”  He lit up another smoke off the embers of his old one.
         “Ironfold,” he said, trying not to be too specific.
         “Ahh yes, the matter about it's defences.  Well as you know, I have no guns that I can put on the ground to replace your soldiers, but I can keep your IRF attackers busy for some time being.  I am pretty sure they are gaining funding from a friend of mine; purely without his knowledge of course.”
         “Supporting a group of radicals who are attempting to steal IGPIMs is as serious a crime as I can think of, Dimino.”  A masked threat was better than no threat, and certainly better than a threat.  “I hope your friend keeps his businesses in order from now on.”
         “Of course, of course, it is totally without his knowledge.  He is just confused, and robbed blind by his undermen.  I will set him straight for you, eh?  Keep the money flowing in the correct direction?”
         “I'm sure you will.”  Garlan smiled and ran his hand over his hair, wetting it.  “Now about my end...”
         Dimino cut him off.  “Don't you worry too much about your end of the bargain, I know you are good for it,  I will have a friend pick it up from you when the High General returns.  She is okay with this, no?  Of course she is.”  He smiled and knocked on the front panel where his driver was sitting quietly.  The panel opened.  “Roscat!  A bottle for our acting High General!”
         This, he did accept, and as he stepped back out into the stuffy air of the parking lot, he held it chilled in his icy grip as the limo pulled away with a cheerful wave from the leader of the Hegitor Family.  The War Republic now owed yet another debt to his family, so what was one more.  He wondered just how much further the scales could tilt until the Family owned more of the empire than the Republic did.