9) Ground Meat

AMBERLANDS

HEREFORDSHIRE

Six weeks condensed into snapshots, all that Alex really wanted to remember about the Meatgrinder course, which felt every bit as unpleasant as Milos' hinted at:

EXAM PAPER ONE:

Question one (Compulsory) Out line the sequence of events from 1997 to 2009 (inclusive) that led to the destruction of the previous political order in the USA; include a description of how these events were to affect general European and later world history.

'I will not handle a gun.'

'You bloody well will, little man.'

'I won't. I'm not in the Army and you can't make me.'

'You don't have a choice here.'

'I won't handle a gun.'

'You don't pass the Handgun course then you fail overall, little man.'

'I won't shoot people.'

'I'm not bloody asking you to! It's just a target in there. Now pick up the gun.'

EXAM PAPER TWO

Question two (Compulsory) Given a Lascelle constant of 0.53, use the table of indices to determine the degree of cultural compatibility between the following: I) a minor Muslim oil state and a major Muslim military state; ii) the United States and Armenia; iii) Norway and Taiwan; iv) A Northern hemisphere island state and a Southern hemisphere island state.

"In the Field Training Exercise you will be flown, blindfold, to a drop-off point at least fifty kilometres away. Your mission is then to make your way back here, within twelve hours. The police have been told about you and will therefore be trying to apprehend you. Capture means failure. Turning up after twelve hours means failure. That's all. I'd like to wish you good luck but can't because we need to fail some of you. Quotas and all that. Off you go now.'

EXAM PAPER THREE

Question 1) (Compulsory) Develop and prove, after Cattell, a dynamic model of politico-historical covalent evolution, with regard to the Indian sub-continent. You MUST include and explain: I) Moghul domination ii) European penetration iii) English domination iv) Partition v0 Religious division (contemporary) vi) Economic division (historical).

"You will find various objects in front of you. Some are of potential use, others are not. Make your selection. You will have forty-five seconds to open the lock in front of you when I stop talking. Go!"

EXAM PAPER FOUR

Question 1) (Compulsory) Use the Revell method to decrypt this input: 11100 10 1001 0110100 101 1 1 1001 110 101 011 101001 101 10110 101 10110 1 10 1 1010101 11001 1011 1 1 101 01 10

"Right. Of the twenty originals there are twelve of you left. Congratulations. From here it gets harder. Oh, you can laugh, but I'm telling the truth. You've now got to put into practice the basic lesson you've learnt, which is a lot harder than it sounds, believe me. What you will be don't is acting as observers in an exercise conducted by UNION staff. You will be assessed according to results. I notice you're not laughing now!"

PRO FORMA:

DEAR: Mr Petrovic

YOU HAVE FORMALLY PASSED THE ENTRY PROCEDURE UNDERTAKEN AT AMBERLAND. YOU HAVE NOW FORMALLY BEEN INDUCTED INTO THE UNION ARM OF THE FEDERATED CONCORDAT. AS A RESULT OF THIS YOU ARE ALLLOWED ONE WEEK PRE-COMMENCEMENT LEAVE. AFTER THIS TIME HAS ELAPSED YOU WILL PRESENT YOURSELF TO THE ADDRESS OVERLEAF. YOUR COVER IDENTITY HAS BEEN PREPARED AND WILL BE FORWARDED TO YOU WITHIN FORTY EIGHT HOURS. FOR THE TIME BEING YOU WILL MAINTAIN THAT YOU ARE BEING GIVEN A PUNITIVE TRANSFER TO MJO AT SOUTH LONDON SORTING OFFICE

Alex slept for almost twenty-four hours, as the backlog of adrenaline withdrawal, mental and physical taxation, anxiety and excitement all claimed him.

When waking a stream of hypnagogic images ran themselves past his inner eye. He twisted comfortably underneath the duvet, feeling an absence, an element missing.

Work! That was it, he missed work and the comfortable, boring routine it brought. That had been replaced by the insecurity of UNION and the excitement (or promise) of a job that did not consists of endless pen-pushing.

10) Low Times

HOLDING CELL 101

POLIZEI PLATZ OST

HAMBURG

OCTOBER

In an exchange agreement, the German Bundespolizei took into custody persons remanded for appearance in the civil or criminal courts when these persons were members of the Federated Concordat. This came about due to limited detention space available to the FedCon in Germany; it also made remand less arbitrary. The Bundespolizei were amenable about the arrangement since there existed a considerable financial incentive and they could 'maximise' prison space by filling those cells empty of DUR citizens.

This, then, was the reason for Lothar being incarcerated in the cells in Hamburg. He'd been separated from Peiter, cuffed, jacketed, yoked and stuck into a police people-wagon. He shared the space with six other unfortunates; a couple of drunks who still flared up at each other, a druggie, two Pax activists with scalp wounds that bled messily over the seats and lastly an obese, unshaven man who bleated continually about not meaning to hit his wife, not this time anyway. Lothar sullenly surveyed them all, cursing silently that either he or Peiter ever listened to that woman and her suggestions. Silently cursed, because the cops had a nasty habit of recording everything you said and using it out of context in prosecutions.

After an interminable journey, swaying uncomfortably in darkness, all seven occupants of the "happy-cart" fell over as it braked. The rear door swung open and all seven were manhandled out; sleazy neon lights overhead showed an anonymous entrance door, outside of which stood a plain-clothes detective and two uniformed cops, both of whom cradled shock-sticks.

For a minute Lothar felt he ought to try the plea he made earlier in an unsuccessful attempt to get away from the legal clutches of FedCon; he had plaintively stated that he wasn't "one of them", couldn't the nice police arrest him and forget about FedCon? To which the answer had been no, he'd been caught on FedCon turf so they could do pretty much what they wanted with him.

'Inside, you lot. Stand in the entrance hall. No, not you,' said the detective, holding back the wife-hitter. The others filed in and Lothar could hear one of the uniformed cops speaking; '… lesson for you. Like to hit women, do you?' and then came the static thud of shock-sticks for aching seconds. Those things hurt, too, really hurt in the hands of anyone adept in their use. The three cops reappeared with their twitching, spasming prisoner.

One of the trio winked at Lothar.

'Resisting arrest,' he said.

They took Lothar down to an old, well-used cell with harsh lights, a stinking toilet and a rigid bed. Mutant hissing came from a decrepit wall-speaker, it's armour grille devoid of paint after years of futile, vengeful attacks.

Bad though it undoubtedly was, Lothar had seen worse as a youthful soccer hooligan when he'd briefly witnessed the splendours of a Polish jail from the inside.

He sat down.

'Prisoner blah blah blah seventy-nine,' droned the wall-speaker in unintelligible tones. 'You are being detained under Protocol Eighty of the Concordat's Judicial Proposal. You are to be detained in this … ahem, no sugar … this facility until a representative of the Concordat arrives to take custody of you.'

His heart nearly stopped. The Fed! Jesus Christ Almighty, not them again. He'd imagined that he had slipped from their notice. Although all holding cells were soundproofed, years of hard use resulted in a deterioration in their anechoic quality. So police walking up and down the corridor outside 101 heard a dim, forlorn wailing coming from the cell.

Lothar was screaming.

'Newsflash! This just in: terrorist saboteurs of the Northern Anarchist Coalition have claimed responsibility in destroying the aircraft carrying members of the Dutch royal family as it returned from an official engagement to Greenland. At least ten members of the family are missing, presumed dead. More details in the hourly bulletin -'

The FedCon psychologist snapped his fingers and the news channel abruptly and obediently choked itself off. He wasn't a monarchist, not at all. What about the crew on that plane; didn't they deserve a passing mention? A few royal parasites less wouldn't harm the world but their underlings ought to at least get a mention.

Anyway, news of disasters with aircraft reminded him of his subject, Mister Lothar Hellman. Signs of severe trauma there, made worse by incarceration and years of past drug abuse. So; why the state of utter panic whenever he came into contact with the friendly Fed? It could be, of course, that Mister Hellman killed his companion Theo and then constructed a fabulation to salve his conscience and ease the memory.

He sighed. Time, in a matter of doubt, to turn to the Oracle. This particular oracle happened to be an Omax 1500, state-of-the-art German technology, with a Russian Ouspensky software package, at least 10,000 case histories indexed and cross-referenced and using this a puzzled mind-mapper could find answers to most questions.

Not all answers to all questions. Perhaps guidelines defined it better. They ought to be guidelines, thought the psychologist, because Mister Hellman's symptoms certainly didn't fit into typical case profiles.