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Typewriter King, March 31, 2004

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Chapter Two: Working in a Narcotic State

Camp Prevention (Zechs' Camp), Columbia

Camp Prevention is located between Kali and Bogota, in a clearing owned and protected by the Cuaca Valley Authority (CVA). The CVA is now the closest thing the Columbians have to a strong government, and the police have overwhelmingly joined them when the government seat moved to Kali, now spelled with a K since the language was restructured. The nation is still called the Republica de Columbia, but anyone keeping score knows Bartista's group in the real capitol rules the majority of the state, and it's mostly thanks to that Gemini suit.

The road from Kali to Prevention is only a narrow two-lane artery, but the Authority put its back into this one, using cheap yet relatively generous Andean Indian labor to fit finely cut stone into a classically constructed road that should last a millennia or two, much like some of the Roman and Inca roads of past golden eras.

That reveals some good and bad news, Zechs thought, as he watched Noin and Chim drive in from the northwest. The good news should be obvious, and the bad news should be ominous. Zechs sees little reason why the road should fall apart over the next two thousand years, but he also notes that the Authority rushed road production during the pause in La Violencia between Earth's surrender to Space in 195, and the renewal of hostilities in the December of the following year.

'Best to finish it while they had a chance, because at the rate of modern life, they may not have another chance to pave a road without the risk of ambush,' he thought dejectedly. 'Have circumstances ruled me the same way?'

"Hey there! I found a Bartista villa worth raiding, and you'll never guess who the inhabitant is!" He flagged down the Alliance/Oz open-air jeep, knowing the riders could hear him. Heck of a thing about that road, the famous Columbian noise and dust is absent from it.

"Manuela, right? Miser enlightened me on that, and some maverick stunt at a western bar. I've never known you as an extreme jock, and I knew you at a very young age." Noin's phobic friendship predates their academy years, though one can hardly tell, as distant the Lightning Count can be.

"You're mistaken, Noin. This is the panache Treize admired so much, and precisely what Colonel Une loathed so much. Remember, I was the icon of Oz for a good reason."
Despite a righteous desire to reprimand, Noin smirked.

"Who could forget the dashing days of the Lightning Baron? Okay, consider yourself off the hook, Daredevil."

Zechs belatedly returned the smile, and told her he'd walk the jeep to the carport, a turn-of-phrase that lightly amused the motorists.
Hmm, Noin seemed just as psyched about something, as if she too had discovered a secret slow in leaking. Zechs wrote a mental memo to talk about it on the way upcountry to Bogota, buy first comes packing, very important.

"What was it Miser was telling me? Oh yeah, she must have discovered who sabotaged the demolitions, and judging by her temperament, the cause must be fairly benign." To the Count's judgment, Noin would only welcome interference from a select group of individuals.

"And I can place four of them on the other side of the world today." The thought earned a long-neglected grin.