BOSTON’S WALL

POSTED BY: THE GREEN MONSTER Bull told me that JackPoint was going to put up a little “What’s Up with Trogs?” piece, and I thought it would be a great chance to talk about some-thing that I find odd, but a lot of my fellow officers don’t. Posting any of this on the PubGrid would get me tossed, or worse, but getting it out into a shadow VPN might do some good, and it’ll make me feel a little better that I at least tried to tell someone.

To clear up a point above, I’m Sgt. Gregor Har-burg, a peace officer employed by Minutemen Se-curity assigned to the NEMAQZ (Northeast Metrop-lex Area Quarantine Zone), a.k.a. the Boston QZ. I’m a NeoNET citizen until they finalize the corp’s death and I find out where Minutemen is getting sold off to, and I’ve been working on The Wall, as we call it, since day one. I know Bull from a run-in we had back in the ’50s when I was struggling to make it as a gai-jin oni at Fuchi in Boston. A moral dilemma later, and I discovered the world worked better in shades of grey. Bull has been reaching out to me and directing trusted associates my way ever since.

We’ve chatted socially more for the past few years because I’ve been adamant about not help-ing anyone get into the Boston QZ, and no one in their right mind is helping anyone get out. Sad to say, but we on the wall have known it was more than encephalitis since about three months in, but who in the hell was going to believe us about a nanite-viral infection that overwrites your brain?

Now, thanks to the Monads, some of the truth is trickling out, but back then we were still cheerfully enjoying our newer, safer, content-controlled Ma-trix. They weren’t going to tell us about a techno-virus. Especially those of us at Minuteman, what with NeoNET’s role at the center of the trouble.

With our increasingly social relationship, Bull has heard all of this before, hence his acceptance of my tell-all exposé. Thanks for learning where I’m coming from; now to talk about where we seem to be going.

As all of you well know, the Boston lockdown is still in effect. The Corp Court is still assigning par-ties to run the show, but PR is pretty much down to one guy saying, “We’re assessing options and looking for the best way to properly accommo-date and compensate those effected by NeoN-ET’s irresponsible actions,” with emphasis on the NeoNET. National coordination is no longer even part of the show, as the UCAS is going to be one of the biggest winners from NeoNET’s turn on the sacrificial altar; and the only group they really still have around is NEMALC, the Logistics division, and their main focus is security and keeping ev-erything contained.

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others help people get in. It’s mostly overlooked, though, because the focus is on keeping things in, not out.

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Enough background. NEMALC is supposed to be using a coalition of forces from several secu-rity corps. Most heavily represented these days is Minuteman, as NeoNET’s trashed reputation is costing them contracts around the world so they have the spare personnel, but Lone Star, Knight Errant (and Ares’ other, less professional, outfits), Petrovski, Najimi, Centurion, and Desert Storm all provide boots on the ground as well. The thing is, all the boots that have been supplied of late have been larger than average. I don’t believe in coincidence, so for some reason, good or ill, the powers above are bulking up the forces at the

wall with huge numbers of orks and trolls, while those getting shipped off wall duty tend to be round-eared. I’m not sure if it’s part of a plan to put a lot of muscle on the walls and in the block-ade because they’re afraid of a potential breakout attempt, if I’m just seeing these things because I’m a troll, or if it’s something darker, but I’ve got some speculation.

The idea of more muscle on the wall would sound like it makes sense to someone who is un-familiar with the work here. We rarely go hand-to-hand with anything that comes past the wall. In fact, we’re under strict orders to make no physical contact with anything we even suspect came from inside the QZ. We’re long guns during and hazmat suits after, for every event. Anyone who makes contact without the suit is immediately quaran-tined. For a while that meant a one-way trip, of-ten back over the wall, but more and more slots are being cleared for work after contact incidents.

Adding more punching power doesn’t fit well with previous operational standards, meaning we are about to get a change in orders or, again, there’s something else going on.

Now, I totally understand that just because I saw a few more trolls around doesn’t mean there’s a broader pattern. I worried about this early on—I thought maybe I was just seeing something that wasn’t there, so I went to the hard data. Pulled up the transfer logs, did some data sorting, and then made myself a nice, simple series of pie charts.

Boring, but then again, so is most of my work.

The numbers showed a massive shift in metatype distribution in the security force. We went from a pretty standard breakdown (human: 52 percent;

ork: 27 percent; dwarf: 11 percent; elf: 6 percent;

troll: 3 percent; other: 1 percent) to our current fig-ures (human: 12 percent; ork: 64 percent; dwarf: 3 percent; elf: 1 percent; troll: 19 percent; other: 1 percent) all in the span of six months. I looked at straight number totals as well, and while the over-all force total went down by seven percent, that is by no means a way to explain the the drastic shift.

It’s intentional.

As for the something darker option, I’m all for this one. Not because I want something more ex-citing in my daily life and a mystery to solve, but because I live in the real world and have, despite my slight increase in rank, been witness to the atrocities this world likes to pile on orks and trolls. I have a few ideas to toss out here. Some may sound crazy, but remember, they’re coming from a guy

who works as security on the walled-in quarantine zone full of people who have been overwritten by a technovirus transmitted by nanites.

First up, something mundane. I’ve heard noth-ing but maybe, just maybe, the powers that be have gotten word from forces on the inside that there is a major breakout attempt imminent. Knowing that the attempt is going to get past the drone security at the wall, they want the biggest (physically, not numbers) force available there to stop escapes.

It’s a lose-lose for us, as this means they expect the force to make contact. If it’s a breakout in force they’re going to assume infection, but maybe this way we can limit the losses by filling the gap with the toughest sons of slitches around.

Part two is close to the first but a little less end of the world and a little more silver lining. It’s pos-sible the walls are coming down, and once the wall is gone, they want an intimidating force on the other side of the fences giving anyone with an in-kling of sneaking out without passing a clearance check second thoughts. Since they haven’t even started allowing clearance checks with the walls up—and I’d expect that step to come first—I don’t have a lot of hope for this one.

In the darker part of this rabbit hole, I’ll offer up the racist conspiracy. Elements of various influential groups that have a distinctly anti-metahuman agen-da are influencing the Corporate Court, in particular the ones handling the NEMAQZ, and moving orks and trolls here in order to place them in a hazard-ous situation. A situation that they would likely be attempting to escalate, either through support for escape attempts or further limitations on the safety protocols and procedures we follow when an in-cident occurs. These groups could include any of the well-known anti-meta fronts like the Humanis Policlub or Unity Foundation, from a major terror organization like Alamos 20,000, or from one of the whispered secret societies such as the Human Nation. The last option being the one I see with the kind of insider pull to make this happen.

Last but not least is a piece I’ve been holding back for as long as I could. I don’t want to sound nuts, but I think a large number of my fellow of-ficers are already infected. I’m not sure if it hap-pened during an incident or if an external source is the cause, but I’ve had plenty of my friends show some initial signs and then suddenly start acting strange right before they get transferred, either to another sector of the quarantine or off-site completely. Moving so many orks and trolls

over could be an effort by the Monads to bulk up their forces before the Corporate Court decides what to do with them. It’s way out there, I know, but I’ve seen crazier, and things around here are just getting weird.

Thanks for the outlet, Bull. If you’re a trog and you’ve got family or friends in security, keep an eye on them if they get shipped off to Boston.

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got out. The Red Sox and Tigers both left the city after the initial incident, and others are bound to have gotten out before they locked the place down. Coming back to weaken the defenses, especially now that their efforts are starting to slip, would be a solid tactic. If it hasn’t already happened, I’d keep an ear to the ground for jobs against the wall security that don’t seem on the up and up.

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and they are preparing for war. They’re going to first convert the guards on the wall and then tear it down from the outside to let loose the crazies from inside the QZ.

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