alternatehistory.com

Three Colors, One Heart
An Askelion Timeline

NEW AMSTERDAM, DECEMBER 24, 2009 CE

Jan buried his face deep into his coat collar. He remembered his days as soldier, and as a sailor for the North River Company. He didn’t remember being so cold then. But, as he watched the heavy New Netherland snow drift down to the ground, he remembered that his days as a soldier were forty years ago today. Now, his fifty-eight years weighed significantly on him, and the cold defeated him more easily.

As he left his gated community in the four-centuries-old Old City and walked down the sidewalk, he took the time to carefully observe the things around him. On the side of the street, several teenagers were playing lacrosse. He remembered the days when he used to indulge in New Netherland’s top passtime. Now he could only cheer for his beloved professional team, the New Amsterdam Stadters. Thankfully, that was good enough for Jan. As he began to enter the glittering New City, filled with cars and skyscrapers erected by the city’s near monopoly on north Atlantic trade, his ears were again bombarded with the sounds of the massive population of New Amsterdam. Jan winced as he waited at the crosswalk. He moved to the Old City to get away from all of that dreadful noise. Unfortunately for Jan, his office lay at the very heart of the New City Business District.

He walked more briskly now, encouraged by the bitter winter air searing his face, and watched closely as he passed two Stadthouder Policemen talking with a man covered in dirt and tattered clothes. The civillian was filling out a form that Jan himself knew at the age of twenty-two: the application form to join the North River Company. The NRC itself was a subsidiary of the state owned Dutch Expeditionary Company, and the United Netherlands Federal Charter declared that those without jobs be enrolled in their local outlet of the company. The DEC would then utilize you in whatever capacity it could for a twenty year term. After that, you either were fired, left on your own to find a new job, or stayed. Jan stayed. For thirty-eight years (and counting) in fact.

As he approached the mammoth NRC Tower, he noted the twenty meter-by-ten meter plasma screen television over the entrance. It was filled by the upper body of the young and beautiful Michelle LeClerc, the information minister of New Amsterdam, and it was here that she gave the news of the day to the citizens crowding Nassau Plaza. Jan stood for a moment watching her massive visage as she spoke about one Matthias Van Der Hoose’s winning the lottery. He smirked to himself as he entered the revolving door; “Must be a slow news day”. Jan walked into the lobby of the tower and called the elevator. As he waited, he watched LeClerc’s ramblings on a significantly smaller meter-wide screen. “Verdomd.” The curse escaped him as the sports scores scrolled along the ticker at the screen’s bottom. The Staders had lost to the New Haven Bankiers. Again. Jan was released from his misery by the ping of the waiting elevator. He walked in, allowed the doors to close, and pressed number two-hundred and ten.

As the elevator embarked on its journey of odyssean proportions, he reflected on his walk to work, the massive television in particular. He had never paid much attention to the screen before, but today it flabbergasted him. When he was in the Naval infantry forty years ago, it seemed like a different world. He held a rifle with wooden trim during the Amazonian war, while the soldiers today carried guns that wouldn’t seem out of place firing lasers. When he had seen Minister LeClerc in person only two months ago, he noted how she couldn’t have been more than one and a half meters tall. But the LeClerc on that television was a titaness. Cars ran off of water now, and they used maps beamed in from satellites. Sometimes Jan felt like he was being left behind.

The elevator’s mechanized voice chimed in to break him from his trance. ‘Please present your identification card.’ The process was nearly automatic now, as he watched his hand swipe his ID through the scanner. ‘Thank you Mr. Schoenmaker. You have TWENTY SIX floors left. Welcome back’. After the March fifteenth bombing of the Expedition Center at the DEC Headquarters in The Hague back in2001, the company installed this type of security on every one of its towers in the world. It wasn’t ready to let another foreign dignitary die in its building. The voice finally returned to life twenty six floors later, as the doors slid to either side of the elevator, ‘Have a nice day Mr. Schoenmaker’. “Yeah right”, Jan thought, “the only way that’ll happen is if my board meeting disappears”. He trudged into the executive lobby, eager to remove his wet coat and hat. As he walked past, the front desk secretary, Francis McCarthy greeted him eagerly, “Good Morning Chairman Shoenmaker!” Jan smiled back at him knowingly, “No one likes a kiss-ass Francis”.

Once inside his office, he removed his wet clothes and hung them on his coat rack with a sigh of relief. He couldn’t help but smile as he turned and looked out the southeastern wall of his office, composed entirely of shockproof windows. He had worked for decades to get to the top of the NRC’s hierarchy. Now he was there physically as well. He glanced at his computer screen and noted that he still had twenty minutes before his teleconference with the Board of Directors in Holland. He took those twenty minutes to admire the view six-hudred meters below. People were shuffling anxiously thorough Nassau Plaza’s crowd, trying to get that last Christmas gift or two. On the horizon he could see the massive New Amsterdam Harbor, filled with the vessels of the United Dutch Navy and NRC. Flags from every corner of the Dutch world flew from these ships, from Cochina in India, to New Holland in the Pacific, to Mauristaat in Brazil, goods of all types flooded the harbor. By far the most interesting commodity of all, however, were the slew of immigrants disembarking from their vessels at the New Netherland Immigration Office. They were black, brown, and white, but all were treated equally. They were united in their desire to be Dutch. He was at once reminded of a quote from Supreme Commander Koenraad De Veroveraar during New Netherland’s invasion of Nazi Mechico in the Second World War.

Comrades! Today, I see before me men not black or brown, yellow or white. I see before me faces of Red White and Blue! These three colors are the essence of our way of life. The blood spilt for the cause of righteousness. The purity of our cause. The bravery we show today, when all others run. These three colors unite within you, just as they do on the flag we carry into hell. These colors, together create the one thing that no German Tank or Mechican horde can defeat:”

“DUTCHMEN!”

Three Colors Title.png
Top