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BACK TO THE BRONZE AGE

  Adrien Leduc

  (Leduc, Adrien 1987- )

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form than that in which it is published.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Dedication: For J.M. Thanks for believing in me and supporting my dream.

  Synopsis: The year is 2048 and Liristan has declared war on the Allied powers. While Canadian Prime Minister Alistair Tillman is doing his best to placate his enemies and assist his friends, there's a traitor on the Hill. He enlists nineteen year old, rookie M.P. Jonathan Tremblay and the beautiful Legislative Assistant, Alexandra Sinclair to help him unmask the enemy within. But what they find is more shocking than they ever could have imagined and the pair of political sleuths must quickly learn to navigate the dirty game of politics to stay ahead - and stay alive.

  - 1 -

  The green House of Commons bus that transports M.P.s to and from Parliament Hill. Friday. May 6, 2048. 5:10 p.m. It’s overcast and threatening rain.

  “All done for the day, Mister Tremblay?”

  “Yup, and thank God it’s Friday.”

  Lionel, the friendly and portly driver chuckled as he closed the doors behind the young M.P.

  “Amen to that.”

  Making his way towards the back of the bus, Jonathan Tremblay found the only empty seat and sat down. Beside him, a pale blonde woman was busy gazing out the window. When she turned away from the window and he saw who she was, he was sorry he’d not chosen to just stand at the front.

  “Jon.”

  “Liz.”

  The young man removed his shoulder bag and stuck it between his feet.

  “You gave us quite the beating today,” said the woman, turning to look at him. He observed that her grey eyes matched the colour of the sky overhead.

  “I don’t know what to say to that.”

  “You don’t have to say anything. When we had a majority government, we owned the House too.”

  He shrugged. “I guess that’s what it is then.”

  “Only trouble is, are the Unionists fit to govern when there’s war on the horizon?”

  The young M.P. bristled at her remark. “More so than you Reformers are.”

  “Oh? Isn’t Tillman planning on playing the wait-and-see game with Liristan?”

  “Maybe, but it’s sure as hell better than the shoot-first, ask-questions-later game.”

  Liz Keller, lauded businesswoman and M.P. for Saskatoon Centre since 2040, smirked. “Being pre-emptive about a possible nuclear attack from a nation hostile to our allies isn’t foolhardy. In fact it’s what the Mongols, Romans and Ottomans did. To great effect, I might add.”

  “Well, different time, different place. Right now the world is in a fragile state and Wild West diplomacy isn’t the way to go about handling things.”

  The bus lurched forwards as Lionel set the vehicle in motion and pulled onto Wellington Street.

  “The effects of nuclear war aren’t reversible, you know,” he added after a minute, as the bus waited for the light to turn green.

  “I went to university, Jon.”

  “Well, then you know why nuclear war isn’t good.”

  “As long as we take them out first, it doesn’t matter.”

  “That’s a typical right-winger’s response.”

  She smiled. “Maybe so, Jon. But then, see, we’re still alive at the end of the day whereas you lefties will be stuck sitting around the camp fire holding hands and singing kumbaya while the missiles rain down.”

  “If it gets to that. We hope it doesn’t. And through good, pragmatic diplomacy we can keep that from happening.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  Crazy Pete’s sports bar. Dim lighting, though mostly dark. Track lighting on ceiling and along bar. Rectangle-shaped bar area in centre of the establishment with many patrons seated all along the counter. Two tall, blonde, good-looking male bar tenders working the counter. Four good-looking young women bussing tables and bringing drinks to the other patrons. Four to six T.V. screens dispersed throughout. Large projector screen on one wall with a throng of patrons crowded around it, eagerly awaiting the hockey game. Framed and autographed jerseys and other sports memorabilia mounted along other walls. Eighty to a hundred patrons. The twenty - forty crowd, good-looking, men and women. Mixture of young professionals and government workers.

  “It is that simple, man.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “How is it not? You wanna go out with her? Ask her out.”

  Jonathan shook his head and looked away as he took another sip of his Coke. Crazy Pete’s had filled up in the half hour since they’d arrived and the usual assortment of young professionals and middle-aged bureaucrats were already ordering their second drinks.

  “Why can’t you just ask her out? Be like, hey, whatchu doin’ Saturday night? Nothing? Really? Me neither. Wanna go clubbing? Boom, bang, done,” the young man seated across the table from him remarked, clapping his hands together.

  “Like I said, it’s not that simple, man. She works for the Reformers.”

  Keegan Porter, his best friend since third grade, stared blankly at him. “What’s that got to do with it?”

  "I can't get romantically involved with someone from the Opposition.”

  His friend scoffed. “You talk like she’s a different species. She’s a girl, you’re a guy. What’s the problem?”

  It was times like these when he hated that his best friend didn’t know the difference between an M.P. and a Senator and thought that Question Period was an opportunity for Canadians to phone in with their questions. Otherwise he might have understood.

  “It’s like…it’s like…here, you’re a hockey player, right?”

  “Uh, yeah. Only leading scorer for the Ottawa Ice Dogs and top league prospect for the pros next year. But go on.”

  Jonathan grinned. “You always were a modest one.”

  “Hey, what can I say? I’m good at what I do.”

  “Right…anyway…it’s like…let’s say you guys are going up against Kingston in the playoffs.”

  “Kingston? In the playoffs? Ha!”

  “Or Belleville. Whatever. I’m just using it as an example.”

  Keegan’s face adopted a pensive expression as his index finger rose to his chin. “Yeah…Belleville in the playoffs…it could happen.”

  “Argh, man! That’s not the point!" He was getting impatient now.

  "You’re playing some team in the playoffs. Any team. Doesn’t matter which.”

  “Alright…”

  “And you want to date their team’s trainer.”

  “Oh, hell no!”

  “You see!” Jonathan exclaimed louder than he’d intended, causing several other patrons to look their way.

  “So politics is that serious?”

  “What was your first clue?” he seethed, lowering his voice as the onlookers returned to their own conversations.

  “I don’t know, but you seem pretty uptight about it.”

  Jonathan sighed. “Just be glad you don’t work on the Hill.”

  “What hill?”

  “Parliament Hill.”

  “Oh. Right. Why?”

  “Because then you run into problems like these.”

  “Right.”

  Grinning at his friend’s complete lack of interest in all things political, he decided it was probably time to change the subject. “So when’s your next game, anyways?”

  Prime Mini
ster’s Office. Eight twenty-eight p.m. Prime Minister Alistair Tillman and Colonel Goodwin are discussing the possibility of war with Liristan.

  “Look, Alistair, Mister Prime Minister, if we cut off their northern supply route - “

  “No! We’re not starting this thing! When the history books look back at my time as Prime Minister, I don’t want to be remembered as the blundering idiot who set the whole thing off!”

  “There’ll be no one to write the bloody history books if Liristan has its way!”

  “Colonel Goodwin,” Alistair Tillman said sharply, growing tired and frustrated, “may I remind you that the clerics surrounding Abu-Ishak have already resolved that they will not engage any nation in combat unless Liristan itself is attacked. They know they would lose - and resoundingly too - if they were to start the fighting first. Our nuclear stockpiles, combined with those of our southern neighbours and our allies in the Middle East greatly outnumber anything Abu-Ishak can throw our way.”

  “Well, why let him throw anything our way!?” the stocky and red-faced colonel persisted. “Let’s hit them now, before they get more weapons!" he yelled, smacking a fist into his palm. "Because don’t you dare think for one second that the Russians won’t sell them what they need.”

  Alistair Tillman, the older (and wiser) of the two men, shook his head in disagreement. Massaging the grey stubble on his chin, he leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes. It wasn’t that he was an indecisive sort of person - no, no, no, - au contraire - Alistair Tillman, twenty-eighth Prime Minister of the Republic of Canada (twenty-ninth if one counted the six month term of Kingsley Plock, the now disgraced former military general who had overthrown the government in the Short Coup of ‘31) was a man of action, a decision-maker. It was a rare occasion that he was lost for words and an even rarer occasion when he was unsure about what to do. But in this instance, he had to confess, he was being indecisive. Did he do what the Americans (and clearly Colonel Goodwin) wanted and bomb the heck out of Liristan - before Abu Ishak even made a move? Or, did he wait it out patiently and prepare to attack when, and only when, the Liristanis fired the first shot? He knew what Victoire Julien, former Primer Minister and the man who had mentored him his first term as an MP all those years ago would have him do. Never hesitating to tell him that “war only occurs when no cool heads remain at the table”, the founder of the Union Party had had as his motto, “Diplomacy, diplomacy, diplomacy,” and had never once sent Canadian troops into combat unless all other avenues had been thoroughly exhausted.

  Tillman smirked as he thought of Lucky Reeve, his American counterpart. The U.S. president carried a six shooter in his waist-band and would sooner shoot at you as look at you - a fact he’d proven on more than one occasion. No, he certainly wouldn’t fit Julien’s definition of a cool head.

  Neither would Gordon Cromwell for that matter, the British Prime Minister and current Chair of the Defense League, the six-nation body created after the Third World War that was designed to oversee global security. He’d been Defense Minister in ’29 when Britain had gone to war with Iceland. And that little skirmish had been started over a simple insult at a soccer match. Add to the mix the fact that Abu Ishak and the Russians were notoriously temperamental and you had a recipe for disaster.

  Alistair Tillman sighed and scratched the itch on his forearm. The chances of avoiding a war were looking slim. Very slim.

  - 2 -

  Somewhere along the Rideau Canal. Saturday morning. Fourteen degrees. Slightly overcast. Quiet.

  Jonathan Tremblay sought refuge in his weekends and hated to waste a minute on anything he deemed to be “unproductive”. And so he began every Saturday with a forty-two minute jog - the precise time it took to jog from his condo on the Rideau Canal to the old Chateau Laurier and back.

  What remained of the iconic hotel was nothing more than a wing of rooms for visiting dignitaries. As for the rest of the building, Robert William Poole (Prime Minister once Kingsley Plock’s coup was finally put down) had commissioned its conversion into an army barracks and it now housed the elite KS-1 force. The highly-trained and highly-effective paramilitary unit, known colloquially as the “Grey Helmets” because of the cinder coloured helmets that they wore, could be deployed on downtown streets within five minutes. And whether it was to neutralize a terror threat or quell citizen insurrection (as had been the case six months ago during the student riots), the KS-1 force was always on standby.

  Jonathan was not at all fond of the them. Nor was his uncle Benjamin - a former journalist with the Montreal Herald who had once been arrested and interrogated by the Grey Helmets and had never been quite the same since.

  Following the curvature of the canal’s jogging path, his feet pounding against the pavement, the young man made his way up the hill and finally onto Wellington Street where the former hotel loomed high above him. Two armed guards watched him closely from its entrance as he jogged to the edge of the sidewalk. While normally he would have stopped and taken five minutes to people watch - this section of Wellington Street being the busiest, pedestrian thoroughfare in Ottawa - he didn't like the way the two guards were looking at him and he wasted no time in turning around.

  Back on the canal path, he stopped at a bench to stretch his legs. He loved the peace and quiet of his Saturday, early morning jogs. And apart from the automated street sweeper passing by and the occasional police drone overhead, there was hardly a sound to be heard.

  A pretty woman in a black tank top and matching shorts biked slowly past and smiled. He returned her smile. If only Alexandra would smile at him that way. He must have passed her in the West Block corridors a hundred times, and each time, nothing. Always focused and deliberate, she walked with her head held high, eyes staring straight ahead through her black, square-rimmed glasses. Her chestnut brown hair was most often pulled back into a neat bun. The crisp, white blouses she wore were always immaculate - as were the grey and black pencil skirts that accompanied them. In short, she was strait-laced and professional - and approaching a girl like that wasn’t going to be easy.

  Though maybe it wasn’t such bad thing, thought Jonathan, leaning into a calf stretch. With her quiet and professional nature, she seemed like the type of girl that wouldn’t laugh in his face if he asked her out and she declined. Perhaps he should be more bold about it. Just go up to her and ask her out for a coffee - like Keegan had suggested. But asking her out, just like that, out of the blue…

  It wouldn’t end well. It certainly hadn’t in high school. He needed to get to know her first. To spend some time with her outside of work. But then, how could he, a Unionist, get an opportunity to spend time with her when she was a Reformer and moved exclusively in Reformer circles? And, was she a devoted Reformer? Or was it just a job? If she was a devout, true-blue Reformer, there was no way he could ever be with her. They say opposites attract, but he and his family harboured fairly strong political opinions and, well, his family tended to be more centrist. Having a girlfriend who was a Reformer would make things more than a little awkward. Perhaps there was more to her…

  His stretching routine complete, the young man tightened his laces and took off down the path in the direction of his condo where, upon arriving, he’d fix a nutritious fruit smoothie and grab a quick shower. Following that he’d put on a load of laundry and head to his Spanish lesson.

  Saturday. Six o’clock in the evening. The Tremblay residence. Where Jonathan grew up and lived until purchasing his condo six months ago. The family of four is seated around the dinner table.

  “I just think that you don’t appreciate how lucky you are.”

  “Lacey…” said Calvin Tremblay slowly as he sprinkled salt onto his potatoes.

  “Dad - “

  “Lacey. What is the point of Saturday dinner if all you two are going to do is bicker?”

  Jonathan frowned. “I haven’t even said anything, dad. She’s just going off on one of her jealous rants again.”

  “Ooooohhhh, you!”
>
  “Casey!”

  Lorena Tremblay wasn’t as kind as her husband and her tone was sharp. Razor sharp.

  “That’s enough out of you, young lady! If you can’t be civilized and eat your supper with the rest of us, you can go and eat somewhere else!”

  Jonathan stole a glance at his sister as she emitted an angry sigh and turned her eyes towards her plate.

  “Thank you. Now, if we could just enjoy our time together, please. God knows we get so little of it these days,” she added, looking at her son.

  “Busy guy, our Jonathan,” Calvin said proudly, clapping his son on the back. “Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

  Lorena rolled her eyes at her husband as she took a sip of her wine.

  “He’s just lucky, dad. Nineteen years old and a Member of Parliament? He rode in on the Red Wave. How come everyone treats him like a fucking God!?”

  “LACEY!”

  “GO TO YOUR ROOM, YOUNG LADY! YOU’RE DONE! TAKE YOUR PLATE AND GO!”

  Jonathan had only seen his mother so enraged once or twice before - and yet what bothered him the most was the hurt look his sister gave him as she got up from the table and stormed from the dining room.

  “Goodness,” Calvin huffed as he resumed eating. “Is it that time of the month or what?”

  A warning stare from his wife quickly silenced the man and the rest of the meal was eaten with the family - minus Lacey - engaging in harmless small talk.

  3 a.m. Sunday morning. The Prime Minister's residence. Martin Mulligan, the forty-two year old, gay assistant has just woken Prime Minister Tillman to give him the news that some men attempted to kidnap his daughter from a Toronto subway platform earlier that evening.

  "Is she alright? Is she hurt? Does Sue know?"

  The questions tumbled out, one after another as Alistair Tillman, in his white, silk pajamas, scrambled out of bed.

  "Easy now, Sir,” said Martin, extending an arm and clasping the man’s shoulder. “There's no need to get too worked up. Everything is under control."