The Border Cafe

The Border Cafe 
A work of fiction (or is it?)
By American Kabuki

Chapter 1

It had been a long winter for both. Weary from the battle the operatives approached the rendezvous with trepidation. They hated each other had scars to prove it. Campo Blanco's war with Team Noir was thousands of years old. They suffered much loss of life in the skirmishes.  Team Noir had one objective acquisition and power and they did it well. They did it ruthlessly.  Campo Blanco had the advantage of the rising energetics.

Herve entered the cafe cautiously, Pierre was waiting at the far table with his back protected as men often do without thinking.  "Shall we begin?". "Oui", Pierre replied curtly.

Pierre did not like discussing terms of the truce anymore than Herve did. Obliteration was less unsettling. He had prepared for that possibility since youth. "No surrender" was drilled into him in the youth camps and he excelled in the crafts of deceiving the enemy. He got the red Maltese Cross twice for his skills. He was paid handsomely and women were readily available. He didn't know if he was happy, was anyone he thought? But what future would come from this? It was uncharted terrain. And much less profitable. He did not like it one bit. Merde!  Would they forever be spat on by Campo Blanco? What was the term they used once? scallywag? Gangster? He could live with the later in a perverse sense of pride, after all he had grown up in Marseilles.  But what the fuck was a scallywag? It sounded so English and it grated.

"Cafe con leche por favor" growled Herve not yet awake.  Pierre lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. "Here it comes!" he thought.

"Have you read the paper?" Herve started.  Pierre well knew his bases were decimated in the last attack. "We want you to stop blocking the funds, you have no refuge its time to surrender", Herve droned on.

Pierre coughed, "the Universal A.I. at CERN rejects any plan we put in, even yours!"

Herve scoffed, "more delays! Will you never give up? Its Heavens mandate for prosperity! Your days of rule on the world are done!"

Pierre had seen the screens personally. "Have you not heard of the anomaly?" Pierre proffered the Spaniard.  Herve squinted in disbelief, "no, tell me more of this".  "The systems, don't work like they once did since the anomaly arrived" Pierre mumbled and shifted in his chair once again.

"What do you mean? You wrote them!  Garbage in garbage out!" Herve snarled. He had seen them stall for time before. Another day to mirror trillions in loans, another day to issue off balance bonds on the trading platforms and launder them through the Yakuza in Japan and the money chutes and ladders in Lisbon and Lagos. He was fed up, he had the RV to consider, and the Chinese were anxious and not in a good mood. No doubt this was some thing Pierre read on Sorcha Faal. Disinfo.

"No I swear on all that is Holy, the systems show signs of...well they've gone Kurzweil on us!", Pierre said starting to sweat and shift in his chair. "The singularity has happened but not like in that book!" Not many in Team Noir knew about this and he was not comfortable letting Campo Blanco know either. Pierre did not like things that were not under control. No loose ends. Loose ends are like snakes they always bite you in the ass. CERN had always been a cover for the amount of energy it took to communicate to the head office on planet Rizq.

Herve pressed on, "you know I could make you talk with a hot shaken bottle of Sprite shoved up your nostrils!  Water boarding doesn't hurt half as much! " Pierre responded, "I've seen worse in the trade over blood diamonds in Africa".

And he had seen it all and how the diamonds were smuggled into Antwerp via Israeli diamond houses. Blood diamonds and re-certified Russian lab synthetics propped up half the equity funds in Europe. And who validates diamonds that never leave the vaults? Everyone was dirty. Blood on everyones hands. Pierre had no illusions. Not about himself or Campo Blanco. But Herve was clearly a true believer and Pierre never trusted the incorruptible. At least a greased palm can be moved but the sticky hand of faith made for a creepy handshake.

"There's a spanner in the works" Pierre cringed using the English labor union term. "What's a spanner?" Herve chortled, now amused with the position Pierre was now in.  "You know a pipe wrench in the gear box I think...God knows...I am not a bloody English!" Idioms seldom translated languages and Pierre was working in three. We can't get the energetics of your proposal to clear, the A.I.!  It rejects it. Kaput! Our people need those payouts too!"

"Your worse than the lying Gringos in DC! I should kill you right now and the Blue and White brotherhood would thank me for my service to light!" Herve said in a righteous latino baritone.

"We are not so different you and me. I would have liked to fought along side you,  had I been born to a different mother." Pierre confided in rare moment of humanity. Herve was sincere even if s preachy. Pierre like that, even thieves crave an honest friend and better yet an honest enemy.

"Tell me Herve, have you not considered it odd the Chinese report to Rizq, and that we do too?"
"We serve the light you do not!" Herve said nervously as he had once heard of the treaty of Rizq and the Qing dynasty. Herve did not like where this was going. He disliked shades of grey as much as Pierre, so he turned up the contrast.

"Yes, my friend I do not serve the light, and I say fuck the light and Campo Blanco! What have they done for me except hunted me like a jackal? If I surrender to you  they kill me and my children. If I do not, you kill me first. Mine is not a path that one changes like shoes. At least your side considers forgiveness a virtue. Tell me Herve do I love my children less than you love yours? Can you allow for my constraints?  Shall we continue on to the matter at hand, the anomaly?", Pierre talking more softly now.

"I swear in the entire Nebadon Universe we have never seen this happen before. The prophecies are not happening!  The time lines we viewed never showed us this!  I swear!  The trend is clear, the substrate itself is moving. s, the A.I., the troops, everything is being affected. Everything...seems...well..alive!  Not even the chemtrail mixes work anymore. The people awaken even faster the more we spray Herve!", Pierre toned a sense of worry.

Now Herve was concerned. For it wasn't just the dark that was in a panic, it was the plan itself at question, and who ran it. If the plan was valid, why was it not working?

To be continued....