"'For his eyes only'? What the hell does that mean?" Alf asked with confusion.
"Beats me", I responded, "I hadn't even seen the writing. Helpful 'address', huh". Before I could say another word, Alf rotated it sideways to open it but a large black box quickly fell out.
With ninja like reactions Alf swooped down and caught it before it could shatter against the ground. He handed it to me.
"Looks like it's already been opened", he said. I took the black object from him. It was a VHS video cassette. I looked back up at Alf, "We're not allowed to just read someone else's mail"
"There's no rule against watching someone's mail, is there?" Alf smiled, "there's only one way to find out who it's for". I placed the cassette before Alf continued, "I'll catch you later, I'm meeting the boys for dinner. I'll be back before midnight, ok?" I smiled at him before kissing him goodbye.
"I'll see you later", I whispered as he walked out the door and into the corridor. Then I turned back to the video. There was no label on it.
I glanced around the office. For some reason we still had a bulky 17" cathode ray TV set with a slot for a video. Apprehensively, I pushed the video into the slot and turned on the TV.
The TV screen turned blue and the white letters 'VCR' appeared in block text in the top right corner of the screen. I picked up the TV remote, breathed in, and pressed the play button.
The screen turned black. A single line of white text appeared.
'25 NOV., 2005 NEAR A DISPUTED BORDER'
The screen remained black and a man's voice spoke.
"Oh, him? Yeah, I know him"
As the voice spoke the man came into focus. He was sat in a dilapidated room, holding an assault rifle. The camera only showed up to his nose; his eyes were off screen. I had a strong feeling that I really shouldn't be watching this. The man continued.
"It's going to take a while", where he was there was some light gunfire in the distance, "it happened years ago". There was more light gunfire echoing off surrounding buildings in the video.
"Did you know there are three kinds of aces?"He began counting on his fingers, "those who seek strength, those who live for pride, and those who can read the tide of battle. Those are the three. And him… he was a true ace".
Now another voice in the video spoke, "He was a fighter pilot they called 'Solo Wing Pixy'. He was a colleague of the man I seek. Ten years ago, there was a war that engulfed the world: The Belkan War. And in that war was a pilot who trailed across the sky and disappeared from history. He was a lone mercenary who inspired both fear and admiration. He is the man I seek".
'A fighter pilot?', I thought, 'but he's a ground soldier'. I walked over to a desk and tore a sheet of paper from a notepad across the office before returning and perching on the edge of my seat.
I soon recognised the voice of the narrator; it was OBC's reporter Brett Thompson. The man called 'Solo Wing Pixy' described his first mission with his 'colleague', two members of the 'Galm' team, flying for the Ustio Air Force. Brett Thompson proceeded to explain how the Belkan War was shrouded in mystery. He wasn't wrong; history books and documentaries nowadays contained enough information for school lessons or to fill an hour of TV respectively, but there were various rumours about its abrupt end. Intrigued, I continued to watch.
Before long I had written an entire page of notes about the Belkan War, the progress of 'Solo Wing Pixy' and his colleague, a pilot who was apparently known as 'Cipher'. This video seemed to be a strange documentary about Cipher. I remember reading about the liberation of the annexed highway in Ustio and a large scale battle at the Futuro Canal which took place shortly afterwards, two events in which the Galm team signficantly helped, but I learned in this video that both Cipher and Solo Wing Pixy were scrambled into a much more dangerous mission shortly before heading to Futuro.
April 20, 1995…
