Original material based on stories and characters created by Project Aces. The author claims no for-profit ownership over them.
Thy Enemy As Thyself (Knight)
Chapter 5: The Opposite
20 May 2016
Santo Matteo Federal Penitentiary
121 mi. WSW of Mante, Emmeria
"Wakey wakey. Oh wait, never mind. Ha ha ha."
"C'mon, it's not like he was gonna get any sleep, eh."
"Ah, you're right. Least he hasn't shit himself again."
"I don't give a rat's ass what they're feeding these Stovie fuckbags, it all smells the same when it comes out."
"Okay then, let's try this again. Lorenz Reidel. We know that you know that bastard. Our half of the planet's been hunting his ass for the last 20 years and your half's been keeping him hidden. Only you have any vague idea where he is."
"..."
"What? Are you saying something? Say it in Nordlish, goddammit, we know you can speak it."
"..."
"You'd better not be begging for your human rights because you forfeited those the moment you pulled the trigger on those innocent people."
"I was going to say... you cut off Estovakia and left us to burn. What is the metaphor you use in the West, pot and kettle?"
"Ooh, sharp. Speaking of cutting off, you know the Covanians filed for independence today? Your precious Republic's falling apart again."
"Let it."
"Lookie, we got a martyr here. Nothing left to lose, eh?"
"Yeah, I think he's ready to be thrown into the pit."
"I think so too. I think I should've thrown your pretty little half-Stovie ass in with the Covanians the moment you got in here but unfortunately that'll have to wait because Mr. Riedel is planning something that'll cause more death and destruction than your little hotel party."
"..."
"We know you're smiling inside, you fucking stolack. But let's be clear about one thing - here in Emmeria? We can go home at night and sleep knowing we're doing right by our country. You, well, you're not at liberty to do either."
"Okay."
"Okay? Well then, I guess we'll call that your consent. Hey Sergeant, get the other room ready and make sure they've stocked up on those gloves I like."
Antic Barri, Distrito Capital, San Salvacion
Years Earlier
Months had passed since the occupation began, and the mood around the city had finally settled into something akin to quiet resignation. The days were growing colder and shorter, but I could not feel my heart doing the same.
I had come to accept that my uncle's lack of presence in my apartment was very likely permanent for reasons I could only guess at. Maybe the secret police overheard making him one too many drunken comments and made him disappear. Maybe he disappeared of his own volition - purposefully or otherwise. Either way, I felt an almost invisible burden removed from my life, and not simply buried in my heart for the sole reason that he was no longer as much a presence in my life as the family I had found.
When I played the harmonica at the bar, I no longer worried over how many of the rations and Erusean francs I had to save for my uncle. Nor did I worry that I was essentially playing for free.
Now that the rest of the pantry in my apartment had long since been emptied, I only went home to sleep and change clothes.
With nobody else to turn to, Yellow Squadron of Air Base 765 had all but adopted me as one of their own. When school let out for the day, they kept me fed and warm. They even had a local baker whip up a small cake to celebrate my birthday. I slowly became more fluent in Erusean from talking with them and the books and comics they gave me. In turn, I helped them to learn to speak Salavan to my own neighbors, however well they would end up reacting.
I seemed to have been the only local resident they could open themselves to. They told me that local insurgents were trying to make trouble for their occupation and that they happened to be very well informed. At the time I hadn't the faintest suspicion where it was coming from, but I could at least understand why.
Every now and then at the pub I would turn a glance to the barkeep and his workers as well as Alicia; I couldn't tell whether they were angry or disappointed at how much I had fallen in with them. Perhaps even they knew the effects of catering to their enemy if only to save themselves.
Despite all this, there was already a time where I would no longer consider even this house a home. Perhaps it was a force of habit after spending so much time at the aerodrome and the bar, but at that point I would forget where my home was.
And that would turn out to be an almost fatal lapse in judgment.
It was on a mid-autumn night that I woke up to find myself in the dark, slumped against what felt like a bench of some sort. In a brief spell of fright, my eyesight adjusted to reveal at least a familiar darkness. I had slept past the bar's last call, so the front doors were already closed and bolted for the night. This meant morning would come soon, the muted golden grace of the autumn daylight that would allow me to run home and grab my belongings for school.
The fact that it was a soldiers' pub meant at least that nobody would dare break in apart from perhaps a really opportunistic thief or a resistance cell.
Unless they were already inside, of course. The sound of footsteps shuffling about upstairs opened my eyes, but it was the strange enveloping sensation I felt across most of my body that actually woke me up. It felt like someone had draped a blanket over me.
I flinched a little, bringing the supposed blanket into the reflected moonlight. It was a familiar brown shade with a ruffled collar, feeling about the same weight as leather.
I sighed and settled back. One of the Yellow Squadron's pilots had left me their jacket to keep me warm, although I couldn't tell which one it was as I couldn't quite make out the number on the back. I tried again to go back to bed, but curiously to no avail.
It was almost late enough to be early morning, and yet the activity continued, piquing my curiosity away from the land of slumber. I began to wonder exactly what they were doing up there long after they had closed, staring at the stairway up to their quarters like an inclined cave serving as a lair.
The barkeep was single to the best of my knowledge, likely a widower. Alicia would have had to be asleep if she had school in the morning as well.
I figured there was no harm in at least trying to find out, although I had to make sure I was quiet about it. I figured the worst that would happen was a scolding and the bartender either having me stay the rest of the night downstairs or ringing up a couple of graveyard shift MPs to drive me back home.
I carefully lowered myself to the floor, paying attention to make sure the soles of my shoes did not squeak across the tiled floor. I was familiar enough with the bar's layout that I could slowly find my way to the old wooden stairs leading up to the barkeep's residence. I slowly pressed myself to the side of the staircase, hands alternating on the rail as I made my way up one step at a time.
As I approached the top, I could hear the faint buzz of electricity or electrical devices. White noise. The bar was privileged enough to have electricity at this time of night. Perhaps the barkeep was simply tallying up inventories and accounts for the night, a benefit that resulted from extra donations of fuel to his generator for his contributions to the Erusean war effort.
But then I could hear conversation. Hushed conversation between at least two older males.
The barkeep lived alone with his daughter.
I dropped to the stairs as soon as I saw a shadow come out, keeping my line of sight just above the step immediately in front of me. The only light in the staircase was from whatever was lighting up the barkeep's quarters upstairs. The shadow entered the other door at the top of the stairs, to his immediate right, and the conversations inside seemed to stop.
This would have been as good a time as any to turn back while I hadn't been noticed. But my curiosity drew me closer. I crawled up the next few steps like a small lizard before standing up near the top, where I could suddenly see too much.
A cold chill exploded all of my nerve endings as I realized the light at the end of the tunnel might as well have been the train to Farbanti.
The barkeep was hunched at a table, typing on a small old laptop running a slightly outdated operating system, connected to a small portable printer. A box-like device next to it monitored internet connections.
The screen displayed fake passports and licenses. Schedules and road maps. Photos strung about a clothesline led to a covered area off to the side, the source of a mild chemical smell wafting through the room.
And all of a sudden, everything was made clear.
The bar was always open for soldiers, from grunts to the elite air force officers. The barkeep, his staff, his daughter, served them drinks and meals with a warm smile on their faces knowing full well that the town would resent them for it. And when the soldiers felt comfortable, they could speak more than their minds.
That was all they could ask for.
The Sky Kid pub was the local hub of a resistance cell operating right under the occupation's noses, an almost limitless font of information that would never stop flowing out of the Erusean occupation force's mouths and pockets as long as the drinks continued to flow out of the barkeep's taps. They could verify this information with their fighters in the field so they could take action. As long as the rest of the town acted like they were in bed with the enemy, nobody else would suspect a thing.
Most of all, they could easily presume that I, wearing the jacket of the enemy with a look of shock that reeked of babyfaced innocence, would be the first one to betray them.
The dishwasher that suddenly appeared from the bathroom by the stairs to push me into the room and lock the door behind us knew this too. So did Alicia, as I looked into her eyes with tears welling up in my own.
Despite seeing this she pulled me close, immediately gesturing and telling me to keep quiet about it as I trembled and pulled the jacket tighter over me like some kind of protective cape.
That did not protect me from listening to the argument they started having. About how much I was likely to report them to the authorities, or who else I was likely to tell and how soon. About how much I could be trusted to keep quiet if they could tell me to.
About whether they should have me silenced by relocation or by other drastic measures, and if the Yellow Squadron would notice and by how much if that did happen. Much to the barkeep and his daughter's shock, the dishwasher even suggested making it quick and quiet, and that he could drop the body of Erusea's little harmonica boy at the bottom of Lake Oronell before sunrise.
Eventually, they acceded to sparing me. Alicia quietly informed me of this on the sole condition that I would keep my silence over what I saw. I nodded silently yet shakily before the barkeep asked her to take me to school in the morning.
She led me back downstairs where I would stay until then, but I would not be getting any more sleep.
It would seem that hushing my lips on the matter was a compromise I could live with. Through their kindness I had grown closer to them than my uncle. As long as I did not inform the Eruseans of what I'd seen that night, I could continue to enjoy their company to get me through the shortening days.
Yet the burden lifted from my back from my uncle's disappearance was now replaced by a small seedling of guilt. Guilt that I was the one who was fraternizing with the force that the people considered their enemy, and that the only reason I was allowed to live was because I was too young.
Conversely, the resistance cell the barkeep led held the quiet respect of the people underneath the outward scorn. Now that they knew of my own knowledge of their cell, my presence was an unwelcome convenience.
It was an uneasy balance that ironically worked out for the benefit for the three parties involved. I could continue to live as part of the squadron's extended family. The Eruseans would have at least one local to genuinely warm their hearts, and as long as I continued to be their minstrel, the resistance would use the occupation's distraction to their advantage.
With the Allies preparing for a counterattack this meant that there would inevitably come a time when this compromise would break.
"It won't be long. It won't be long now, till it begins."
I had been keeping track of the war from the chatter and reports that transited through the aerodrome on the highway. The coalition had been able to reorganize and deal strategic hit-and-run blows to valuable targets. Now they were amassing for a counterattack somewhere in the southeast.
Business at the pub began to taper out as many of the army soldiers were shuttled out east to reinforce friendly lines. Yellow Squadron and their crews were still faithful regulars, but the nights became quieter as their sorties became more infrequent.
It was a week or so after the rush of fear died down that I finally asked Alicia what would happen when these forces would finally come to blows. The bar was quiet enough that the two of us could stay outside in the fresh air.
"We'll drive them back. This is our town."
She said this casually, with hope. She said it like she wanted to mean it, but I could tell that she didn't mean it from the bottom of her heart.
It turned out that the anger written across her face as she waited on tables wasn't directed at me as much as I thought it was, nor was it as intensely directed toward the occupation in general. In fact, she seemed to give her worst glances to Thirteen and Four, sitting at the same table in the corner they always enjoyed.
I couldn't think of any way that he had personally wronged her at first. Even then it couldn't have been as much as he had wronged me. But I then realized she was not necessarily angry at him than she was at his wingman.
While my crush over Alicia had all but cooled following my discovery, she had fallen head over heels for Yellow Thirteen. Her anger was directed to his wingman, ever by his side as other pilots were rotated into the squadron's active roster. And yet he seemed almost oblivious to her at times, thankful for her company and the recipient of his trust but never in a manner more than professional.
What seemed more out of place was the fact that he seemed genuinely satisfied with recent events.
The base did not mince words about their failure to stop a crucial satellite launch from an archipelago south of the coastline, which clearly damaged the squadron's pride.
They knew it the moment five of their planes returned to base in the same order as before, only with Thirteen's bearing some glaring shrapnel wounds from a cannon hit that was more skilled than raw luck but miraculously avoiding key parts that would have prevented him from returning.
Everyone could tell it affected Thirteen underneath the calm demeanor he continued to exude after he landed. Despite his successfully nursing a damaged aircraft all the way across the continent, he knew that the entire air base's pride had been damaged as their most invincible pilot.
Yet the look on his face was that of admiration for the pilot that hit him. I took a seat at a table across from the pilots and listened as he could not stop himself from thinking out loud. He wondered how that pilot managed to weave through the tangled mass of aircraft as effortlessly as they did and land a skilled hit on their own leader's aircraft before they were ordered to leave. He went through every maneuver, every path taken to avoid getting caught in the crossfire.
The wounds on his aircraft were nothing short of deliberate and for that, he knew he was up against more than the multitude of enemies he faced.
"He's so close. If he manages to stay alive a little while longer, that man might be a worthy opponent."
As days went by, with Allied counterattack increasingly imminent, his eyes filled with disappointment. It was the sort of dread that this rival would be struck down by someone else out of raw opportunity or bad luck, one out of the thousands of planes that were airborne near the eastern coastline at any given moment.
Still, he would keep a stern face on the matter and bear it out. There was still a war to be fought and he was obligated to see it through to his end. His desire for a rival would come second to his duty to his nation and his squadron.
Elsewhere, entire armies were amassing for the beginning of the end. But the one lesson I learned about war, on that fateful summer day that seemed like an eternity ago and that cold autumn night that I wished had been that far as well, was that it was personal.
Alicia, Yellow Thirteen and I all stood on our own sides, facing our own enemies with our plans and lack thereof.
Time was no longer important. It was only a matter of who would strike first.
A/N: There was a canon-altering idea that I had in a conversation with John_Silver on ModDB that the AC game storylines are "cinematic versions" as would be premiered on TV and in movie theaters.