National Treasure

by angerbda 

"Libenter homines id quod volunt credunt."

―Julius Caesar

*-*-*

And one more time, he saved the day. And no one would be the wiser.

Who would know? It was as if he was invisible.

He had protected his Nation. He worked in the shadow.

Remember, these days were the sombre part of the Nation's History. Even darker than the last leg of the second millennium of the Old Era.

It was a time of unrest and strife, people needed to believe in something that would have put them together. They needed an ideal, a utopia.

To unfold the coup had been a tricky matter. How one went about identifying a terrorist when everyone looks so similar? Henry had pondered the question for quite some time before he even tried to get to it. The mugshots the Service had provide him with had been of low quality, what with the crisscrossing lines of greenish mould and the pinkish splotches from a leakage in the storage rooms that had found their ways on the small pictures of the most famous terrorists on the Nations. The only pictures, as it appeared. Henry had had such a hard time determining whether they had been of the manly sort, or of the ladies' specie...

Few days of observing and devising, Henry succeeded in identifying at least two of them, a couple known as the Honeymooners, so much dangerous, so much disturbing with their show of sweet and passionate love. They had mastered this cover to perpetrate their attack in the most unsuspicious way, though their sweet love was as true as xylitol was sugar, and their passion often erupted in deadly fireworks.

Henry had been tipped about the Honeymooners presence in New-Venice beach two weeks prior. It had been has long as he had needed to convinced the Service to send him to the location for some field observation. He took him no less than three days to succeed in getting his superior to agree. The fact that his last assignment had proved to be no less than a huge scam on his part, having requested a surveillance position on board the pleasure spaceship 'The Meadows', had dampen seriously the agreement on this new mission.

Nevertheless, Henry had found passage on the Blue Whale, a cruiser as ancient as his maiden great-aunt, and as marked by the ravage of time as she was. Obviously, the Service did not allocate a huge budget to this mission. Obviously, he would not have any extra for some side fun either. It was a bummer; Henry would have to be serious, after all, although, under the circumstances, he had not many objections to the chore. The menace had been quiet serious, and the opportunity to apprehend the Honeymooners had never been as present.

Due to the obvious budget restrictions, Henri had had to make without his usual gizmos. No hearing amplifier, no ultra-focus contact lenses, no camouflage field, not even the basic appearance modifier. He had to do with antediluvian technology, sunglasses with camera integrated, some props, and change of clothes for his appearance. For the hearing part, he would have to be attentive and focused. Combined with the low tech, the more than approximate mugshot he received, Henry had wondered if the Service was not attempting to get rid of him, to give him a mission that was not one and expect him to resign. The tip on the imminent tragedy in New-Venice could have been planted by his superior who never had hidden he wanted to give him the boot.

Henry was not getting younger, and there were no voiced desire from his hierarchy to provide him with any administrative job, one that was reserved for ageing agents. Though he had been a decent one in the beginning of his career, the politics ingrained with the job had dampened his enthusiasm quite early. Protecting the Nation had seemed an important role to the baby faced Henry. Now, it appeared a loss of time, as sure as his baby face had crumbled under the premature signs of old age.

Henry had had some trouble fixing his appearance for his first day of pretend vacation on New-Venice Beach. He always had been ready to serve the Nation the best he could, and sacrificing his time unearthing complots after complots had never been an issue. Doing so while cruising the sand among young and beautiful girls, or was it bouncyful, was a sacrifice he would endeavour for the wellbeing of his beloved Nation. However, with the low-key technology he had his job cut for it.

Henry could not portray the young athletic for lack of camouflage field. Would he have had one, a simple turn of a button would have let him mix and fade in the crowd as if he had been invisible.

The other main issue was the identification of the deadly couple. Relying on observation with standard vision, no gadget to match the features of the people he would lay his eyes on with the traits of a multitude of possible suspects stored in the Service's database. Henry had no direct link to the inter-web either.

How was a man supposed to know who was a terrorist or not in this crowd? Henry started to feel the frustration over his situation. Frustration over the undeserved way his superior was treating him with this mission, frustration over the poor excuse for gadgets and gizmo he had to use, letting him parade among beauties of the species in his wrinkled skin and greying hairs. His biggest frustration, however, was over the new fashion that declared Speedos to be back in favour. A dream-come-true for those terrorists who identified themselves by this exact same piece of unobtrusive closing. No wonder most of the terror attacks had targeted popular beach parties in the recent years.

The day had started on a positive note. The sun was out, the sea reflected the deep blueness of the sky, the beach offered an enticing spectacle with the soft and warm sand, and the beauties bouncing around.

It was just too bad the beach was as fake as the curves displayed on the playful ladies in bikinis. New-Venice Beach had been recently completed, an island created from scratch, standing on the bottom of the see on a mound of detritus. The recent programs to clean the vast polluted fields of the Nation had produced an enormous amount of rubbish to dispose. Off to the sea had sounded a good enough solution for the people at the head of the Nation, seeing a short term advantage rather than a long term commitment with not only soil depollution but also ocean dumping.

So... the day had started well for Henry. He had felt he would be in luck under the bright light, even if fake, seeing as the sun-rays came from one of the satellite portable sun, rather than the real one, well hidden behind the impenetrable dark curtain.

Henry was following a pretty brunette on the sand, blending in the mass of drooling men while keeping his attention to the crowd, when he spotted a couple acting in a diabetes inducing way. Lady luck had then graced him with her favours. The spy-spec version of his old-fashioned sunglasses had been able to pinpoint the similarities of the woman's traits with whatever non-blurred-non-spoiled parts of the mugshot had remained.

He had successfully identified the womanly side of the Honeymooners duo.

The rest had been a piece of cake, organising the surveillance, calling for backup with proof of terrorists' presence, and then effectively arresting them. The downside of the whole shebang had been that Henry had been indisposed during the last part of the plan, the catching. The glory of arresting two of the most wanted people on the Nation's black list of enemies had fallen on a petty bureaucrat lap, as if the insignificant man had been in charge of the biggest operation in history.

His boss, however, acknowledged his success, convincing him, nonetheless, to remain in the shadow. Blarney, one more time, had deprived good ol' Henry of his five minutes of fame.

*-*-*

Few days in, after the capture of the century, Henry started to get restless. The Service did not ask him to come back to base, so he took it as a free for all, enjoying the fake beach, the faker sun, and the fakest ladies. However, something felt amiss.

The prisoners had been confined in a secluded place, waiting for their trial. The interrogation had lasted for days, though not much came out of it in the beginning. What had been their objective? Who had been their sponsor? What about a target?

Henry was receiving a lesson in History as he questioned them. The Nation's History, as it appeared. He had despised those lessons when he was younger. He hated it even more now that he understood that all this loyalty instilled was just smoke and mirrors.

On another hand, it was no secret those speedo terrorists were fighting for a certain freedom of thought, trying to bring down the vestige of a contentious, aggressive past. They targeted all symbols of the new order.

Henry had to make a quick thinking, bringing them to talk more, though this part was easy. With the right amount of flattery, Bunny and Cloud became talkative, worse than two aging gossips seating at a crosswalk.

As Henry discovered, the terrorists could share the same agenda as the Nation. Just to spite the Toadies, though. Nevertheless, he could feel a certain comradery with the shared objective. Those following the cult of the Church of the Almighty Toad King were a nuisance in these days and age. The major religion, with all its preaching of love and share, was only working on its own agenda of dominance over the Nation, for all that Henry believed. Not that the Nation was the best of the rule, but it offered a modicum of freedom under its dominance, if one was enough open minded to read as far.

His wandering eyes would be forcibly shut if the Toadies had any say on the ruling of the secular world. This was what Henry despised the most with the Church. He wanted the freedom to remain a pathetic underdog working for hypothetic glory. It was his choice to be mediocre, as long as he could take his fun wherever pleased him. He was still, and would still be, one of the best on the Service, defending the Nation he stopped to trust many years ago. Was his loyalty in the right place? Henry stopped to ask himself this question a long time ago.

It was a strange day when Henry had to acknowledge a certain affinity with terrorists, though he had become a believer. The logic presented to him was sound and impenetrable. The Church was out to do bad things. In exchange of their collaboration, Bunny and Cloud hade attempted to negotiate with the Service. Henry marvelled at the stupidity of people in general, and, in the case of the Honeymooners, the absurdity of a dreamer's mind. The couple had not asked for reduced sentences or other leniency. They had just requested to be placed in a common cell, on the penitentiary moon. Would the honeymoon cloud survive this closed proximity, Henry wondered. Perhaps the cover of the sugar-dripping loving couple had not been just that...

*-*-*

The Service organised an even grander operation to stop the Toadies scheme. The day picked by those pernicious followers of the mainstream dogma was a symbolic milestone. The day had served the purpose of cementing the people, creating a national cohesion, remembering the fateful events, centuries ago that had brought back together fighting brothers, celebrating on this day the compact that reunited the Nation.

The Toadies were trying to destroy the fragile piece, attacking a National Treasure. Henry would not let this happened. He would fight to protect the sacred text that had been thoughtfully selected as a symbol of unity, bringing to everyone joy and respect. In Henry's mind, the loathe of what had become the Nation and his need to defend the artefact representing his ideal were fighting for dominance. The approaching fatidic day, however, did set the balance in favour of the National treasure and its protection.

In the morning of this eleventh day of the eleventh month, Henry saved the peace of the Nation, one more time, though no one would be the wiser. No one would know they would be able to continue to enjoy what this day represented. No one would even know they had come close to lose one of their National Treasures.

On this eleventh day of the eleventh month, everyone would feel thankful to the Nation founders. Everyone, and Henry was about to ensure nothing would disturb them, everyone would celebrate on this Pocky Day...