Chapter 29


McGarnagle and Melva were in dismay.

Adam had outsmarted them.

The fight had delayed their arrival and - by the time they'd reached it - the last of the planes had already left the runway. Up in the air, the dust runners, hazard lights running dark, were in formation against the southern sky.

What followed was the largest terrorist attack in Atlas history. Although, the precise way in which it played out was quite peculiar, as everyone would later note. For, you see, no event can be separated from those leading up to it, and, in the leadup to this event - there had been a wedding.

And, in the prelude to that wedding, a military airshow and training exercise had been abruptly cancelled.

And in the prelude to the cancellation, Mr. S had made a personal call to General Ironwood:


"I know this is sudden!" Mr. S agreed into his scroll, wringing his words, "but, I'll explain later. Just trust me for now! I need you to cancel the exercise and lift the air restrictions over Atlas so that I can bring the guests in!

"You'd better have a good reason for this," the general sighed, frustrated but calm.

"I do!" Mr. S implored, starving and irrational.

"Where am I even supposed to hold the fleet for the duration of this?' Ironwood swung suddenly back around to his less agreeable phase, seeing in the complaint a chance to get out of this sudden promise he'd been cornered into.

"Just park them over the secondary Schnee palace! You know, the one we use to store all that dust! I'll give you the rights for it."

"Are you mad! I'm not putting anything over that! You do realize our aircraft have flaming exhausts!"

"Don't worry! I'll have Schwarz initiate an emergency lockdown, that'll stop them from moving any dust around, and all the reserves are underground. There won't even be any people in the building! Just cancel the airshow, please!" Mr. S was adamant; desperately so as he felt his stomach cannibalizing itself; and it showed in his pleas, which moved Ironwood just enough to agree.

"Very well, Jacques." He replied. "They'll be parked over the secondary palace at 1200. Gods, I hope you know what you're doing."


And, to the piloting dust runners, it sure seemed that way because, as they broke through the cumulus cloud cover and came into the clear skies over the glimmering city, what did they find hovering over their primary target except the entirety of the atlesian airfleet, guns pointed idly into the air.

The pilots, taking a perturbed moment to collect themselves, swiftly turned their attention to the secondary target.

The existence of this target, too, however, requires us to revisit contributing events.


Several years ago, Mr. Schnee was outraged.

"This is an outrage!" he yelled pacing back and forth before the council table.

"Call it what you like, Jaques," Councilwoman Camilla said, more tired than aggressive, "the council has made its decision."

"And I acknowledge that the council has made a decision. However, given that it is an obviously illegal decision, you must forgive my confusion on the matter."

"And what is so confusing about the matter to you?" Camilla responded sarcastically. "The decision is very simple. We are ordering you to give up your primary dust palace to Green Co. They will pay you market price for it."

"Oh, I'm far more concerned with what they've paid you," Mr. Schnee was flexing his hand into a fist.

"Nothing." Camilla was short on the matter. "We are not here to serve our financial interests. And, despite what you seem to think, we are not here to serve yours, either. We are here to serve Atlas; and we have decided that having some redundancy would be in the city's best interest. Green Co. will be capped to maintaining 49% of the city's dust supply. You will still have your secondary palace. I trust you're competent enough to survive under those considerations.

Now, perhaps what Camilla had said was true. And, perhaps, it was fair.

What Mr. Schnee couldn't stand, however, was how they'd ordered him to give up his primary palace. Oh, it was an older palace, and it wasn't quite as up to the standard of the new one, but to take his jewel away from him...

Mister Schnee, however, held his tongue, and accepted the Green's payment at the coronation. He knew they were incompetent, and he hated how everyone seemed to laud them despite the fact that their labor record was worse than his! He supposed being unsuccessful enough to stay out of the limelight would do that. Still, he didn't complain as he handed the deed over to the smiling executive. What could he say, after all? In these matters, after the council had so decided, he could do nothing.


The dust runners, however, were not so encumbered.

Seeing that the secondary palace was under impromptu protection, they trained their sights to the primary palace, which had, just two years ago, reached its cap of forty nine percent of Atlas dust reserves.

Atlas, one must remember, is a large city, with large dust requirements. And, being forward looking people - the Atlesians - they required that the dust palaces maintain enough reserve to last the city ten years. Of course, most of this was held safely in underground chambers, but, when the palaces were operational, at least 0.0001% of that reserve was liable to be, mid-transport, in the vulnerable, upper sections of the palace.

And, the Green co. palace, unlike the SCHNEE Corp. palace - which had suddenly and completely shut down - was still very much operational.

In fact, during the time of the attack, the Green corp palace had about 0.005% of its total reserve moving through its upper decks.

0.005% of enough dust to keep Atlas running for ten years.

One can imagine the resulting explosion.

Of course, we will not go over such boring details, but, suffice it to say, for generations, people would come to describe it as being… "like a force of nature."

And what a force it was, that tore through the city. Even the sewage pipes had been violently ruptured, causing an unfortunate reenactment of the shit storm of 55'.

Still, the Mantleites had little to complain about despite that, at least when one compared their fate to Atlas'.

Almost everything felt the explosion, and very little in the immediate vicinity had been spared.

Although, of the things that had been spared, one could find it notable that the captain of General Industries - a SCHN Corp. subsidiary - had been kept from going to work that day because of a sudden - catering related - request that had waylaid him.

In fact, the entire entire industrial sector around the Green Co. dust palace had been evacuated to the other side of town as, for some bizarre reason, Catering Incorporated - in desperate and sudden need of extra workers - had resorted to cannibalizing able bodies from the operations of other SCHN Corp subsidiaries, which happened to make up the totality of the industrial sector surrounding the - formerly SCHN corp - primary dust palace.

To recap: the largest terrorist event in Atlas's history happened without warning, and without a body count, and Schnee stock was soaring!

Because, just guess who had the only operational dust palace in Atlas; and consequently the only functioning works maintenance company?

Not Green. Co. I can tell you that.


Mr. S, after a long and busy day, finally sat down at the buffet table with a relaxed sigh.

Laid out before him was something out of a cartoon. A whole roast animal, baked vegetables, delicately assorted sandwiches and sandwichettes, green eggs and ham, and lots and lots of alcohol. The smell of it was intoxicating. The warm garden air was flooded with the savory oils and crisp fragrances of… his stomach rattled about like a dog straining at its leash. Still, he held himself back for the customary five minutes. You know, for the canaries to start dropping. And, he didn't even feel particularly bad about that bit of pragmatism, most of his emotions then being overtaken by the decidedly cavernous hunger that was not eating its way through him.

On minute three and a half, he decided he'd just risk it at this point, and stabbed an oversized mini bar onto his fork, and raised his arm up-

A hand stopped him.

It was Schwarz's hand, pressed firmly onto the shoulder of his suit, and consequently onto the shoulder of Mr. Schnee, who's body Mr. S was currently starving in.

Mr. S did not look kindly on the interruption.

"Yes?" he asked, looking up at Schwarz with bloodshot eyes.

"You have visitors," Schwarz said with a grave expression.

"It can wait," Mr. S began to turn back to his meal, and he felt the grip on his shoulder harden. Again, he looked up at Schwarz and saw a similar hardness in her expression.

"It's serious," she said.

Mr. S could see that she was earnest, and he felt terrible at how much he didn't care. Though, again, not that terrible in the grander sense, his emotions being eaten up by hunger and all that.

"I believe you," he said, putting a hand on hers and looking kindly into her eyes. And then went back to moving his fork to his mouth.

"Please," Schwarz said. That... had managed to overwhelm him… enough to stop his fork in mid bite, anyway. "I…" she held herself back from speaking more.

"What is it?"

"I know people have always been given to suspicion around you, and I know that because… . I just want you to know that I'll always be on your side."

"Thank you, Schwarz."

"But, I also need you to trust me, now." Schwarz said. "I think you should go."

Mr. S paused a moment in consideration, and then slammed his hands on the table, rattling the plates and startling his neighbors. "Damn it!"

He stood with a huff, grabbing a glass fruit-bowl as he did so.

"Uh, sir, I don't think-"

"The fruit-bowl stays!"

And Schwarz, seeing the supernatural adamance he'd gathered for the prospect, didn't fight it. So she led him along the hallways to the main lobby. Mr. S, following behind, picked at the nicest grapes from the fruit bowl, thinking carefully about which order to eat them in. What he wasn't thinking about, however, was the recent news. He might be forgiven for this, because he hadn't heard it yet, but you, our dear reader, know now all of the pertinent details of the recent attack, and might be able to draw some fresh insights from it. So, let us look back at the various events of the night, and try to examine them with impartial eyes.

Imagine, for instance, that you knew of a billionaire. And, imagine, that this billionaire was a generally unpopular person with civil rights activists and was facing several allegations of work place endangerment and was, generally, seen as a bad guy.

Now, imagine, if you will, that this billionaire's daughter announces a relationship with the ex-girlfriend of the leader of the White Fang - after which that billionaire proceeded to promote the girl up to being the head of his Faunus Outreach Committee.

And then imagine that that girl's ex-boyfriend, Adam Taurus, makes a historic infiltration of the Schnee Manor, sits alone with the billionaire for several minutes, and then, except for some property damage, leaves without doing the billionaire any harm.

And, now, for the piece-de-resistance, imagine if you will, and, this is entirely hypothetical, mind, that, just several days after this, Adam Taurus conducts the largest terrorist event in Atlas history, as described above; managing in the attack to only help the aforementioned billionaire.

There were two primary conclusions one could draw from the above listed facts:

One: Mister Schnee was colluding with terrorist groups.

Or, this was all just a massive coincidence.

This, may have gone some way towards explaining why, when Mr. S ordered the main gates opened, Councilwoman Camilla stood fore and front on the other side, the entirety of Mantel's police leadership on display behind her.

This, Mr. S realized, was perhaps not the best moment to be cradling a fruit bowl.

"Congresswoman Camilla!" Mr. S greeted with a subdued smile. "It's been too long."

"Not for my taste, Jacques" Camilla sterned, and stepped confidently into the castle. "Do you know why we're here?" she asked, as if the question were only of passing interest to her.

"No." Mr. S said.

Even he wasn't falling for that one.

Camilla was unperturbed, and answered with startling directness: "We are here because you are under suspicion of consorting with terrorists to destroy the Primary Schnee Palace."

That, for the moment, had managed to make him forget about the fruit bowl.

"Why would I destroy my own palace?" Mr. S asked, genuinely confused.

Of course, under certain conditions, genuine confusion could also sound a lot like an arrogant refusal to acknowledge certain facts.

"You know it is no longer your palace," Camilla cut.

"Then why is my name on it?" Mr. S asked, again sounding either confused, or taunting.

Camilla twitched, "I have neither the time nor the desire to play these games with you, Jaques. You are under investigation for the destruction of the Primary Dust Store which, as of the transfer, has been under the leasage and care of the Greens. Do you understand your situation?"

"I do. Though, I'm terribly confused as to how I've come to be in it."

Camilla only scoffed.

"Really," Mr. S said, earnestly, "I really have no knowledge of, or connection to, this attack. And I'm willing to provide you with all the evidence you might require to resolve this."

Camilla, despite all her knowledge and experience, was caught by the honesty that marveled his tone.

"You're willing to cooperate with us?" she asked, eyebrow raised.

"To any reasonable degree," Mr. S said, confident. "What do you need?"

"Nothing unreasonable," Camilla said. "If you're really willing to cooperate, we'd like access to the castle's security system."

"What for?"

"To look through the camera system files. We understand you've already made some of them available to the police department following the… attack by Adam," she said, hesitating on the last descriptor. "But, they are incomplete. We'd like something that covers a longer stretch of time."

"I suppose that could be done, for the public sections of the castle, anyway."

Mr. S agreed, either not noticing or not heeding Schwarz who, out of sight of the rest of the group, frantically shook her head in warning.

"Perfect," Camilla smiled, and gestured for a policewoman to come forward. In the woman's arms was a block computer system, with glowing figures and shadowy styles running over it's body like runes. "If you will just give us the relevant access-"

Mr. S, eager to prove his innocence, preempted her by pulling out his scroll - connecting to the computer block and swiping his fingerprint to allow it access to the public security files.

Camilla moved forward with unhesitating precision. "Run a query through the expert system," she demanded. "Have it search for anything relating to the Greens and destruction."

The policewoman was quick to comply, though slower to deliver, as she programmed in the relevant search terms as well as accompanying network states.

In the brief interlude, Mr. S decided, for once, to talk his way out of a hole.

"Really, I can assure you this is all some massive misunderstanding. I've never in my life held anything but the deepest respect for Green."

"There is nothing in this world I respect less than that bastard, Green!" Mr. Schnee's voice came clear and loud through the projection that now hovered over the screen.

Oh no, Mr. S thought. Oh shit.

For, Mr. S suddenly remembered that, whereas he'd spent four days in this body, Mister Schnee had spent the past several decades stacking up opinions on his behalf. And, would you look at that, here came another one!

"I am going to destroy Green… financially!" another clip came up, this time of Mister Schnee ranting to a video conference full of teleprompters.

The clips were many and varied as they came up... and up... and up, and just never seemed to stop. By the fifth minute, it had frankly grown to be embarrassing. By the eighth minute, he really started to suspect himself. By the tenth… well, he was just surprised there wasn't a clip of him saying he was planning on consorting with terrorists to blow up the primary palace.

Still, he hadn't said anything completely incriminating yet. And, looking at the date marker in the corner of the holographic videos, he could see the date of his arrival was coming up, and - seeing the end of the long train that was Mister Schnee's outbursts - began to muster the effort, and cultivate his hopes.

… he needn't have bothered.

For, after the date of his arrival, he'd only made one remark that triggered the search.

Remember it?

Because Mr. S certainly did, as it popped up onto the screen.


"Actually, father. If I may interject," Winter interrupted, "you should consider the severely negative impact this could have on the company," she said, keeping her voice even.

'Ahh, shit. I've still gotta stay in character,' Mr. S thought as he remembered that he still had a part to play, even if he didn't know what that part was supposed to be…

"Well, obviously, I won't be risking much," Mr. S replied.

"What do you mean?" Weiss asked, hunched over with a sneer.

"Huhhhhhhhhhhhhh." Mr S sighed a deep and solemn sigh, making very clear the depths of his disappointment at being surrounded by feeble-minded plebs who couldn't see the obvious. Drawing his sigh out for as long as he could, he frantically thought of reasons why he was right.

"What?" Weiss asked impatiently.

"Schwarz, how are stocks?" He asked with an overconfident tone, not bothering to face his secretary as he spoke.

Schwarz turned to look out the glass wall, glancing at the giant screen on the factory wall, taking in the green line as it snaked its way along a graph, before looking back at Mr. S. "Uhh...they're stable, sir."

"See?" He said as if that proved everything. "We sell dust, people," he continued as if he knew exactly what that entailed besides a vague Saudi Arabia corollary he'd made in his mind. "We could start funding terrorist groups and even then I'm sure people would hesitate to go green."


"Hold it! Go back to that last part," Camilla ordered.

The deputy, without even needing to ask 'which part', so obvious was it, complied.

"See?" the video began again. "We sell dust people! We could start funding terrorist groups and even then I'm sure people would hesitate to go green."

"Play that again."

"See? We sell dust people! We could start funding terrorist groups and even then I'm sure people would hesitate to go green."

Everyone, Mr. S noticed, was now looking at him.

"Is that you in the video?" Camilla asked.

"...yes," Mr. S answered, with a constrained voice.

"And, you remember saying that?" Camilla questioned further, almost in confusion.

"Yes."

"And, you knew that what you'd said was on the security cameras?"

"Yes," Mr. S said, not quite telling the truth because, when he'd searched for the term "Green" in his memory, he really hadn't bothered to also remember the times he'd said it to mean "environmentally friendly."

"And, yet, you still agreed to allow us to conduct this search?"

"Yes."

"Can you explain exactly why you chose that particular wording, at that particular moment, just days before this attack?"

It was a Saudi Arabia reference! Came briefly to mind and then was discarded.

"Uh.. excuse me?" he said, buying himself a sliver of time to think.

Camilla repeated herself with superhuman patience. "Can you explain why you felt there was any connection between funding terrorist groups and the greens?"

So Mr. S searched his mind desperately, and frantically, and said:

"I can't," suddenly affecting an upper-crust English accent.