Pigskin Mirror

Chapter 1

The first sounded, and there came hail and fire, mixed with blood, and they were thrown to the earth; and a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.

-Revelation 8:7

"This was a stupid fucking idea, I hope you're aware."

Ontario's voice was terse and angry, hissed at Alberta through the tightly clenched teeth of a man who's had more than enough shit for one afternoon. He was wedged between some rough-hewn wooden crates containing some suspicious rattling canisters and the cold steel of the moving van's interior wall, destined for God knew where. The fact that Alberta was the brains of this operation was his first clue that this wasn't going to end well; she wasn't stupid, but then, planning was not the blonde woman's strong point. Alberta just rolled her blue eyes in response to his little quip, checking her phone to get a sense of where they were going. They'd been in this truck for hours now, and it was just a good thing neither of them had to pee.

Alberta's determination in the face of what was starting to look more and more like an honest-to-god conspiracy was something Ontario had to grudgingly respect. On the other hand, it had something to do with Saskatchewan, and when it came to the twins, they were willing to move mountains for each other. And whatever was going on up here was more than a bit suspicious, since whatever it was seemed to have some kind of correlation with Saskatchewan's behaviour, or at least that was Alberta's theory. And his behaviour was rather suspect, since her twin had been acting…well, happy.

Not that that was a bad thing, not by any means. Ontario bit his lip, feeling a bit guilty; he wasn't here to spoil the farmer's rare moment of joy, he reminded himself. He released his own lip in the nick of time, as the truck hit a pothole that surely would have bumped blood out of his bite had he still been clinging on. But the guilt still persisted. Saskatchewan was a melancholy man, or at least that had been their perception of him for the last sixty years. Anything that brought joy or a smile to his dour, stoic face was something to be applauded and encouraged…or at least, that was the premise Ontario was working off of.

It was a few years after the end of the Second World War when the formerly contented and stoic Saskatchewan's spirits seemed to dampen. He steadily grew more listless and unhappy as the decades wore on, in time with his people's descent into apathy and misery. To be from Saskatchewan had become synonymous with pessimism, gloom, and (for reasons that had eluded medicine for decades) depression. The province had the highest incidence of suicide, depression, and dissatisfaction with life across the whole of the country- and nobody knew why. Nothing seemed to help- No government programs, not a booming economy…nothing. And as time had passed, the rest of the country slowly gave up trying to shake Saskatchewan out of its funk.

Ontario closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. That was how it had been for sixty years, and then…three years ago, everything changed. Something happened to Saskatchewan, some epiphany or revival, which suddenly put the colour back in his cheeks. The contrast was not an easy one to swallow and about as smooth and natural a transition as a car accident; it had happened over the course of a single day, too, while the farmer had been out shopping. The memory of that moment was ingrained in Ontario's mind; how could he ever forget it?

Two weeks to Christmas, and white powder snow frosted the ground here and there, full of footprints and snow angels despite the brevity of its contact with the earth. The house, Canada's house, was warm and welcoming, the province's second home. Ontario himself reclined in a rocking chair, perusing a scientific magazine- and in particular, an article about the nigh-ubiquitous "smartcell" technology that had by and large supplanted gasoline as a fuel source for cars and homes. It was also used in huge solar farms that could harvest terawatts of energy in just a few hours from the sun itself, using a skillfully crafted arrangement of smartcells and crude oil in pipes as a heat transfer. It was all very fascinating and positive stuff, and put a smile on Ontario's face.

The door swung open with an accompanying blast of cold air and snowflakes, and Alberta called out a cheery greeting, stamping her thick boots on the mat and shaking the flakes off her cowboy hat. She'd gone shopping with Saskatchewan for presents, and as they moved into the kitchen to place their haul on the table for sorting, something unusual caught Ontario's eye. A mirror under Saskatchewan's arm, which came to a curved peak at the top; inset at that peak were some semi-precious gems, a milky opal and some jade and jet, cut, carved and set into the shape of an eye. Aside from that, it seemed to be an otherwise-normal mirror, if a bit on the gaudy side.

"Good haul, eh sis?" And that was strange for Saskatchewan to suddenly seem so chipper, but even stranger for him to run his fingers along the frame of the mirror almost tenderly. He'd taped a huge piece of cardboard over most of the silver part, making sure nobody else could see their reflection, though it was probably just for transport; to keep the surface from scuffs or scratches.

Alberta nodded, and grinned at Ontario. "You'd be amazed what we found at that old antique shop! Got pretty much all our shopping done there…and Sasky picked up that creepy mirror, but hey, whatever floats your boat, buddy." She grinned and punched her twin- gently- in the upper arm, a gesture he couldn't help but reciprocate. And Ontario watched in amazement as Saskatchewan- glum, miserable Saskatchewan- engaged in the kind of friendly banter with his sister that he hadn't seen in months.

And all the while the mirror's jade eye winked at him from its setting, like it could see something he could not.

That damn mirror and its fucking eye had carved a hole into Ontario's memory and slotted itself inside, an indelible stain he couldn't seem to rub out. But it was Saskatchewan's behaviour the last few years that had been the most strange. Normally when a deeply depressed person experiences a sharp uptick in their general mood, it's a worrying symptom possibly foreshadowing a suicide attempt or something else; but in Saskatchewan's case, that was largely impossible. He was a personification, tied to his land and people, and he was forbidden to die as long as what he personified remained in the minds of the population. So the sudden uptick in mood hadn't been some kind of red flag; it was just a positive thing to accept. It was as if he had suddenly found a reason to exist again, after such a long time of woe and despair.

The truck hit another bump, and the canisters in their crates rattled again- Ontario squinted at them. Alberta's phone provided enough illumination to make out the rough details of what was on the sides and top. They were pressurized tanks, full of a gas of some kind; he could tell from the little spigot valve at the top and the WHIMIS symbol for pressurized gas plastered on the side, beside the "corrosive" and "poisonous" warnings. They were transporting something less than savoury on this truck, he was sure of it. Ontario pulled out his flashlight and flicked it on to try and get a better look. Under the flashlight's flickering glare, Ontario caught sight of something that made him raise an eyebrow.

FLOURINE GAS! DANGER! HIGHLY REACTIVE AND EXPLOSIVE!

The tank's warnings made Ontario gulp. But that was just the one canister; there were others, too. One of them was a steel drum, strapped securely in place; and to make matters worse, any identifying markings on that drum had been painted over. Stamped on the lid was something even more ominous: "99.6% PURE HEX. PROPERTY OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA."

That…didn't bode well. They would have had to pick this stuff up south of the border, and the US government probably didn't want this container to just go missing all of a sudden. So they were doubtlessly looking for it, which meant…

"Alberta!" he hissed, gesturing at the canister, "This is fucking fluorine. And that one…that one belongs to the US government. That drum should not be on this truck. What the fuck are they doing with it?!"

Alberta nodded grimly. "Yeah, I know. I got a tip-off from Montana that something was up. He said a bunch of guys from way the fuck up north in Saskatchewan kept coming down south to Billings to buy shit off a chemical dealer there- and before you ask, Montana only looked into it 'cause he got told that the dealings were kinda…not legal. So I guess this means Monty was totally right. What's hex?" she asked pointedly, cocking her head.

Ontario shuddered. "Any number of things, none of them pleasant. I'm gonna go with sulfurhexafluoride to make myself feel better about this whole situation. But there is a slim possibility that Saskatchewan's…." He swallowed, and let his voice peter out. No. That was impossible, and the only reason he'd even bothered to consider it was the fact that they were driving up to the northern part of the rectangular province. Saskatchewan had no need of….that kind of Hex.

Silence filled the truck's bay area for an hour or a minute; Ontario wasn't sure how much life the flashlight's batteries had, and he wanted to conserve them, so checking his watch was a bit of a waste of effort. Alberta seemed to be oblivious to the crushing, dragging, all-consuming awkwardness of the situation, so devoted to her task that she was willing to wait in sullen silence for as long as it took. And that was admirable, in its own way, but Ontario really wanted to find a way to pass the time, because he was getting terribly bored.

Alberta hadn't really invited him on this little escapade; he'd invited himself. All of Canada's uranium mines were located in Saskatchewan, and the figures for the mine's total output had gotten rather suspicious of late. Ontario didn't want to suspect Saskatchewan of shady dealings, but when a formerly-thriving mine's production is suddenly slashed in half and yet is shows no signs of shutting its doors, well. Except it wasn't sudden, not at all, and the eastern province knew it well. Ontario's own nuclear power plants put him in a unique position to review Saskatchewan's uranium production figures, a measure he took as part of Canada's Non-Nuclear Proliferation commitments. The mines were generally owned by companies who were allowed to sell their uranium to anyone on a very specific list of approved countries, India being a good example of a blacklisted country. If you made nukes with Canadian reactors or uranium, you would find yourself swiftly cut off from any further aid in that area.

So when he'd noticed that over the course of the last three years, one of the largest mines in Saskatchewan had steadily cut its production down by half…Ontario had to worry. He'd tried asking the farmer, only to get stonewalled with a bullshit answer about the mines being "played out" when they clearly weren't. He could have been selling it under the table to any number of interested parties, all of whom would doubtlessly turn around and build nukes with it. It was a frightening thought; that one of their own provinces had turned into an illegal uranium baron.

There was one other reason for this little mission, Saskatchewan's shady accounting notwithstanding. And that was the simple fact that the farmer had disappeared for the last three months. He hadn't been answering his phone; no emails, texts, or any other form of communication seemed to reach him. Alberta's initial plan involved, in her words, "Jacking a Leopard C2 and fucking storming the place until they give me my brother back." Which had been about two months ago, but Ontario was incredibly grateful Alberta hadn't actually opted to hijack a Canadian Army tank and take it for a little joyride.

Ontario huffed out a sigh and flicked his brown eyes up at the ceiling. This truck was filthy and it was really putting the dirty into his blonde, and Alberta's too, come to think of it. It was so strange to see his youngest sister without her cowboy hat, he noted dimly; then again, it was a bit of a cumbersome thing to wear onto a truck like this. Not to mention it was really cold. The truck's back area wasn't heated, and he could see his own breath; Alberta had opted for a camouflage-coloured toque to go with her thick jacket. Ontario didn't have the heart to tell her that for this kind of a stealth mission, camo was not the way to go. Not that it really mattered; they were going to be here for a good, long while.

"Wake up! Wake up, you fucking asshole!"

Ontario jerked awake, shaking his head and making an audible "bwuh?!" sort of noise in response to the gloved hands suddenly shaking his shoulders. The first thing his bleary brain noticed was the fact that all his limbs appeared to have frozen themselves stiff in the interim, however that had actually been. The second thing he noticed was that there was actually light in the back of the truck, and that it had stopped vibrating. As his ears re-engaged, the sound of two people having a conversation dangerously close to their hiding place caused him to immediately jolt to full alertness. They weren't supposed to be here, and if they got caught now, well. There would almost certainly be hell to pay.

The moving van's back door had been rolled up all the way, and both driver and assistant were chatting with each other in plain view of the two huddled provinces. They'd backed the truck into a loading dock and extended a retractable steel sheet between the truck's bed and the dock, to allow a forklift easier access to the skids of gas and chemicals. As Ontario and Alberta peered out between the crates, they could see a large storage space with lots of people milling around, and more than one forklift moving crates to and fro- but strangely, only the one loading dock. It was also much warmer in the facility, the heat something Ontario was incredibly grateful of as he slowly reached down to his pocket to remove something, eyes flicking from one clueless human to another. The smallest sound seemed deafening to him, and if he lost his balance and fell over, they were both dead.

Alberta looked at him expectantly, taking shaky breath after shaky breath; this may have been her operation, but Ontario was the one who actually had the means to get them out of there alive. He slowly unzipped his parka's pocket, the both of them wincing at how loud it was in the stillness, and pulled out a small remote control. It was the remote for one of Nunavut's toy cars, the little radio control rigged up to a very different device than the RC car it was supposed to be connected to. At the truckstop in Prince Albert, while the driver and his navigator were eating lunch in the restaurant, Alberta and Ontario had been rather busy getting the vehicle ready for this precise moment. Ontario had spent quite a bit of time magnetically sticking a couple of little gizmos to the backside of the truck's front fender, while Alberta had busied herself with the essential task of picking the lock to get them into the truck in the first place. And now, it was the moment of truth; either Ontario's little toys worked, or they were totally hosed.

The rustling of fabric and Ontario's noisy zipper seemed to catch the attention of one of the men, who looked into the truck with a raised eyebrow, opening his mouth to ask what the hell that sound had been. Ontario, fully aware that he had mere seconds to pull this off, immediately flicked on the little remote and jabbed at the four buttons in the sequence he'd programmed, praying to god the waterproof snow-shielding had done its job and that none of the distraction-makers had fallen off.

So it was almost a relief when the button-pressing was rewarded with the sound of a bear-banger firing off loudly, and a tinny speaker screaming through the frosty February air about nothing in particular. Almost, because while the bear-bangers firing off one by one had the desired effect- namely, getting the drivers and everyone else to go running towards the source of the distraction- it was a bit of a double-edged sword, because every single BANG seemed to make his already-cantering heart miss a beat or twelve.

Alberta was already on her feet, squeezing out between the rows of strapped-down crates and ignoring the splinters in her coat, boots, and gloves. She could see the loading dock bay, and it was then that she realized that there would need to be a slight change of plans. Thirty feet away was an office with a large glass window that gave its occupant a good view of the goings-on in the facility. And in that office was a man in a swivel chair, looking at the back wall and clearly on the phone. But when Alberta forced her way out of the last row of crates and onto the truck's steel ramp, she saw him hang up the phone and start to swivel his chair around.

Alberta panicked.

She looked left and right, and much to Ontario's confusion, she opted to dive off the side of the steel ramp and back outside, landing in a freshly-fallen pile of snow just outside the loading dock with a muffled 'OOF!" It hurt like hell, the snow stinging her face and nose and hands, but with all the shouting and commotion, the blonde had just enough time to bury herself in the snow, hands frantically shovelling and digging herself into the pile until nothing was visible, not even her stupid camouflage toque.

Ontario was not so lucky. No sooner had he managed to wriggle himself free than the man at his desk spun around fully and looked up. And across the empty loading dock, their eyes met- and the man was not happy, not at all. He immediately started yelling, or so it seemed by his appearance- slamming a button on his desk and sprinting out of his office. Ontario's calm intellect and planning abilities completely fizzled out of his brain at the terrifying, heart-stopping realization that he'd been caught.

He started sprinting across the shop floor as the alarm was raised, frantically looking this way and that way for any place to hide. Following Alberta into the snow had appealed to him for a fraction of a second, but then he'd realized that he'd already been seen. Better for one of them to get away instead of both of them getting caught.

Ontario managed to find a closet off to the side to scramble inside, slamming the door behind him just as the guards showed up. He was so, so fucking screwed.

And whatever Saskatchewan was up to here, it sure as hell wasn't above-board.

A/N:

Don't panic. This isn't a sign I've abandoned The West Wind Howls. I'm still working on that, but this is another little side story I've been toying with for awhile that I wanted to share with you all. This isn't to replace West Wind, but it is exploring another alternate universe with another slightly altered Canada. Hooray!

Anyway, if you liked it, hated it, or whatever else, leave a review and let me know how you feel.