Guards: A TLIAW

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Six

The phone was ringing, that was the first thing Geoff noticed, The ringing piercing drill into his head, exacerbating an already awful hangover. He looked at his phone and it took a second for his eyes to adapt to the screen’s glare. Oh fuck, even the glare was giving him a headache. It was his boss. It was his boss's personal number. What did he want? He checked the date. Third of February Twenty Seventeen, a day Geoff knew he had off from work! He clicked the respond button “Yes?” he listened to the phone

“What? When? Today?! No I’m not in today, I” the voice interrupted him. “No, I can’t I,” he listened a bit longer. “Okay but only until two, who am I on with?” another pause, “Brian? But he’s a massive,” he was cut off and then added “okay, but only until two! Then Clare turns up” He ended the call and got up. First he drank several pints of water, most of it going straight through him when he went to the bathroom. He barely had time to shower before he rummaged through the pile of dirty laundry that was his bedroom, finding a half-clean uniform and putting it on. The rest of his house were all asleep, the bastards. So he tiptoed out of the house, skipping breakfast. It was cold as proverbial balls, Geoff thought as he headed outside. One or two houses on the street had lights on but not enough for his liking. If he had to suffer, everyone had to suffer.




Seven​

The streets were practically empty at seven in the morning. Then again Kendall wasn’t thriving by day, either. Once he passed the I-1 junction junction 14, what little traffic there was vanished. Which was reassuring as he wasn't entirely convinced he wasn't still drunk. Everyone in Kendall at this time of day was heading north to Glasgow, south to Liverpool or back to bed, glad they weren’t in work yet. The bastards. By summer or after sunrise the A684 was quite pretty, going across Cumbria towards the border. Except it was night, in February. He turned on the radio. Some tune that was popular for a fortnight five years ago played. Geoff thought to himself. It was more like ten years ago. Bloody hell! At least it was a good tune.

As it got to half past the hour the new started playing the news. Half awake, he was too tired to switch it off so listened to it. “And now Moira Stewart with the news,” another voice, clearly from the heartlands up north. “President Wallace will today meet with the leaders of other world nations in the biennial International Security Conference. Tanya Mulcair reports.” Another voice over sound of cameras going and journalists speaking. “President Wallace will today meet with the leaders of the United States, Canada, Spain, China, Japan and Australia in Madrid. The conference, which has its roots in the post war anti-communist alliance and has since expanded to include the Empire of Japan, will be President Wallace’s last and the conference in 2019 will be attended by his successor. This year controversially the Indian Federation has been barred from the conference over their annexation of the Island of Muhurichar on the border with Myanmar. There is also expected to be protests against claimed Japanese human rights abuses in Korea and other nations in the GEACS.” Same old shit then, Geoff thought. It returned back to the normal presenter.
“The Member of Parliament for Inverness North, Stephen Crabb"
"Prick," Geoff said automatically.
"has announced he will seek the National Party’s nomination for president in October’s election. Mr Crabb has spoken out against many of President Wallace’s acts such as privatisation of several state assets and his move away from the British-American relationship saying he and the Liberal party threatened national security. Mr Crabb joins fellow National Yvette Sinclair and Liberal Party hopefuls David Mundell and George Galloway in announcing their bids for Bute House.” Geoff was already considering if he was going to vote third party at this rate.Especially if it was Crab and “COW!” Geoff yelled as he swerved to avoid the animal that had somehow wandered onto the road. Even with the high beams on he’d only just noticed the animal in time. It was some brown highland breed and Geoff considered that a black and white Jersey cow would reflect his car's headlamps better. Of course they’d have to import them from the Fourth Republic, or Fifth or whatever the fuck they were or were they WRB? Following his half-awake train of thought meant he missed a news story, something about France and Swabia dickwaving again.
“In sporting news Glasgow Rangers will today travel to Bristol in the Worker’s Republic to play Bristol City Football Club at the Worker’s Circle ground for the first leg of their first round European cup match.”
“Not on my road they bloody won’t!” he remarked. Back to music. Another hit. He didn't know it very well so he figured it was quite recent. That made him feel even worse. At Least there weren’t any more cows.
 
Ooh! I'm influencing things. That could be bad for AH.

Cool stuff, looking forward to this.

Just take the bloody compliment! :p

Reading about Asimov's Caves of Steel. AH doesn't have to be just lists and historical info. It is a setting or premise that can apply to damn near any genre. ( See: Agent Lavender etc)

( I must say @RyanF does good worldbuilding through storytelling too. to name a very few!)
 
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Dom

Moderator
I'm here and I'm watching. Interesting snippet of what seems at first glance a very different world, and I'm keen to see how you develop it.
 
EIGHT

As he passed through the sleepy village of Garsdale the sun was just about threatening to appear over the hills to his East. He was close enough to the border that those hills were in The South, capital T capital E, even if they lay to his east at the moment. He had to remind himself not to call it The South or South Britain sometimes. In his line of work you never knew who might take offense to such a thing. He wasn’t entirely sure if each nation didn’t still claim the entirety of Great Britain for itself, it wouldn’t surprise him. It was, he sleepily reminded himself, The Workers Republic of Britain.

Ahead of him, he could see the barriers across the road, their reflectors catching his headlights. He turned down his headlights as he pulled into the gravel surfaced car park and pulled up a familiar looking Eucort GTI hatchback. Even his car was austentatious, the flash bastard, thought Geoff. Maybe he was being too harsh, he followed up. Even if someone is a annoying, if you keep making them to be awful in your head then you’re going to hate your day at work. Just be professional!

“Geoffers!” Brian beamed as Geoff entered the small brick building. He raised an eyebrow “Are you even supposed to be here today?”

“ Kayleigh called in sick,”

“Probably just women’s problems,” Brian remarked, Geoff resisted saying something. He was fairly sure Brian was baiting him. So what if it was? Geoff thought. He briefly considered kicking Brian in the spuds all day for four days a month, just to see how his attitude might change. “I don't know,” was all he managed, putting aside the violent fantasy. Geoff dumped his back just inside the door and quickly collapsed onto one of the two wheely chairs in the front office that overlooked the road. Brian was almost comically opposite to him. Brian was short, Geoff was tall. He was fit, Geoff was somehow skinny and fat at the same time. Brian was flashy and tidy, Geoff was proud of his subdued scruffiness. He looked at Brian briefly. Even his uniform looked smarter and cleaner than Geoff’s although that might have more to do with the fact that Geoff had come in at a moment's notice. The finally frustrating thing was if he wasn’t such a horrible person in Geoff’s opinion, Brian would be really cute. In appearance (and appearance alone) Brian reminded him a bit of Olly. Oh shit! Olly! “Oh shit!” Geoff exclaimed.

“What's wrong?” Brian asked chirpily

“I was supposed to be going for coffee today with Olly,”

“That’s your, er, boyfriend, yes?” the word got stuck in Brian's throat. It shouldn’t, Geoff thought, he votes liberal.

“Yes! Except now I can’t!” he sighed. “Maybe I can reschedule.”

“Phone him,”

“I will in a bit, it's his day off too, so he’ll still be asleep,” Geoff explained, and stood. He wandered into the back to make himself a coffee and see what was in the staff fridge that was his, or he could nick.

“Your girlfriend is in today?” Brian called through to him.

“Fuck off!” he called back.

“She is though. Her and that one with the daft beard,”

“I wouldn’t call her that,” Geoff chuckled.

“What?”

“Never mind, and she’s not my girlfriend,”
“I thought you said you went both ways,” Brian said, walking through to the miniscule staff kitchen. “Make us a brew would you?” he added, his voice distinctly Edinbrugh to Geoff’s native Cumrbian.

“Doesn't mean I’m polyamorous, not that there's anything wrong with,” he paused, “Just fuck off, her names Caz,”

“Caz is it?” Brian sang, delighting in winding Geoff up.

“Caroline, I think, I know, you know, you speak to them too,” Geoff said as he made a coffee of some nonspecific brand from some nonspecific American puppet state.

“But you speak to her a lot, not thinking of defecting are you?” Brian asked.

“What? And miss out on your company? Get prescribed a job by some great bureaucracy and learn to love it or else, Pray to a shrine of Willie Gallagher every night. ” Geoff knew he was being facetious but couldn’t be bothered to correct “Go join a union though” he added

“You’re in a union,” Brian remarked as Geoff poured him a cup of tea.

“Yes, but one with some teeth, sugar?”

“No thanks,” he took the tea, “yeah and have to mind every word you say for fear of sounding counterrevolutionary and for fear of pissing off whoever is in charge at that moment,” Geoff handed him a cup. “Like I said I’m not defecting, where are the night shift?” Geoff said, changing the subject. “Left the moment I turned up, nothing to report as per usual,” Brian said as they went back through to the main room. “Even though there needs to be at least two people on duty at once, and their shifts hadn’t ended yet,”

“Yep, you sound surprised,”

“Pfft,” Geoff said, plonking himself in a chair and sipping his coffee.

The sun was peaking over the hills now and cast long golden outlined shadows over the desks. Over the road Geoff could see two figures talking. Instead of the security vests and blue shirts of the the RGB they were in distinctly military gear of the Worker’s Defence Force, privately outsourcing being anathema to the Worker’s Republic. He waved sleepy to them. One of the figures, Geoff couldn't tell which with the glare of the sun behind them, waved back. This made him glad he worked here when he did. He remembered seeing pictures of these guard posts growing up,news footage of armed soldiers on both sides in stories on the Soviet Wars and threatening a horde of Southerners rushing over the border. A tiny tiny part of him wished for that, at least it was something to do. “Ever wonder why it's so quiet?” Geoff mused aloud. Brian thought on this for a second then

“Because anyone travelling north or south is going to take the I-1 or 3 or fly or a train or basically any route except a tiny winding road

“Isn’t it suitable out the way though, like, a less obvious route to flee north, or south I guess,”

“Mate, if the government is that bothered they’ll have the CIA spying on the whole border or some shit, I dunno,” Brian shrugged, taking the other seat in the control room. “Besides it's not like it's the nineties, anyone that bothered about fleeing from the South would’ve done it by now,” Geoff yawned and stood again. He knew he’d fall asleep in that chair for now. The cabin was overcompensating for the cold was the heating was making him drowsy.

He walked outside, warming his hands on his coffee as it steamed into the cold air, mixing with the condensation with his breath. He leant on the concrete barrier between the main control room and the road. Behind him was the start of the Worker’s republic and to his right was the eastbound stretch of the road with its large steel barrier, emblazoned with the Union Jack of the RGB and the Red, Green and Wreath of the WRB. The same covered the other half of the road, but he noticed was in slightly better nick than “theirs” was.

“Morning,” a distinctly southern voice said. He looked up to see a woman in army fatigues and a matching cap on the other side of the road, leant on the concrete support for the barrier. Her hair was tied back into a tight bun and Geoff was almost pleased to see she looked as tired as him. “Caroline, good morning,” he called across the road, freezing up a bit on formality.

“Geoffrey,” she said, mocking him. “How are you? Or is it too early to tell,”

“That obvious is it?”

“I remember you saying you live about an hour away, so you must’ve had to get up quite early, I guess I’m lucky to have the barracks,”she said, walking out into the road a bit and leaning on her side of the West bound barrier.

“Yeah, but I get my own bedroom,” he smirked. Both sides seemed to have an amiable rivalry. Geoff generally didn’t give a shit about politics until he was speaking to the guards from the south.

“And I bet the rent is astonishing!” she smirked back.

“Not in Kendall it's not,” he added back. “Try living in Glasgow, your eyes would be out on stalks,”

“It’d be nice to visit,” she remarked. Go to George Square, pay my respects to Maxton and all the old guard, I don’t suppose there’s a statue or anything?” she enquired

“I think there’s a blue plaque,” Geoff said, trying to remember, “Like, a little blue plaque, George Square has a statue of,” he paused again, “I want to say President Foot? Lloyd George?”

“Which one?” Caz enquired

“The one that was president?” he tailed off, “It's been ages since I lived there, like, ten years since I left university,” there was a pause while Geoff took this last bit in. Caz apparently paused to let him. “Right, makes sense, it's not like we have statues of heroes of the north,” An awkward pause. “No offence Geoff but you look like shit, even from across the road,” she called,

“I was out drinking last night, today was supposed to be my day off. Someone called in sick,”
“Ah, that makes sense,”

“What,” he paused,it was kind of obvious he was searching for conversation at this point but anything to distract himself from his hangover, “What do you guys drink in the south?” Caz laughed.

“What do you think? Beer, cider, lots of little local breweries,”

“Not like,one brand of people’s beer?”

“Not any more, my dad used to drink this mass produced stuff back in the eighties, I say mass produced, each brewery made it slightly differently, so a pint of Worker’s Rest in Gloucester was different from Worker’s rest in Swansea, people used to travel miles for something they could technically get basically next door,”

“Caz, incoming!” Geoff heard Sam, the other guard from the south yell out the door of their guardpost. “Here goes!” Caz said with a smile, turned away from Geoff and went back inside. Geoff looked up the eastbound lane, a small hatchback, something relatively new but unmistakably had the utilitarian appearance of a socialist built car. Geoff figured it was British, Scandinavian, maybe soviet. It pulled up to the barrier. Caz walked over, now toting a pistol at her hip, in the doorway of the checkpoint was Sam carrying something more intimidating. Geoff walked back inside and watched from their check point.

“How's the missus?” Brian enquired.

“Shut up,” Geoff said plainly, watching the car. There was clearly a disagreement between caz and the man driving the car. Geoff grabbed a radio and walked back outside to get a better listen. “You have to understand, my brother lives in Edinburgh, you’ve got to understand I need to get to the north, he’s not very well,”

“Sir, this road doesn’t lead to Edinburgh, your best bet would be to take the Autoroute B and cross the border at Darlington,”

“I know but I thought the traffic there would be awful, cross here head up to Carlisle then across, I’m only coming from Harrogate, you see,” the man continued, flustered

“Do you have the correct paperwork?”

“I’ve got my passport,” he said rummaging around in the passenger side of the car, and finally showing it to Caz. “See,”

“Sir this hasn’t been signed off by your Union representative, or the travel records office.”

“I didn't have time, I didn't plan for him to fall ill!” he snapped

“Sir,” she continued, “without it being signed off by a representative of your trade union and registered with the TRO, I can't allow you to pass,”

“He might have only days to live!”

“Sir, the rules are the rules, if you want to head back to Harrogate, speak to your union committee,and register the travel online you might be able to cross later today, otherwise I cannot let you cross the border,”

“But surely you,” Caz fixed him with a stern but neutral stare, “Fine,”

Geoff watched as the man performed a U-Turn, the clutch of his car creaking and jamming as he went from reverse to forward and back again several times.

“They really don't help the cliches about socialist built cars do they?” Brian remarked

“That's a bit harsh of Caz though isn't it? His brother could be dieing,”” Geoff said,seemingly having a completely different conversation

“Assuming he’s legit” Brian said plainly. “and rules are rules, we’d have to do similar checks remember,”

“Good
 

Nine​


The rest of the hour passed without event. Between a slightly stale sausage roll and yet more awful instant coffee, Geoff’s hangover was passing. By nine AM he was sat in the control room. The sun was coming over the hills of the Dales that made up this stretch of the border and it was genuinely quite beautiful. It would be quite serene, thought Geoff, but for the occasional “yes!” and “ha!” coming from Brian as he scrawled through his flashy IBM Tab. After a few minutes of these monosyllabic exclamations. Geoff snapped. “What!?” Brian looked up

“Oh, nothing, just, its nothing,”

“Well its clearly got you all excited!” Geoff said grumpily, “go on, share,”

“Oh, you wouldn’t be interested,”

“I am now, if its clearly that amazing,”

“Just a speech by George Galloway in Edinburgh,” he showed his Tab’s screen to Geoff, a balding man with a smart beard and casual suit giving a speech subtitles were speaking about “Freeing Britain from is star spangled shackles” and “torching the red tape stopping the British economy from taking flight,”

“Oh I see,” Geoff said, nonplussed.

“Exciting stuff eh? He’s a dead cert for the Liberal nomination,”

“I don’t know,” Geoff shrugged.
“Fine,” Brian said mockingly, “well I think its exciting, I love his message,”

“I do, I’m just not that bothered about the early stages of an election. The whole cycles over twelve bloody months long, that’s one year in four spent campaigning, no wonder there’s only two terms,”

“Who did you vote for last time?”

“Parkin,” Geoff replied, with a noise of disgust from Brian,

“You voted Prog? Why?”

“I like their policies,” Geoff shrugged

“Are you sure you’re not going to defect down south,” he snorted

“Just because I want progressive social policies and a decent social support net, doesn’t suddenly make me Mikhail bloody Bukharin! And yes I voted Progressive in the Parliamentary elections, voted for Wallace the first time. I was chuffed at a gay presidential candidate, before I learned of the rest of his policies ”

“And did the prog person get in?” Brian raised an eyebrow,

“No, but they probably will get in next time,”

“Only because the Libs are trouncing the nats!”

“This whole anti American thing,” Geoff began, “Wallace wouldn't go with it, he’s practically best buds with Kennedy, and the chap before him,”

“Biden,”

“Exactly, he’s not going to cheer on Galloway saying this kinda stuff,” he said, he had been mostly happy for the conversation to take up time but his patience was tiring.

“He’ll have to give into the will of the people if Galloway gets the nomination,” Brian beamed “And We need to stand on our own feet, we’re not just some airstrip for America to launch from whenever it wants to threateningly fly over Swabia or Poland,”

“Whatever,” Geoff said, giving up. Brian grinned, assuming victory. Silence. Now Geoff was pleased with it. His portable phone buzzed. He checked the screen


OLLY:
I’m looking forward to later x​


“Shit!”
 
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