Brian Mc Clain
Brian Mc Clain
I suppose it was too much to ask that the japs kindly give up and go home after we turned off the spigot but, from what I hear, now they were trying to drive their army south.
“'Nother airship.”
Billy’s words echoed in our house. When I first got to Kathrine I wondered if the home we were at was the largest one in the city, if they were rich enough to have walls that made the place look like a small mountain, but that turned out not to be the case. The mandy’s built their homes to be large and massive. The empty small town inside of the walls was not the exception but the rule.
Personally it seemed just rather wasteful to me to have so much space and barely use any of it, but that was their way and it gave them an illusion of wealth and grandness. After talking to Jack I found out the truth of it as most mandy’s, far from being wealthy, were just getting by.
“Haven’t seen that many airships in my life.”
Billy looked at the ship as it landed and offloaded more mandy’s, more equipment, more guns.
“Because we destroyed all of the airship companies.”
I rolled my eyes at my son's statement.
“Don’t go on about that nonsense Billy. The reason they got rid of em was because they weren’t safe. why, the Hindenburg.”
“The Hindenburg used non alchemically treated hydrogen. It didn’t have any of the magical safety features that were a part of the standard practices and procedures of the Monroe pact airships. Airships at that point had been doing cross atlantic and pacific travel for close to a hundred years dad. There were companies that were incredibly profitable and then, suddenly, after the Hindenburg all of them were forcibly closed down. Despite a safety record that beat out both regular ships and trains.”
I blinked.
“But the hindenburg killed almost everyone abord.”
“It was made by a german airship company that didn’t have enough magi to make them properly anymore. What really happened dad, was that the empire saw a chance to destroy all of the airship companies all at once.”
“And why would we do that?”
“Because they made our blockades practically useless during the great war. The silver line alone probably added months to the jerry’s war effort. They took the empires greatest strength and ignored it and had been doing so for generations. It helped that there were people with interests that coincided with ours. The trains and shipping companies wanted them out of the market, the new airplane companies wanted them gone, we just used every newspaper we had and caused a panic to eliminate them. The oil and car companies did some thing similar to the trolley companies in the states.”
“So these airships are?”
“The survivors of the purge da, old things that were just left in the outback to rot when the laws changed and we drove 'em all out of business.”
He got up and stretched.
“Got a mission tonight with the others.”
He looked at me.
“You going to be ok da?”
“Bloody hell boy, I should be asking you the same thing. I just work with the bloody motorpool…”
I paused.
“Speaking of which, how is it out there?”
“It's been about a month since you cut them off from the water.”
“Thought that would have killed em.”
Billy sighed.
“Command thinks they prepared for that, filled the bath tubs, did some rationing, had their magi make the salt water drinkable, that sort of thing.”
“So it was all useless then.”
“No da, I’ve been out there. The enemy’s thinner now, more hungry and more sloppy. We have been getting more kills, wearing them down and such. They still fight like demons but there's a listlessness to them that they didn’t have when they first came here.”
I clenched my hands.
“Feel kind of helpless.”
“Battles are won with blood and iron. But wars are won with food and water.”
I blinked.
“And that’s?”
“An old phenix saying. I think it was coined by general One Eye, after the algebra wars.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“The algebra wars. When the phenix discovered algebra it touched off a series of religious wars that killed millions of people.”
I stared at him.
“Millions of people died over bloody math?”
My son stared at me.
“How many people died because the serbians bombed a hotel?”
I lifted a finger.
“Good point. Let's change the subject. Lots of cars have been in lately, look like a bloody mess, trucks, taxis. Where are we getting the bloody oil for 'em all?”
Billy took a sip of water.
“Bio diesel.”
“And that’s a magic thing?”
“Well, you saw those big tanks of water? They're filled to the brim with algae. Once the algae is finished growing it's put in another part of the house and they use magic to process it and turn it into petrol. It's one of Australia's biggest export, Yanks, Brazilians and Israelis do it too. You just need some magi to set it all up and keep it running.”
I closed my eyes.
“So how did all that come about then?”
“You really want to know da?”
“Yes.”
Billy looked at me strangly.
“Why? You never much cared about this stuff before. It was always rugby or criket or some other sport.”
“I'm trying to get closer to you boy, stop being so cheeky.”
My son opened the book.
“Well, it starts in America. There was this company called standard oil, owned by this fella named John D. Rockafeller.”
“Never heard of em.”
My son nodded.
“There's a reason for that. Well, anyways, he had a monopoly on all the oil companies in the united states. Man was ruthless, had a bunch of judges, and politicians in his pocket. He destroyed his rivals and he was hard on his employees.”
“Sounds like a bad man.”
“One of the worst. Well he had labor problems and used these thugs called the pinkertons to do his dirty work. They would spy on his workers, rough 'em up and even kill them.”
I frowned.
“Something like that would have brought in the local seven to handle that kind of nonsense.”
“Yanks don’t have sevens to kill the bad sorts in the government Da.”
“Well, they should.”
“Can I continue?”
I sighed.
“Fine.”
“So, the workers get fed up and they have a general strike. Whole country shuts down because of it and that fella's thugs can't keep things in order. It gets so bad that they think about calling in the army but that would look bad so the president asks the old bird to handle it.”
“and?”
“And merlin asks for full discretion to handle the whole matter any way he sees fit.From the president, from congress, he gets it. Now you're probably thinking that the union boys are in for a world of hurt but that’s not the way it goes down. Merlin instead asks for seven leaders to negotiate a contract with Standard Oil, Rockafeller he gets to bring six boys with him to help him negotiate a contract and, because there is some serious bad blood, it's going to be a magic contract.”
“That’s a thing?”
“Yeah but it's rare. In order to be binding the contract has to be fair so you can't go being a right cunt to the other bloke and the person who breaks it? They suffer under a curse until things are made right. So the old bird has government mandate and Johny boy is told that he has to respect the rules of hospitality which means harming the union leaders is not allowed. The union boys get the same word.”
I leaned in.
“So the meeting happens and this Rockafeller guy just will not budge. He insults the union folks, refuses to talk to 'em, calls 'em criminals while the old bird is telling him to be civil then he storms out of the school and leaves. The old bird tells him the negotiations are not over and that he will be forced to come back.”
My son paused.
“So the union boys go around the city while they wait, you know see zone and some such. All seven of them are killed.”
I grimaced.
“I take it that.”
“Yeah Rockerfeller had them killed and then left town so smug and stuff ,pretended he had nothing to do with it. But the old bird knew and he put out a message to him in all the papers.”
He opened his book.
“Dear Mr. Rockafeller, you have blood on your hands. You are directly responsible for the brutal murders of seven men. Do not try to pretend it was some random criminal, I am not stupid and I am not fooled. You have arrogantly broken a truce held under the principles of the right of hospitality. A principle you agreed to be bound to. If you are insulted by me questioning your honor, know this. You can not question something that does not exist. You think that your money, your power, your bought judges, police men and politicians can protect you from my wrath. Know this, they can’t and won’t. I will personally ruin you, I will remove all of your allies from power and then I will see you hanged. I am telling you this because I want you to know who sent you to hell. From Merlin the Phenix.”
My son paused.
“In the next month he released the secret of biodiesel to farmers all around the US, gave 'em money to build the facilities for it and some such. Then, one by one, all of Rockafellers political allies lost elections. New laws were created and then the lawsuits came in. Within five years John D. Rockafeller was completely bankrupt and then he was put on trial for the murder of the seven union men and he was hanged for it.”
My son calmly took another sip of water.
“And that’s where biodiesel came from.”
I suppose it was too much to ask that the japs kindly give up and go home after we turned off the spigot but, from what I hear, now they were trying to drive their army south.
“'Nother airship.”
Billy’s words echoed in our house. When I first got to Kathrine I wondered if the home we were at was the largest one in the city, if they were rich enough to have walls that made the place look like a small mountain, but that turned out not to be the case. The mandy’s built their homes to be large and massive. The empty small town inside of the walls was not the exception but the rule.
Personally it seemed just rather wasteful to me to have so much space and barely use any of it, but that was their way and it gave them an illusion of wealth and grandness. After talking to Jack I found out the truth of it as most mandy’s, far from being wealthy, were just getting by.
“Haven’t seen that many airships in my life.”
Billy looked at the ship as it landed and offloaded more mandy’s, more equipment, more guns.
“Because we destroyed all of the airship companies.”
I rolled my eyes at my son's statement.
“Don’t go on about that nonsense Billy. The reason they got rid of em was because they weren’t safe. why, the Hindenburg.”
“The Hindenburg used non alchemically treated hydrogen. It didn’t have any of the magical safety features that were a part of the standard practices and procedures of the Monroe pact airships. Airships at that point had been doing cross atlantic and pacific travel for close to a hundred years dad. There were companies that were incredibly profitable and then, suddenly, after the Hindenburg all of them were forcibly closed down. Despite a safety record that beat out both regular ships and trains.”
I blinked.
“But the hindenburg killed almost everyone abord.”
“It was made by a german airship company that didn’t have enough magi to make them properly anymore. What really happened dad, was that the empire saw a chance to destroy all of the airship companies all at once.”
“And why would we do that?”
“Because they made our blockades practically useless during the great war. The silver line alone probably added months to the jerry’s war effort. They took the empires greatest strength and ignored it and had been doing so for generations. It helped that there were people with interests that coincided with ours. The trains and shipping companies wanted them out of the market, the new airplane companies wanted them gone, we just used every newspaper we had and caused a panic to eliminate them. The oil and car companies did some thing similar to the trolley companies in the states.”
“So these airships are?”
“The survivors of the purge da, old things that were just left in the outback to rot when the laws changed and we drove 'em all out of business.”
He got up and stretched.
“Got a mission tonight with the others.”
He looked at me.
“You going to be ok da?”
“Bloody hell boy, I should be asking you the same thing. I just work with the bloody motorpool…”
I paused.
“Speaking of which, how is it out there?”
“It's been about a month since you cut them off from the water.”
“Thought that would have killed em.”
Billy sighed.
“Command thinks they prepared for that, filled the bath tubs, did some rationing, had their magi make the salt water drinkable, that sort of thing.”
“So it was all useless then.”
“No da, I’ve been out there. The enemy’s thinner now, more hungry and more sloppy. We have been getting more kills, wearing them down and such. They still fight like demons but there's a listlessness to them that they didn’t have when they first came here.”
I clenched my hands.
“Feel kind of helpless.”
“Battles are won with blood and iron. But wars are won with food and water.”
I blinked.
“And that’s?”
“An old phenix saying. I think it was coined by general One Eye, after the algebra wars.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“The algebra wars. When the phenix discovered algebra it touched off a series of religious wars that killed millions of people.”
I stared at him.
“Millions of people died over bloody math?”
My son stared at me.
“How many people died because the serbians bombed a hotel?”
I lifted a finger.
“Good point. Let's change the subject. Lots of cars have been in lately, look like a bloody mess, trucks, taxis. Where are we getting the bloody oil for 'em all?”
Billy took a sip of water.
“Bio diesel.”
“And that’s a magic thing?”
“Well, you saw those big tanks of water? They're filled to the brim with algae. Once the algae is finished growing it's put in another part of the house and they use magic to process it and turn it into petrol. It's one of Australia's biggest export, Yanks, Brazilians and Israelis do it too. You just need some magi to set it all up and keep it running.”
I closed my eyes.
“So how did all that come about then?”
“You really want to know da?”
“Yes.”
Billy looked at me strangly.
“Why? You never much cared about this stuff before. It was always rugby or criket or some other sport.”
“I'm trying to get closer to you boy, stop being so cheeky.”
My son opened the book.
“Well, it starts in America. There was this company called standard oil, owned by this fella named John D. Rockafeller.”
“Never heard of em.”
My son nodded.
“There's a reason for that. Well, anyways, he had a monopoly on all the oil companies in the united states. Man was ruthless, had a bunch of judges, and politicians in his pocket. He destroyed his rivals and he was hard on his employees.”
“Sounds like a bad man.”
“One of the worst. Well he had labor problems and used these thugs called the pinkertons to do his dirty work. They would spy on his workers, rough 'em up and even kill them.”
I frowned.
“Something like that would have brought in the local seven to handle that kind of nonsense.”
“Yanks don’t have sevens to kill the bad sorts in the government Da.”
“Well, they should.”
“Can I continue?”
I sighed.
“Fine.”
“So, the workers get fed up and they have a general strike. Whole country shuts down because of it and that fella's thugs can't keep things in order. It gets so bad that they think about calling in the army but that would look bad so the president asks the old bird to handle it.”
“and?”
“And merlin asks for full discretion to handle the whole matter any way he sees fit.From the president, from congress, he gets it. Now you're probably thinking that the union boys are in for a world of hurt but that’s not the way it goes down. Merlin instead asks for seven leaders to negotiate a contract with Standard Oil, Rockafeller he gets to bring six boys with him to help him negotiate a contract and, because there is some serious bad blood, it's going to be a magic contract.”
“That’s a thing?”
“Yeah but it's rare. In order to be binding the contract has to be fair so you can't go being a right cunt to the other bloke and the person who breaks it? They suffer under a curse until things are made right. So the old bird has government mandate and Johny boy is told that he has to respect the rules of hospitality which means harming the union leaders is not allowed. The union boys get the same word.”
I leaned in.
“So the meeting happens and this Rockafeller guy just will not budge. He insults the union folks, refuses to talk to 'em, calls 'em criminals while the old bird is telling him to be civil then he storms out of the school and leaves. The old bird tells him the negotiations are not over and that he will be forced to come back.”
My son paused.
“So the union boys go around the city while they wait, you know see zone and some such. All seven of them are killed.”
I grimaced.
“I take it that.”
“Yeah Rockerfeller had them killed and then left town so smug and stuff ,pretended he had nothing to do with it. But the old bird knew and he put out a message to him in all the papers.”
He opened his book.
“Dear Mr. Rockafeller, you have blood on your hands. You are directly responsible for the brutal murders of seven men. Do not try to pretend it was some random criminal, I am not stupid and I am not fooled. You have arrogantly broken a truce held under the principles of the right of hospitality. A principle you agreed to be bound to. If you are insulted by me questioning your honor, know this. You can not question something that does not exist. You think that your money, your power, your bought judges, police men and politicians can protect you from my wrath. Know this, they can’t and won’t. I will personally ruin you, I will remove all of your allies from power and then I will see you hanged. I am telling you this because I want you to know who sent you to hell. From Merlin the Phenix.”
My son paused.
“In the next month he released the secret of biodiesel to farmers all around the US, gave 'em money to build the facilities for it and some such. Then, one by one, all of Rockafellers political allies lost elections. New laws were created and then the lawsuits came in. Within five years John D. Rockafeller was completely bankrupt and then he was put on trial for the murder of the seven union men and he was hanged for it.”
My son calmly took another sip of water.
“And that’s where biodiesel came from.”