Continental

The night was otherwise uneventful. At about 10:30 I had to break up an impromptu mini-stick hockey tourney outside my door, but I still have a teacher voice after all these years. Wobbly-legged parents came to see the hubbub, and between the "It's time for bed" declarations and the "We weren't that loud" protests, I managed to get some shut eye.

After waking up, I sent a text message to my friend Olivia who worked in Archives and Records, who also had access to current exchange schedules after her secondment into DND as an analyst. She agreed to meet for lunch.

Downstairs in the Continental breakfast enclave off of the lobby, the morning spread featured chafing dishes of sweating sausages, extremely relaxed bacon, and eggs that, while technically scrambled, had the consistency of a gym mat, which I learned only after taking a large, optimistic bite. Chewing through the mostly-edible toast, my eyes fixated on the closed captioning of the muted TV, as an indigenous woman spoke on screen.

>>> JUST EVERYTHING IS GONE WE WERE ABLE
TO
GET OUT JUST IN TIME BUT THIS
THERE
ARE NO WORDS
>>> RESIDENTS ARE DIS DISTRAUGHT AT THE SHEER LEV
LEVEL OF
OF DESTRU CTION EXCLUSIVE
HERE CBC F ROM OUR DRONE WHICH WAS TAKEN SHORTLY BEFORE
SMOKE
OVERTOOK THE AREA
FOR CBC NEWS, I'M PEETA MONTGOMERY
>>> (musical cue)

>>> (upbeat music)
♩THE SWIFFER WET JET
♩KEEPS YOUR HOUSE CLEAN

I looked back at my depressing eggs and nervously taking a bite of the bacon, which was crispier than it looked, though bland, and made, as I suspected, from reconstituted protein rather than animal product, and the red dye applied to make it appear baconesque left much to be desired.

Heading back upstairs after breakfast, I was stopped in the hallway by a still-drunk hockey mom named Cherry, clad in a bathrobe, who was "very mad at her husband" and staying in room 313, which I was free to visit at any time "day or... night. I don't think my tits are too small, do you think my tits are too small?" As she reached to open her bathrobe, I heard my door lock sound, and I pushed my way into my room and out of sight.

After my shower, and once I was sure the coast was clear, I headed down to the lobby, keeping with my head on a swivel for any other pickled predatory mothers, and down to the MetroCar stand. While I was in town, I could stock up on creature comforts and supplies for the cabin that are harder to get outside the defense perimeter.

After finishing my errands and loading a cargo crate to send down to the parking complex, I headed Olivia, who had finally gotten a position in one of the really slick offices within the Canadian Government's geofront, which was a subterranean complex which housed the various organs of government to keep things running smoothly without fear of missile bombardment or drone strikes, should they evade the anti-aircraft batteries. While most of the city's commercial real estate and housing remained above ground, during the initial buildup of aggression, the Canadian taxpayer footed the bill for an enormous this underground complex.

Beyond the initial outrage, I remembered the thousands of news articles about the modern engineering marvel, allowing an entire national government to remain continuously functioning in the event of what turned out to be an inevitable transnational catastrophe.

The thinking I had at the time was that it was a vast propaganda campaign launched to deter any would-be aggressors from attacking the government, making it seem ultimately pointless, leaving only burning corpses of civilians above ground while Hon Members and shouted at each while civil servants ran the show, 70 metres below ground, from the safety of the various layers of armor plates that were paved over and hidden from view above ground.

Walking into the geofront entrance, I was stopped at a security desk by three uniformed elderly man holding MP7 sub-machine guns standing behind a security booth emblazoned with the COMMISSIONAIRES logo emblazoned behind them.

"Hello Bonjour," the first one said.

"Hi, I'm here to visit my friend Olivia Parish in A and R?"

"Your friend."

"Yeah."

"Does she know you're coming? Empty your pockets and remove any weapons or metal object and put them in the bins."

The second commissionaire put three plastic tubs on the conveyor belt beside me. As if on queue, Olivia appeared from the elevator bank behind the plasteel security fencing just as I finished passing through the magnetometer and being wanded down as an extra precaution.

"Ooooh, stranger," she said sarcastically, and gave me a hug. After releasing me, she switched over to business mode, and said "come on, let's head down where I can get signal," and gestured to the tablet under her arm.

Olivia first started helping me with this kind of stuff once I'd gotten out of hospital after what happened in Hamilton. She helped me reconnect with a few of the guys I'd deployed with, and even though I preferred the private life now, it's good to have people looking out for you, Olivia, Clark, hell even Jack, who'd given me the idea for the swaps in the first place.

The elevator door opened to vast open dome, with artificial light pumped in to mimic natural sunlight, all encircled around a water feature. Its lower reservoir featured red and white lighting around the inner rim, with several tiers leading up to a maple leaf, which hid the water distribution which caused the water to gracefully cascade down in 13 equal parts, each representing the original provinces and territories, before the west wanted out.

Sitting down at one of the co-work spaces set aside for civil servants to compare notes or whatever.

"Okay, and who is this guy to you?"

"He's, ah, an old friend."

"Okay, so he's like your age?"

"Younger? Maybe like 10 years?"

"Maybe ten years?"

"I don't know how old he is."

"Old friend, and you've never been to a birthday party or anything?"

"He's.. not a close friend," I pull the folded up 8-799 and 9-7-799 forms. "Listen, don't uh.. freak out, okay, but here's what I have."

Olivia saw the American flag on the forms and I watched as her eyes flitted up to me and back at the form, then back to me, "Mitch, these are American forms."

"I know."

"American?"

"I know."

"With..." she pointed at my arm, "After that?"

I raised the other arm, which was actually my prosthetic, "It's this one, actually. But... you're in here," I say, "And I'm out there. Out there, you gotta do what you gotta do."