Chapter 22 - A League of Nations

A representative arrived in the city from our former enemies.  He arrived well dressed and with only his attache a beautiful girl with bright blond hair that made my assistants unreliable.  We met for lunch in a cafe to discuss the specifics of hosting a larger delegation of his colleagues to arrive later in the month.  It would be to discuss trade, culture and possibly warming of relations.

He left his attache a girl named Anna in my care to continue on the specifics and I arranged for her to have a desk and office across the hallway from mine, in Oliver's old space.  She was barely a girl of twenty and a recent graduate of university.  She reminded me of Sophie.

The foreigners had odd customs and one of which was they carried no last names.  Anna was simply that and somehow they knew how to address the correct Anna as both her mother and aunt had the same name.  Another was they avoided eating alone and she spent every lunch hour in my office sharing a box lunch.  This attracted the attention of many of the young attaches who always found an excuse to walk past her office and offer invitation to dine together.

She became somewhat of a famous legend during her month long stay that extended well past the trade delegation and she remained for a year.  I asked her directly if she was counter intelligence and she demurred and promised to be honest with me.  Her intentions were well meaning and tactics and methods the same.  She brought message from the foreigners that they indeed wished for peace and were approaching every avenue and possibility to ensure a productive outcome.  She was tasked by her Commissar to do everything to be as hospitable a host.  I asked of her assistance and youthful optimism on a new charter and legislation that we were attempting to craft.

Her eyes widen as she read our attempts at world peace without unholy weapons.  She laughed and thought it was an impossible dream and this sounded very much something an Artesian would dare pen.  She had studied everything about me and knew of Karl Knutmudsen and that he was a friend of mine and Sophie was even an able convert.  I was specifically chosen, nay targeted for this very reason as she had hope that it was true.

I told her she is sitting in the office of another friend who was a disciple of Karl who thought the same thing and for ten years waited patiently for any sign.  He laughed himself to death when he discovered I am not.  She found it odd and too much of a coincidence that I was surrounded by the Artesians, was in the absolute inner core and sanctum with Karl, Oliver, Ingrid and now Sophie and yet I knew nothing of it.  Anyone would be in disbelief, but she knew of the forced re education, the camps and helpful fists and boot kicks that confirmed I am just a fool.

Not quite clear as to why, the idea popped in my head and I saw in Anna's reflection of poor John.  I quickly gave young Anna advice not to become like Karl's last attache who died for no good reason for a cause he didn't even understand or believe in, but merely by association with the Knutmudsen name and legacy.  It was as if my old friend's arms continued to stretched past decades still and tapping on my desk, nudging my shoulders and now in the embrace of a beautiful young girl.  How I yearned for the Knut to go away.

The League of Nations charter was something we all had studied in school and known was from a bygone era.  It was an utter failure and while it gave rise to another institution by a different name, much like the Central Administration it too failed horribly.  But that dream always seemed to be reborn and take fresh vitality after each major conflict.  It was the Colonel's idea and grand concept to try once more and he found a kindred spirit in the trade delegation.

Anna was quite surprising in the depth of her keen awareness of our culture and history.  She knew more about me and Gustaf than most long time residents.  But with her foreign face and customs she stood out and was perfectly at ease with the constant gawking.  Her only visible emotion and distress was at the sight of the half breeds, the orphans of the war who had grown up and were often shunned by polite society.

She mourned for them and spent every moment of her spare time not in a musuem or cultural center at the local orphanage.  She immediately bonded with a tiny little girl named Anna and who carried on the tradition of not having a last name, but not by choice, only her birth mother abandoned little Anna and wanted to ensure she could never be found.

It was this I found the main catalyst for her extending her visit past the year and she asked a favor in allowing her to adopt the girl.  She didn't need my assistance as the orphans were eventually shushed out the door once they were a certain age and any offer to relieve them from the overcrowding was eagerly accepted.  But I accepted and arranged for Anna to adopt little Anna who I had to call Anna Two to avoid confusion.  It was after Anna Two that Anna One confided in me that she too was a war orphan.  The trade Commissar was her adoptive father.  It was a vulnerability she did not want shared and offered it to me like someone would hand a loaded pistol to take great care for them.  Their customs were foreign and hence odd and I couldn't understand why such a fact was so dangerous, but promised to keep it a secret.

Anna's mood continued to brighten and she became even more endearing, refusing any invitation for the others and spending all her spare time with me and Anna Two.  My Colonel nudged me and did so a bit forcefully and I nodded that she was very skilled an operator, that could best any on the secret police.  We joked it would take only a big fool to consider her switching sides and becoming an agent of ours and an even bigger fool to actually succeed.

Put I pitied them both and saw their brief happiness as the reason for the League of Nations and wiped the opportunity from my mind.  We continued our work and planned to the final draft with Commissariat and with the trade delegates the following year.

Anna had now become a common and pleasing fixture and I quickly forgot she was still very much the enemy and the gentle caress of Sophie's hand and her fingers on my tatter rags that felt like my death bed always quickly awakened me from that haze that only Anna somehow was so skilled at ensnaring everyone else.

Chapter 21 - Boulevards

Some normalcy resumed and the city was rebuilt.  The opportunity to widen some narrow streets gave a new sense of efficiency and revitalized some areas of commerce with shops and business concentrated in specific neighborhoods and zones.

In an odd sense the ravages and fires had leveled centuries of complacency and gave way to modern progress and within a decade very little of the scars remained, but one need not look too far to see them.

It also came to pass that Sophie and I married and began a family.  We raised a littler of three, two daughters and the youngest a son.  The new Commissar gave me a job in this new Republic and I found myself sitting in my old office, at my old desk.  Although fire and artillery shells had gutted the old Politiburo, the building was left standing and even though it stood for the old regime, a sense of undue pride mandated we preserve the structure.

There were a few nicks on the corner of my desk made by some bullet rounds and you could follow them and trace them to holes in the wall, most have been plastered over, but if you know where to look you can feel the grooves and divets.

Sophie wanted to hang up pictures and paintings, some recovered from the Montresor that unfortunately burned to the ground taking with it many priceless masterpieces.  I took one painting that Ingrid was fond of.

My salary was a mere fraction of what it was.  The old ways, the status of a signatory were all a memory and I was simply a citizen.  Even the Commissars, were now elected officials and the old Colonel a representative of our peers.  He was gifted the authority to select his staff and while he chose many of our colleagues from the former Politiburo, it was necessary as they knew how to govern and could quickly restart the world.

The names of bureaus, station chiefs and so on may all have changed, the emblems and logos also different, but the faces all appeared the same and one could be forgiven when walking through the lobby and hallways of the old Politiburo now renamed the Central Administration, that nothing had changed.

I ate a simple meal delivered by a box cart.  A scraggly old man ambled through the hallways hawking his wares and we each picked an item and paid the man.  How he made it up the stairs we never knew.

The monthly meetings were the same and the Commissars convened.  They were much longer affairs and lasted through the day and sometimes extended into the next.  There were more austere measures and none of the whisky and cigars in cordial smaller groups, only coffee and stale donuts.  The more miserable the offerings the more noble and honorable it all was.  Or so this was the ways of the Central Administration.

Acronyms became very popular and my title as the Commissar Senior Attache of Domestic Affairs and Inquiry was the CSADAI or shortened CADI and pronounced like how you would call someone who carried one's clubs on a golf course.  Where ever possible all acronyms started with CA, even if it didn't represent the Central Administration.

The wide boulevards spanned like fingers from the City Center and became the arteries of a new life blood that pulsed.  Each named after a great hero of the greatest war.  The city itself was renamed Gustaf in honor of Sigmund.

I saved part of a spare donut left on a meeting tray.  As it was my duties to fill the coffee pot and set the round pastries for each meeting.  Wrapped in a luxurious napkin that somehow was spared and a memory of a bygone era, I slipped it into my coat pocket.  The grease already congealed and pooling into a darkened corner that made me wonder if I should have used an extra napkin.

Food scarcity was still a major concern and would make for a good excuse to shoot the old Commissar Peter over crop reports.  The fields that were once lush and giving, had been salted and spoiled and while each year we flushed and cleansed what we could, it would take time.  Everything was rationed and we each apportioned a ration card with specific times and dates on where and when we could redeem them.

Even the choices were quite spartan and there really was only the choice of the same loaf of bread, the same tin of coffee or salted beef.  A small bag of vegetables and fruits were a luxury as was anything that we took for granted in abundance.

Gratefully, a CADI's salary was more than adequate in a time when everyone had only a monthly ration card and it afforded the small luxuries Sophie so missed.  Many of the old shops remained and their shelves while spaced more strategically, carried all the items she wanted.  It became a game of sort that I recall Oliver and Ingrid playing with the Montresor, now over a pot of jam or cheese and wine.

My other joy, the Island had been wiped off the map and no longer exists.  Nor was it replaced or deemed necessary.  The camps remained and so too the penal system under a new Commissar who no longer was responsible for the secret police.  That social apparatus of intrigue was now under a different commander, my old Colonel.

Even the lowly title of CADI afforded armed guards, a pair of young boys in ill fitting trench coats who followed me everywhere.  Their rifle butts clanking on their belts, but were of a high quality and fresh ammunition that never missed.  Still amateurs when my time I had full fledged and seasoned officers as attache's.  Now I have young recruits who did not know how to salute properly and were distracted by butterflies on a dog's nose.

It was through all this, I spent my spare evenings at a local pub.  I made new friends, some knew who I was, but many knew who I am now and I could have simply worn a badge on my sleeve.  There was Carl, Rupert and Brennan.  Carl was an accountant for a trade organization.  Rupert a construction foreman and Brennan the town drunk, but always the bearer of valuable insights.

Many illegal stills and breweries operated and the quality was dubious sometimes, but ours was more reputable and operated in the open.  Most were nothing more than speakeasy's hidden behind walls and in basements, much the way they survived during the occupation.  Old habits die hard.

The conversation was always the same, light and non-intrusive.  We only knew each other by our first names and livelihoods.  Beyond that we never pried or asked more than what was common knowledge.  This was how we became friends and preferred it that way.

Chapter 20 - The Horde

My brother was right.  There was another great war and the continents once again were plunged into bloody conflict.  It was to our misfortune our city was selected and the foreign hordes unleashed their wrath upon us.

One cannot imagine the sight of ten million soldiers, tanks, planes and all manner of machines and weapons of war converging and stampeding across an entire, hapless city.  We were made the focal point of the enemies entry into the Republic and they then fanned out unabated across the open plains and as far as the coastal provincial.  For a time, the Capital withstood a merciless siege before they too were overrun and the Great Hall of the People's was rendered asunder.

They came speaking the same gibberish that Sophie uttered to me and said was from Karl.  I found it quite odd and terrifying that these soldiers all sounded like Knut.  When I said a few of those gibberish words they took pause and delight and singled me out for some kind of unwanton praise.

As they went seemingly randomly down the streets killing and plundering everyone, they left me alone.  I could not understand why, were these the Artesians?  Was this the army of Karl Knutmudsen coming at last?

Sophie went into hiding along with Ingrid, Martha and many others.  Many of the hiding places were found and the people dragged out.  Sophie was fortunate and hers held out to the very last and by then the horde had taken their fill and moved on to the next cities, leaving just a small retinue of rear guard to hover over their prize.

My clothes were now tattered remnants, my shoes nothing but pieces of rubber tied with string and I wandered aimlessly through the streets I had always known, not sure of who I am or who I was.  Someone would call out to me, a few remembered me as the old Commissar and the foreign soldiers laughed even more when they understood what I once was to this city.

I kneeled in the city square next to the smash remnants of the Great Mural.  A few letters remained of my family name sake, still taller than I could stand.  I wondered when the Commissariat would rise up and say this was all in their plan and just another hoax or scheme to test all of us.  I would then get reassigned to Camp 47 or some other place, maybe finally thrown onto the Island.

Alas, none of this came to pass.  The Commissariat was gone.  The Party gone.  All monuments.  All the party songs.  The Artesian movement had indeed arrived, it was not a hoax as they so claimed it to be.  It was just their own hoax of a hoax and all their silly games that had been playing on their own people all these many generations.  We no longer understood what was real.

Someone tossed me some clothes and a pair of shoes.  I at first didn't know what had hit me and thought it was a dead bird.  I clung onto it thinking it would bring me sustenance later and walked to a burnt out alleyway.  There were a few scavengers, but they paid me no attention.  My shabby appearance and my tattered pockets offered nothing.

In my final desperation, I sat down and lay my head how I once did in that garden and wept.  Someone put a blanket up to my shoulders.  I then heard the thud of a bottle of water and the clunk of a metal pan with some food and when I came too, I was in a small room with a simple mattress, a chair and a latrine.  It felt like a prison cell, but much nicer than anything I remembered from the camp.  I then thought it might a hospital gurney, but saw no sutures or a IV.

I didn't care anymore, I didn't eat.  Didn't drink and just slept for what must have been days.  When I came too, it was to someone reassuring and caressing my arm.  It felt familiar, it was Sophie's.  She was dressed in the uniform the foreign soldiers wore and a pair of mismatched boots.  She somehow had found me and had me brought to that rehabilitation station.

She said the war had ended in a stalemate.  Our city was indeed overwhelmed and overrun.  Many other cities and the Capital were overrun, but the military had planned this and retreated.  Just like when Wolf's 331st was sacrificed, they then unleashed hell and drop unholy weapons atop the mass of foreign invaders.  None made it back to this city to retreat.

Sigmund proved worthy of Wolf's name and would have made him proud.  He died in his heroism, but not before he delayed the retreat of the Army.  There were none left, she was now the last.  All she had was me.

When I was well enough, she help me limp to one of the last remaining battlements overlooking the ruins of our city.  We then saw across the bay and saw that our once neighbors had been completely leveled and none survived the initial onslaught.  In irony the unification of our two cities merely spared us the worse of it.

A new Commissar was approaching.  He nudged me on the shoulder, it was my old Colonel.  Accompanied by the Major and even the Captain who had reinstated into the Army.  They all survived and welcomed me.  We all somehow survived, incredible, amazing they all said.

Chapter 19 - New Beginnings

There was a parade.  To celebrate a new suspension bridge built across the long river joining our city with another across the bay.  It was a joyous occasion when two cities are prepared to merge into one.  The respective Politiburo's threw huge galas and celebrations and twice the normal number of Commissars were in attendance as they began making plans for the union of two regimes.

I was tending and pruning a tree near the Montresor when Sigmund approached me and asked me about her sister.  Sophie was in a shop looking for some marjoram and herbs.  He obliged and entered the shop to speak with her.  They were seen in the window talking calmly then her arms were raised unfailingly and I knew something had upset her.  I assumed the worst and I rushed inside to hear what it was.

Wolf had been on the Island all along.

Sophie somehow knew and felt that was true even though they never showed it on any reel.  She just knew they would not go so lightly on a Commissar like Wolf betray the Commissariat and the Capital.

She then had to ask how Sigmund knew of this and it was Oliver who sent word through Ingrid and Martha.

There was nothing much anyone could do and neither Oliver nor Wolf would ever leave the Island.  We all have long came to dread that word, that place.  The Island.  The Island.

The festivities were about to commence and Sigmund had to part to return to the gala.  He invited us, but knew Sophie would not attend.  She always had a reliable excuse and would repeat it once more when the other Commissars asked of Wolf's daughter.  Poor Stephan weighs heavily on her heart.

I asked in jest of my brother if that bullet was still available.  He found it not very funny and bade me to lay low as there was news of possible war.  A big one.  He would soon be called to the front and he was concerned that with Generals like Wolf Gustafson being mistreated, there was dissension in the ranks and even talk of open mutiny on his own ship.  He was quite troubled by this.

The Commissariats naturally pay them no mind and reassign anyone who presses them any further.  And the Island is bursting at the seams from what my brother could gather from his sources.  The overseers are actually running out of creative ways to punish that many prisoners.

I resumed pruning the trees in front of the Montresor and Sophie found her marjoram and we went home.  We ate our meal in silence as we heard the chanting and the party songs as everyone celebrated the great union of a new, greater city.  A speech was made by Sigmund to the cheers of all in attendance.

Chapter 18 - No Way Out

I had enough.  I had since been released from re-education and living with Sophie in the Gustafson estate.  There had been no word of Wolf and only that Oliver had been dragged out of Pleagos and thrown onto the Island.

We were made to watch the monthly reels like everyone else and I winced.  Ingrid was staying with her family and as she was considered non-existant, she thankfully never had to see the films.

Several more Commissars had been reassigned.  I didn't understand now what it meant and thought so differently when they first reassigned Sigmund Delemont all those years before.  The pace of such movements and activity were increasing rapidly and we began to wonder if something within the state apparatus was changing, possibly collapsing.

The most unheard of events was Schols set fire to his own prison and released all the inmates.  He was shot by his own guards who then tried to round up as many of the escaped convicts.  Most were captured, a few fled into the outskirts of the city, fewer still blended within the city and some successfully stayed free for almost a year.

There was talk of open rebellion and it felt like the Artesians again, but there were none in sight.  None except Sophie and I tried my best to see if there was any tell, anything I missed in her that could say something about Knut.

And as quickly as things seemed to be unraveling.  Nothing.  Law and order prevailed.  I felt now it was a dystopian nightmare that they would reset every few generations, maybe less.  There would be another Karl Knutmudsen, another Artesian, a Muse, and whatever the Capital found amusing.

Chapter 17 - The Front

A young officer Wolf Gustafson was attached to the 331st Dragoons and tasked with holding the rear flank while the larger force could withdraw and regroup further down the battlefield.  The 331st were completely in ruins, exhausted and bloodied from 3 days of endless fighting.

He had rallied his company of 30 men that should have number 90 strong to hold off yet another enemy charge and lost half of them to injuries and death.  They took many times more their numbers, but knew they could not withstand another attack.

A scared soldier lamented that this was madness for them to continue this rear maneuver.  The General was more concerned with moving his heavy artillery pieces out of harms way and sacrificing the 331st.  Wolf agreed and said each howitzer saved was the price of a dozen soldiers and they've already paid their weight many times over.  They probably will all die and Wolf was just 23.

The senior Sergeant motioned and they saw the enemy begin to stir.  They braced for another charge and Wolf felt this would be his last and if not, surely his final day.

The enemy never came and instead withdrew.

To this day, Wolf never quite understood why they would make such a tactical blunder.  The opposing commanders must have seen the 331st consisting of just a few measly men and they could have smashed through them and then overrun the rest of the Army.  They would have won the battle.

The surviving members of the 331st were all awarded medals and hailed as heroes for saving the day.  Wolf was quickly promoted and placed on the Division General's staff and by the end of the war a Colonel.

He made sure he never such a tactical error and gave no mercy nor opportunity.  He earned his name and needed no other nickname than The Wolf Gustafson.

To Wolf's surprise as he was mulling about the Capital commons he bumped into someone from the 331st, his old regiment.  It was the young soldier he shared a foxhole with on that day.  He was now a retired veteran and strolled the commons for daily exercise.  They recognized each other instantly and embraced with pleasantries.  He asked of this person and of that and they went down the list of everyone they knew, there few of them left, even fewer as most were killed in action before the wars end.

He knew of General now as a Commissar and saluted him, but Wolf bade him never do that as they are equals when they are alone.  His concern was now of another soldier who they remember from one of the final battles and had lost a leg and his right eye.  Suicide, point of fact he said.  He took his own life not too long after the wars end.  For the weirdest of reasons, he couldn't stop a ringing in his ears.

They bid adieu and Wolf waited for Sophie and I to meet him as we then walked to the Great Hall.  The council would convene under the mammoth canvas.  At least a million people could fit standing under that canopy and here we would stand dwarfed within.

The council convened of 3 of the most senior Commissariats of the capital.  There were 11, but only 3 were randomly selected to convene on this matter.  They would have to vote unanimous my fate and if they could not agree it would likely mean my final reassignment.

The General made no stir and stood at ease in a box a few hundred feet from an elevated platform with a simple chair that I was made to sit in.  The Commissariats began speaking and deliberating my fate.  They asked if I knew what I stand accused of and I acceded I did and was ready to accept what decision they had made.

To my surprise, the first Commissariat who stood on the right of the other two began sharing that they do not find me guilty of the Artesian movement as they themselves had concocted the silly scheme to test many a foolish young Commissar.  I had not been fooled by it.  Instead, they offered a seat at their council, next to my brother.

They said I had demonstrated my faith in the Politiburo.  Steadfast even when tested and even when given a sentence, took so without complaint and served it in the full belief and loyalty to the party.  They found this most enlightening and of praise.  While most would have lamented their fate or lambasted the party for an unfair judgement, I had not.

The Politiburo is very fragile and can be shattered at any moment.  This would bring about chaos and ruin.  They seek out Commissars who can demonstrate they truly believe in the principles of the party to become the next generation of leaders.  They had put considerable faith and hope that it would have been people like Karl Knutmudsen and were both appalled and later relieved in their surprise discovery in me.  Somehow I bested their most brightest of students.

I could not believe what they were saying and asked them I had not bested anyone.  I didn't do anything and their might be a serious misunderstanding in my capabilities or of the entire situation that has transpired the last few years.

The mood quickly darkened and the 2nd Commissariat felt offended and angrily recriminated me in saying that was I rejecting such a grand offer to join the highest seat in the Republic?

I did not reject the offer only that I would be found wanting if it was bestowed upon me.  They then deliberated and agreed and felt the suitable punishment would be reassignment.

Sophie then spoke on my behalf and asked why was I summoned here if that was all they had intended.  The Commissariats were all taken aback by this girl speaking to them as if their equal.  They looked towards Wolf who mulled his hat in his hands and said nothing.

I looked to Sophie and implored she not say anything incriminating.  She didn't and responded that she heard Karl Knutmudsen speak and while she didn't understand the Artesian movement, she felt she was very nearly a convert to it.

This gave pause to the Commissariats who huddled between themselves.  They then spoke out towards Wolf and asked if this was fact was withheld from them.  He nodded it was.

Then they had no choice but to declare Wolf would be reassigned as well.  And as for Sophie, they pondered the Island.  But decided she must select someone to take her place or I would be sent to the Island.

Wolf was summarily vacated a Commissar.  He was sent to a camp.  His son Sigmund inquired, but found no word of where or for how long he would be sentenced, only it was for hard labor.  He was found wanting.  A new Commissar was selected and granted to a Yorkman, for no other reason than there had not been an Adelaide or Yorkman in the city Politiburo for enough generations.

I asked to be sent to the Island, in which Sophie replied she would go as well.  She named Oliver instead.

Chapter 16 - Capital

I had been to my cousins home in the coastal provincials and I've had the privilege to see the sights of the Capital with my father and brother.  They went on official business when our father was a Commissar.

We would go to the Great Hall of the People and pay homage to our forebearers.  It was an auditorium of immense size and splender and one felt like a tiny speck of sand in the universe shuddering beneath that large canvas of concrete, steel and glass.

It was also where our father introduced us to all the delights and privileges for those reserved to senior party elite and included the inner core of those who were of the 47 signatories.  It was where we met representatives of each of the famed signatories from 1 to 47 and took our rightful place in mock rehearsals of that fateful day of July 16th.

As a youth surrounded by such luxury and freedom it was very easy to become jaded like so many of our peers, but somehow it grounded me and while any youth granted such access reveled for their time, I quickly tired of it and only begrudgingly accompanied father when it was of benefit to my education or career.

It was with this memory, I visited the Capital near the end of my three year sentence to meet before the inner council, which included my brother who would decide my fate.  Wolf Gustafson came in my support and in a surprise move Sophie joined him.

We stayed in the central promenade hotel.  The General had his own suite and I given a simple room.  Sophie stayed in another suite adjoining the General's, but met me in my room and we dined together in the skylight kitchen that stood nearly a mile above the city.

She had not been to the Capital since Stephan's last birthday party and they celebrated in that same famed restaurant with only starlight.  It was how she remembered everything and she laughed that she wasted so much time being cooped up in her stuffy old home when she had this to see and experience again.

She was in cheerful mood and said this would be my last meal and tomorrow my execution in the Great Square.  I added to her jest that it had not been used for public executions in centuries and the closest one would be the willing suicides of failed commissars and bureau chiefs.  And she caught me mid sentence who were all reassigned.

In all seriousness, she would not have come if this would be such a macabre spectacle as my own public execution, but she very must expected a serious outcome if Wolf had to come as I was summoned alone.

I clenched my fist reminding myself of my brother and what he said of our great uncle.  Sophie gently clasped her hand and peeled back the fingers to hold my hand.  She reassured me that whatever happens, she would share my fate.

And as quickly as the moment it faded and she went to her bubbly self admiring the city from the large windows and the fabulous meal that came in courses.

We adjourned late in the evening and I stayed up awake all night thinking not of tomorrow but strangely of Oliver and of Ingrid.  We had spoken before I left for the Capital and Ingrid had greatly improved and the Glikmann's were made aware of their daughter's existence and they begun to see her secretly with Oliver's help.

While we all were concerned, he was tired of hiding and honestly if this angered Wolf or anyone, then he would accept their fate.  He said Martha spoke positively of me, even though we barely spoke and met only that once at Sophie's garden party.

Oliver laughed and said he had an uncle who went to the Capital one.  He too was reassigned.

Chapter 15 - Garden Party

I was granted a weekend release and spent it at the Gustafson estate as their personal guest.  My quarters were in the garden house near the gazebo where I had tea with Sophie.  We usually met there each morning for breakfast and spent most of the day enjoying the garden grounds or a dip in the pool.

She was even more breathtaking and in many ways becoming more the Sophie her father remembered now that the weight of all this was being slowly lifted away.  We confided in each other many things and she shared what she heard in those meetings with Knut.  None of it made any sense and she said the same exact words to her father who also didn't understand any of it.

I tried to let it all soak in and at first it was all just gibberish.  And it still remained gibberish in my conscious mind.  I asked after all those years, did any of it make any sense and she nodded no, not any improvement in her understanding.  She thought that now they were free to speak with one another that maybe in our shared collective minds we might start to figure out this whole Artesian thing.

When I told her what Wolf had said about this all being a silly hoax she said that might be true as her father doesn't lie about such things.  If anything he will just withhold information and slowly release little tidbits at his own pace.  But she thinks something changed in the translation and perhaps what the Capital thought was a silly hoax, might actually have connected with people like Kart Knutmudsen and he saw things differently.

As she rested her head on my arm, with her soft hair gently brushing against me she confessed that when she was in those meetings, each subsequent sermons it was as if Karl's way with words danced inside her head and made her ears start to glow.  She couldn't quite understand what it was or why it made her feel that way, but only that she saw Stephan must have felt it first.  This dismayed her as she knew she would soon lose him and very quickly she would be lost too.

Karl knew everything.  It's because she told him.  She offered herself in exchange for Stephan.  He politely refused and then summarily rejected both of us from the Artesians.  It devastated Stephan the most.  He most likely had already become a willing convert at that point.

Perhaps Karl was fearful of Wolf and what he would to him, to all the Artesians when he realized he brainwashed Stephan.  Sophie demurred that was an easy answer and somewhat obvious, but Karl didn't seem the type to be afraid of people like Wolf.  He was afraid, but certainly not of death.

That's what troubled her was she went through the charades of excoriating him while he was in prison, but something changed the night he died.  He uttered something to her that didn't make any sense and bid her adieu.  She had years to think about it and she felt in some ways, Karl got himself killed to help end it all and allow everyone to escape, Oliver, Ingrid, Sophie and even myself.

And while self-sacrifice sounds very much like the Knut, why run from the guards and force them to shoot him in the back?  Prison has numerous ways he could have ended his life, even in a spectacular fashion to satisfy Wolf.  Probably, only Karl would be the only one who can answer that.  It would be about as profound as figuring out what this whole hoax of an Artesian, Muses or whatever the Politiburo wants us to believe its called or stands for.

What would be the next move?  I had two more years on my sentence and while it was quite mild and my weekends were spent in total paradise with Sophie Gustafson in my arms, I felt things would be ripped from me yet again.  Sophie stretched her arms and leaned in closer, she said Wolf wouldn't do that.  He's now told you everything he probably knows, short of actual names of the higher ups and even she doesn't know that.  Her father does things sometimes when he is truly afraid and he probably is seeking someone to look after her.

She admires her brother Sigmund, but he's not like Stephan and certainly not Wolf.  He's just another tool.  He is her brother and she will always love him, more than she could love anyone, but she is honest of his faults and shortcomings.

But today was not to wallow in self pity and reflection.  She invited me she had additional guests and was hosting a private garden party with a dozen of friends from university.  They all gathered round a large seating on a veranda overlooking the pool.  It was the same ground of girls that once included Ingrid Glikmann, but now only her older sister Martha was in attendance.

Martha was standoffish and made her introduction.  While she looked very much like her sister, she was a bit taller, but with a more average appearance.  She was well aware of the Gustafson's and wary to know me beyond my name.  I obliged and gave her room as I listened to a dozen ladies speak at a blitz about anything and everything.

The party concluded a few hours later and my time was done.  A pair of prison guards arrived in a car and ushered me into the back seat.

Chapter 14 - Wolf's Island

You could have given the Island where Ingrid Glikmann was imprisoned any horrible name and it would come up woefully short.  Only those most despised and hated by the state are sent to Ingrid's Island as it was now called.

It was reserved for only the most extreme offenders with no hope of restoration of their rights or any privileges.  A never ending life of misery and woe.  Here was the final resting place of poor Ingrid.

Propaganda reels are made by the overseers making a true macabre masterpiece to frighten young school children.  The films are shown once a month and some are so heinous even grown men in prisons weep.

At my behest, Ingrid was miraculously transferred.  Any memory or trace of her was wiped out and no one questioned her sudden disappearance from the monthly reels, most assumed the worst.  And to the Politiburo's credit they never show the final demise of a prisoner only their endless and agonizing slow decline.

Ingrid was transferred to the home of Oliver Pleagos.  It was not her idea, but she readily accepted.  The prison guards in charge of her transfer toyed with her and mocked and laughed at how terrified she was when they pretended to be turning around to send her back to the Island.  For eight days they toyed with her this way before finally transferring her to a train bound for the Pleagos plantation.  The guards were impressed by her genuine screams and guttural begging each time they made her believe she was going back to the Island.

Oliver was horrified and enraged as he held and embraced what was nothing more than a shell of Ingrid Glikmann.  Any hint of life gone from her blank gaze and she was near catatonic except for any mention of the Island would set her off into a frenzy.  He told me all of this and while deep down he wanted vengeance, he was grateful that she was freed and he would do his best in her recovery.  She will never be the same.

Wolf made it known that he offered this courtesy.  He trusted both Oliver and myself that this would be the end of it for the Artesians and both Ingrid and Oliver would be allowed to live quietly so as not to upset Sophie and myself.  He was reticent that he had to make an example of poor Ingrid and even more so of John who he wished to release, but due to circumstances of their own making had condemned them.

I was more rebellious in my response and asked if this was just another of his games and a test of sorts to put us all back in some kind of mix to see what new insights may pop up.  Wolf frowned and admitted he never considered such an idea, but now that it has become indeed a new mix, he was hoping there would be no new insights, in truth, he was tired of this whole Artesian affair and wanted no more of it.  He takes no pleasure in all of this, he already has lost a son and in many ways his daughter as well.

He was then more forthcoming and called the Artesian just a hoax concocted by the higher ups in the Capital.  It proved much more effective than they could have ever imagined and was initially used as a tool to weed out insurrection or potentially rebellious party members.  They've used variants of the whole Artesian spin in other Politiburo's and all achieved similar levels of success in strike fear and drive those who remained into ever frighteningly blind loyalty to the greater cause.  In the provincial coastal towns it was known as the Muses and in some of the low lying reaches they spun it as something else and he was certain their were at least a half dozen other variants and each with their own willing fall guy like Karl.

He has no idea what gibberish Karl Knutmudsen was saying in his secret sermons and Artesian cult meetings.  As none of that was ever planned by the Capital and even more so surprised the higher ups who tasked Wolf to investigate and root out what Karl was up to.  He found nothing, even sacrificing his own children Stephan and Sophie who surreptitiously and unwittingly made pawns to infiltrate Karl's cult.  It nearly broke his heart when this gibberish and filth Karl was uttering actually was making a real effect on Stephan and soon would consume Sophie.

I am on my own personal island.  Wolf's Island as he would say it.  Ingrid escaped hers.  Wolf would never escape his.

Chapter 13 - Reassigment

By order of the Capital chief, I was vacated from my post as Commissar.  A grand banquet was held in my honor in the great hall of the main hotel and all the party chiefs and city leaders were in attendance.  My brother and many of my family were in attendance and proudly raised their glasses as this was a great honor.  My early retirement.

In truth, Wolf Gustafson and the secret police had met with me.  They retrieved the tapes that Oliver truthfully identified in our wire tapped conversation.  He wasn't sure to label me a genius or an absolute buffoon, possibly both.  The tapes were destroyed and everyone had hoped that was the end of the Artesians.

They offered me a choice and the better of the options was early retirement.  We embraced and he shaked my hand in congratulations and was all smiles at the great gala with glasses raised and toasting one after the other with the six remaining Commissars.  Sigmund Gustafson was immediately posted as my replacement and we embraced and gave pleasantries to all in attendance.

The only Gustafson not in attendance was Sophie, who true to form was still in mourning of the death of her dear baby brother Stephan who Sigmund also wept for and decried that he would be even prouder had Stephan was standing there as the new Comissar.  A standing ovation and a loud cacophony of cheers, party songs and all the same you would hear and expect at any senior Politiburo event.

I retired at my own courtesy and was driven to my home by Wolf's personal attache a Captain Long.  All of my attache's and support staff had been reassigned.  The Colonel, retired.  One Captain promoted and now serving Sigmund.  The other Captain, resigned for reasons unknown.

Captain Long assured me all were safe and Wolf was true to his word.  The Colonel called me shortly after and confirmed what Captain Long had said.  While they couldn't give him a promotion, he retired handsomely on the pension of a General so he had little regret.  His only concern was how all this transpired and they were all treated like pawns.  He himself felt partially responsible for walking into Wolf's office that day and only giving me a nudge when he should have punched me out cold.

I should have decked you that day.  He should have floored himself if he had known what was coming.  He was in touch with both Captain's and the one now a Major is doing well and the other, he would not say his reasons, but assured us it was not under any duress or pressure by Wolf or anyone associated with the Politiburo.  He added, Wolf offered him a reinstatement at anytime he so wished.  Wolf said he would care for all of his own.

As for my new assignment?  I was welcomed to Camp 47 to begin a new re indoctrination program.  It would require about three years, no hard labor.  I would conclude the final year at the Perkin's and Wolf asked me to call him about a job.

Chapter 12 - Sophie

I didn't know what to expect when I first met Sophie Gustafson.  I had heard alot of things about her through Oliver, Ingrid and even her father.  I was expecting to find a fiery woman was an intense vendetta and overwhelming rage, instead I found the most quiet and beautiful young girl.

I arrived at the Gustafson estate and was brought out back to the private garden where Sophie was seated in a sheltered gazebo.  Tea had been set and we sat and discussed everything that had transpired.  She shared her story and that she blamed Karl Knutmudsen for her brother Stephan's death.  Indeed, she was fearful that Stephan was considering joining the Artesians as she had accompanied him on several meetings and encounters with Karl and already knew both Oliver and Ingrid were Artesians.

She never saw me at any of those meetings and while Karl and Oliver spoke highly of me, she knew I was not a member of that horrible cult.  She confided that she sat in a few of those sermons with Stephan and watched tearfully at how enraptured he was by Karl's preaching.  How Stephan's eyes glowed with such delight and he hung on every word.  She begged and begged of Ingrid and of Karl to not recruit Stephan, she even offered herself as a willing member if they would agree to reject his membership.  They refused.

Her father knows all of this.  And he was furious when he learned she offered herself to become an Artesian and in some ways as she sat in on several of those meetings, she should be treated as a suspect Artesian.

Sophie went further and said its against her father's pride and ways to have not turned both Sophie and Stephan in.  A Gustafson is always first loyal and a patriot and would do so above family and blood.  Everything Wolf probably said was to hide this fact and it was his asking me to see her was his way of trying to further cover up and end the family scandal.

She further knows of our family shared histories and even more so of my great uncle.  My older brother and Wolf are dear friends and all the more reason we are meeting today.  Wolf had been planning this all along and everything thus far had been his way of testing me.  If things do not turn out to Wolf's satisfaction, she would be soon joining Ingrid Glikmann.  But that was not why she agreed to meet, she is still as defiant as any Gustafson and wouldn't be afraid of imprisonment.

She felt anger at her father and considered me a fool and worse a pawn and a plaything that Wolf had manipulated for quite some time.  She wanted me to stop trying to seek out more about the movement and let it just die.  All it has brought was misery and suffering for those involved.

She welcomed and invited me to join her again and that Wolf would likely want the three of them to meet.  He very much wanted to speak with me and now that every shred of secrecy and subterfuge could be laid bare, we could have an actual conversation.

Chapter 11 - The Artesians

I don't know who or what the Artesians were about, only that they started as a movement and began attracting senior members of the Politiburo roughly more than a decade ago.  They became a cause for concern from the more conservative members of the party and was about the time Wolf Gustafson was pulled from the Army to oversee the secret police and root out the members of this cult.

Oliver and I continued to have conversations, but he refused to ever discuss or tell me more about the Artesians.  He had to bribe multiple sources to find out any details on Ingrid and what he discovered were terrifying accounts of her isolation and imprisonment.

She is being badly mistreated he would lament.  He spent obscene sums, but to no avail to try and alleviate her suffering.  Sophie Gustafson herself made sure anyone caught showing any sympathy to Ingrid would be summarily punished.

Sophie treated Ingrid worse than Karl.  And it was Oliver who then begged me to speak to Sophie on Ingrid's behalf.  Both of them resigned their fate to live out their lives in prison and would cause no more trouble or harm.  Something as little as a blanket, or food that wasn't rotten and crawling with maggots and cockroaches, even a bit of sunlight and fresh air.  The cruelty of Sophie is without ends.  She truly loved her baby brother and would have likely tortured Oliver if she had the chance.

I agreed to do what I can, but on the condition he tell me more about the Artesians.  Oliver sighed greatly and paused for what seemed like a long time then he warned me once I heard such things, they cannot be unheard and I place myself in great danger.  He reminded me of the wrath of Sophie and what is happening to Ingrid, to Michael and even poor, innocent John.  If I was ready to accept Sophie's wrath he would tell me about the Artesians.

Oliver then said he lied about the Perkins.  Michael snuck out a computer backup of all the groups writings.  He gave me the location of a postal box where it was likely kept.  But then he said, his phone is likely being wire tapped and he laughed and said it's likely gone now.  He said the backup tapes are or now were there and the authorities are already on their way to seize them.  He didn't want to drag anyone further down and he said again I am a fool.

But he did say in parting that he honestly believed Karl considered me a friend to have warned me off that day and as he idolized Karl, he too didn't want anything to happen to me.  I agreed to speak with Sophie and on Ingrid's behalf.  Oliver greatly appreciated the gesture.

Chapter 10 - Pleagos

Oliver called me a week after Ingrid's trial was over and he was already under house arrest and awaiting his court date.  He was relaxed and confessed to me everything that he was supposed to have joined Karl that day and likely would have been arrested and sentenced to death.  In a way, my call that day startled him as he at first thought I was an Artesian and had gotten some special instruction from Karl, however cryptic to await further orders that never came.

For nearly a decade he believed I was Karl's lieutenant and was waiting patiently for what would be the next move of the cause.  He nearly died laughing when he realized what a fool he had been all these years when he realized I was nothing of the sort and just a friend of Karl seeking an answer to something so meaningless.

But he thanked me all the same as the political climate is very different and instead of being shot as a traitor, he would spend the rest of his days in his gilded cage.  He did regret the fate of poor John who truly was the fool's fool in all of this.

I asked him what exactly are the Artesians and what are they seeking.  He paused and said, I am a big fool and felt John's death was the only real crime out of all of this and didn't wish to add me to that list.  The Artesians are now all dead, well except for Michael, Ingrid and himself, that would be the end of the cause and as the world still exists and the Politiburo continues to function, he confessed that it might have all been a lie anyway and Karl was nothing more than a con man who ruined so many lives.

Anything that was recorded went up in smoke in the Perkin's Home.  Karl had kept all of the movement's writings there and the switch was a fail safe that Oliver had Michael trigger that night.  He did so when he began to suspect I wasn't an Artesian.