Chapter Forty-Three
August 26 th, 2021
Andy always took a little bit of extra time adjusting to international travel and beating jet lag, so they had arrived yesterday and tried to keep him awake as long as possible before finally letting him sleep for fourteen hours, which seemed to get him onto local time in Berlin.
As much as he would've liked to bring everyone with him, he'd needed to travel relatively light in terms of his Team, to make room for Phil and the members of Phil's Team as well. Andy had been perfectly willing to travel commercial, but Lexi had spent nearly ten minutes pointing out to him that he had his own plane, and that he was damn well going to use it for circumstances like this. So, he and Phil had been limited to six partners each, with Andy bringing Emily, Sarah, Fiona, Piper, Lexi and Melody.
They'd also been given strict instructions to be back on the plane on Monday morning, heading back to the states, as opening day kickoff was Sept. 3rd, and Lauren had made it abundantly clear the amount of shit he'd be in if he missed it. Something about his kneecaps fitting beneath his earlobes.
It wasn't the first time Andy had been to Germany, but it certainly had been the first time since the plague had hit, and he was sort of astonished at how quickly Germany had gone back to being Germany, just with significantly less men.
If anything, Berlin felt slightly more corporatized than he'd remembered, some of the rough edges definitely sanded off and left a bit more 'safe' feeling. There were less people smoking on the streets, and while women were still dressing in high fashion, the tones and feeling had changed a little. One of the things he'd noticed about Berlin when he'd been in the city in 2016 was that he felt like women were almost aggressively trying to capture the male gaze, like the game was to get as many men to look at you as possible. That whole vibe wasn't present at all now, and it was more like women were working to see whose look was the most unique or original. They were in a race with each other to be the most noticeable, distinct, and sexiness was no longer a big consideration.
Another thing he saw was an accessory it seemed just about every German was wearing - they were stainless steel bracelets, almost like medical bracelets, with their Team name written on them in large letters, and some kind of ID number beneath it. He'd asked one of the people at the airport about it, and they'd told him that it was a mandated 'health and safety' bracelet, ensuring that Team members were always protected, even if they were incapacitated or sent to the hospital while they were unconscious.
It was an idea he'd definitely be passing on back home.
Whatever quarantine culture had existed when the pandemic was on, Germany was back in business and back to living full-time in their new reality.
The country had done better than almost any other country on the planet in terms of survival rates, something they attributed to strict adherence to quarantines, and being early adopters of the serum, as well as having their own version within a very short time of receiving the American version. The differences between the two serums were mostly negligible, but there were a few - one of the most notables was a hard cut-off at twenty members to a Team, something that generally wasn't needed anyway. The reason was that the German version of the serum couldn't support more than twenty active partners. It simply refused to add new members to the chain beyond that point - no priming orgasm, no imprinting, nothing.
But if Americans had needed prodding to get out of their houses and start reconnecting as a society, it seemed the Germans were already a few steps ahead of that, and trying to get back to normal, daily life once more.
"It's funny, but I'd figured this was going to be held at the ICC," Andy said, as they sat while Emily was signing autographs.
"They closed that in 2014 to remove asbestos contamination, and it still hasn't opened back up yet," Linda said. "So, the 3E is being held at the Westhafen Event & Convention Center instead. It's a little more defensible anyway."
"That's our Linda," Phil said. "Always thinking tactics and strategy. I wish you'd taken me up on my offer to teach you how Eternal Empires is played, baby."
"And I still stand by the point that it would run the risk of distracting me while we were there, which is the last thing we want," Linda muttered. "I've already got to worry a little bit about Violet fangirling out while we're hanging around with you lot."
"I'll do my job, don't you worry," Violet shot back.
Of course, they did worry. Not just Linda but Lexi and Melody as well, who had described the conditions of one of these events as 'a clusterfuck fucking another cluster while clucking.' But Emily had insisted on going, and Andy had insisted on going with her, for both mental and moral support, and because he'd just finished building a new Lost Storm deck for Admiralty that he wanted to test out, especially since he'd gotten his hands on one of the chase The Praeteritus full-art cards to replace the standard version that had been in his deck before.
Emily and Sarah had both picked up the game rather quickly, understanding the core concepts and principles within a day or so, and had moved onto more complicated rules interactions and core deckbuilding concepts a few days later.
(It didn't hurt that between Andy's existing collection and the sheer volume of cards that Wormhole Warlords had sent them, they could build some form of most of the game's deck archetypes, and building Emily a Dahlia Hairtrigger/Assassins deck allowed for her to show off her character with flair. It was a little weak at dealing with locations but was absolutely, ridiculously good at people/spaceship control. Sarah had built a complimentary deck that was great at locations/ships but had difficulty dealing with people. Andy's Lost Storm deck was built on a high amount of evasion and recursion and split the difference.)
Playing the game reasonably well wasn't the only thing Emily was worried about. Andy understood how important speaking out against E.F. Winston's backwards political views was for Emily, even with the risk involved. They were taking every precaution to work with convention security to ensure that not only she, but all members of Team Rook and Team Marcos, were being given VIP treatment and escorted protection. They'd apparently needed it, as well, because there had been a couple of death threats at Emily, and one at Andy, who wasn't even listed as an attendee, but security had assured them that those were sort of the norm for conventions, something Andy had to reluctantly agree with.
It was a stark contrast to Andy's last OmegaCon, where he'd trundled through the crowds like anyone else, for the most part, the only exceptions being when he was going to and from his panel. But other than those narrow corridors, when he'd been at a convention before, he hadn't had to worry about how he was getting around. Of course, he'd found out later that there had been a single death threat issued about him for that convention, but that the local police had investigated and discredited the likelihood of its validity.
This time, however, Andy and company tended to move in between events by using closed off parts of the building, back hallways that were staff only, which meant they were often removed from the crowds, but could more easily move around from place to place.
Seeing images of his wife thirty feet tall plastered against walls was definitely taking some getting used to, though, although that had been muted a bit by her and Sarah making Andy watch every one of their movies with them. Sarah had even given Andy a bit of what she called 'red carpet training,' designed to help him manage with the press and the paparazzi, something both women had assured him he was very much going to need. Mostly it was about the art of not answering any question you didn't feel like answering, and to avoid disparaging anyone you actually liked.
(Andy's response was a bit of Mel Brooks' "The History Of The World, Part 1" - "Oh, a bullshit artist." That made both women giggle.)
The Endless Empires Experience staff had taken Emily's appearance and ran with it, getting as many promotional materials as they could out in the relatively short time they had. Andy understood how long it typically took to get those sorts of things done, and knew they generally couldn't be completed on a quick turnaround, but he also had to concede that the demand and backlog had to be absolute zero, so perhaps the printers had been lying dormant, just waiting for someone to give them something to do, which had enabled the endless sea of his wife's face (albeit several years younger) everywhere he looked.
She was booked to do two different signing sessions (the first of which they were currently in), one photograph session, and two different "Play Admiralty With Dahlia Hairtrigger" events, which were going to be streamed live onto the web via Twitch. All of that was in addition to the two panels she'd agreed to be at, one of which would be a moderated discussion of what working on the films had been like, how they'd been adapted from the books and how she felt about being part of the Endless Empires game.
The other was going to be an entire hour of Q&A, which had been the part Emily had been dreading the most. Yes, the questions were all going to be vetted in advance, but there was always a chance someone could go rogue at these sorts of live events and not ask the question they'd been authorized to ask.
Perhaps the bravest part of the Q&A was that Emily had agreed to a general open discussion policy, so people didn't have to limit their questions to the books, the films or the game - they could ask about her experiences in going through the Quaranteam process, if she was happy in her new family, and how she was adapting to the new world. (It also meant they could ask about 'Looky Loos,' which the convention had agreed to do a small amount of promotion for, in exchange for Emily's appearance. They would have three different showings of the pilot, in advance of the show's launch in January, which delighted the studio and the production company to no end. Free publicity was the best kind of publicity.)
Emily had also offered to appear at an additional Q&A session about the upcoming "Neon Stonehenge" movie, which she was supporting cast in, but had been politely told it wasn't a good fit for the EE audience, especially since they wouldn't even be able to show a trailer for the movie yet, as the trailer's release was still a couple of months away. Andy suspected it had been a bargaining tactic on the event's behalf to try and get the studio to pony up some exclusive content, but the film's production team simply wasn't ready yet, and so any Druid Gunslinger questions were going to be done during the general Q&A.
Truth be told, Andy was happy to sort of fade into the background for a while anyway, not being the center point or focus of conversations, even if Emily did regularly drag him into discussions when it seemed like he was spacing out a bit. The Endless Empires staff were all very kind and nice, but literally everyone wanted a photograph of them and Em together, all of which Melody watched over like a hawk, but was certainly easier since he wasn't involved.
Turnout for the 3E wasn't anywhere near as big as the 3Es had been pre-pandemic, but the player base of EE had always skewed more male anyway, meaning they'd been hit hard by the mass casualties. That said, many people had traveled internationally for the event, with loads of people from the UK, many of whom had been drawn out by Emily's appearance.
As it turned out, attendance had spiked at the last-minute attendance an intense amount as soon as Emily's appearance was announced, and loads of cosplayers had shown up in various stages of the Hairtrigger costume, ranging from the early years to the borderline catsuit/skirt combo she'd been wearing in the very last film. There were also a good number of young men dressed up as other Daggerfall Academy characters, ranging from instructors to several men dressed as Dahlia Hairtrigger's boyfriend, who died tragically and heroically in the last book and film. (Those were the people Melody gave the sternest warnings to when they wanted selfies with Emily. One young man's hand had gotten dangerously close to Emily's ass. Melody had offered to move the guy's hand for him if he didn't, not necessarily with all the fingers still attached. After that, the others hadn't even risked touching her, just doing 'hover hands,' to Emily's relief.)
They were taking a five-minute break in the signing session to let Emily's hand have a chance to rest up when she turned to him and laughed. "Didn't think this was going to be part of the experience when you hooked up with a well-known actress, did you?"
"Oh no," Andy said, "I was entirely prepared for this sort of thing. I'm just amused by how much more voracious your fans are than mine, and yet, how much less agency you have over your fandom than I do. It's not like you can go off and write your own Dahlia Hairtrigger story, no matter how much you want to. And yet, so many of your fans want you to 'keep telling her story.' We both know Winston'd rather have died herself than let anyone else use her characters to tell a story that holds beliefs different than her own."
"Well, you've noticed how much I've been telling people to check out 'Neon Stonehenge' when I get a chance, and about how much fun playing Charlotte Sexton has been," she said as he massaged her fingers for her. Andy knew how a few hours signing your name could make a hand cramp in odd and unusual ways, so he was doing his best to help his wife mitigate it. "Plus, don't think I haven't noticed how that character has been making a resurgence with her presence in the books since Sarah and I came into your life."
"She was never really all that 'gone,' per se. She just wasn't getting a ton of screen time because plots weren't calling for it."
"And yet, both Charlotte and the Barbarian Queen had decently large bits in both 'The Fatal Solstice' and the most recent draft of 'The Centaur's Cement Shoes' also, so I appreciate you ensuring we'll still have work coming to us in the future."
"Assuming they get that far in adapting them," Andy grumbled. "'Neon Stonehenge' hasn't even dropped the first trailer yet, so we'll see if audiences get into it or not."
"Andy," Sarah said. "Em and I have both seen some of the dailies. It's looking great. You don't have any reason to get worried. Besides, didn't your agent say you'd been getting a lot of fan mail asking for a Charlotte spinoff book?"
"There's always been a few letters like that for each book," Andy agreed, "but yeah, the requests have definitely gone up a lot since the pandemic happened. Although, honestly, I probably have to address the pandemic itself in either the next book or the one after it. The world's changing so much, I think if I want the series to keep going, I have to at least acknowledge it in the series, or people are going to look at it and think I'm being naïve and trying to Pollyanna it all away. But the idea of Dale Sexton with, like, seven wives... that's a wild concept to imagine."
"You ready to start signing again, Miss Stevens?" one of the con staff asked Emily.
"It's Mrs. Rook, but yes, I think we are just about ready," Emily said. "I think my hand shall be able to handle another hour or two. Are we still going to sneak away for the concert tonight, Andrew? I did stress it was a condition of our appearance."
"It's all been cleared by the convention staff," Andy told her. "They've got us until 6 pm tonight, and then we're on our own until 10 am tomorrow morning, so we can go to the concert, no worries. Thank you again for that, by the way."
One of the few concessions they'd asked for was that they could have the evening of the 26th night cleared, and that they get a small 'reserved' skybox for them at the Olympiastadion, the largest venue in Berlin, which could hold about 74,000 people. The venue was hosting a mega concert called "Deutschland Lebt!" or "Germany Lives!" The show schedule included bands like The Scorpions, Fury In The Slaughterhouse, Herbert Grönemeyer, BAP, The Broilers, Beyond The Black, Revolverheld, Terry Hoax, Donots and Pur, although it seemed like many of the bands were down a member or two. (Both Beyond The Black and Fury In The Slaughterhouse were listing their bands as 'still intact!' on the fliers, meaning they hadn't lost anyone.)
Each band was being given a 40 minute slot, and the show was scheduled to run all day, but Andy truly only cared about seeing Beyond The Black, Fury In The Slaughterhouse and the Scorpions, who were all on towards the end of the bill (although he would've liked to see the Donots, but they were on too early in the day), so as long as they made it to the stadium by 8 pm or so, they were pretty much guaranteed to see everyone else they wanted to.
Part of the initial fear was that the show was going to be held at Waldbühne, which only had a capacity of 22,000, and also had very little in the way of 'reserved seating,' but apparently the interest had grown so much since the concert's announcement that it had rivaled Lollapalooza, and was going to be broadcast on German television throughout the country, so they'd moved it to the much larger venue. That said, Andy loved live music and had been missing it more than anything during the lockdown.
They hadn't been able to go to any concerts (except Andy's bachelor party) since lockdown had been lifted, not that there had been a ton of shows happening anyway. Andy's favorite place to see concerts, The Fillmore, had only been managing one show a week, and it had been driving Andy crazy. So, when they'd found out that Emily's appearance would coincide with one of the largest German concert festivals held in years, Emily had asked even before Andy had said anything. Andy had one of his Fury In The Slaughterhouse sweatshirts packed in his satchel.
The concert staff had told them they would get a skybox, a meet'n'greet with some of the artists, and 'all the swag they could carry' home, as long as Emily would make a brief appearance while she was at the concert via camera - she wouldn't need to go on stage or have her exact location advertised, which had been Lexi's concern. But the German government wanted to show that it was safe for people to go outside of their homes once they'd been partnered up, and having a cavalcade of stars and celebrities at a public concert that was 'basically free' was a good way to do it.
Overall, Andy had been astonished by how well Germany had not only recovered, but basically just gotten on with living their lives again. And he'd asked a few people about it when he'd had the chance. They'd all basically responded the same way.
"Life is for the living; the dead would not want us to linger."
It was the nicest way of saying "Shit happens; get on with it" that Andy had ever heard.
"Andy, love," Emily said, shaking his arm, snapping his attention back to the moment, "it looks like someone brought one of yours to sign."
He looked up and saw a young man, probably just a few years past the Death Zone, holding both one of Winston's Dagger Academy books (a fairly well-tattered copy of "Expendable & Exceptional," aka "Year 5") as well as a copy of his own "The Dragon's Last Offer," a surprising choice, since it barely featured Charlotte at all. There was a third book at the bottom of the stack, but he couldn't make out what it was.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Rook," the young man said to him, as he brought out the third book, a very dog-eared paperback version of "Have Totem, Will Travel" in the original English, not one of the translated versions. "My name is Jens. I know it's not protocol to ask you also for a signing, but, well, you see, I had you sign this back in 2016, and I read it a lot while trying to get through the, what is the word, trapped time, imprisoned..."
"Quarantine," Andy said, helpfully.
"Yes, that it is. 'Quarantine.' Such a strange word," he said, looking down at the books, as if looking at Andy himself might bring tears to his eyes. "We were caged in our own houses like animals, and at first, I spent my days playing FIFA online with my friends. We tried to stay at home when we should have been at university, but eventually less and less people signed online each day. I would eventually learn that many of my friends lay dying or dead across the country. But if Dale Sexton would not give up, no matter how bleak each day became, neither would I. This book of yours saved my life, and I thought you should know that, even if my English is not so good. We all need heroes in the world, and you and Dale Sexton are mine. So, I wanted to thank you."
Andy caught himself starting to tear up a little but tamped it back down as he smiled and shook the young man's hand. "Thank you for doing so," Andy said to him, "and I'm glad I helped in whatever way I could. That's the only way we get through all of these things, together."
He took the young man's copy of "The Dragon's Last Offer" and wrote, "To Jens - You see a hero every day - when you look in the mirror. Your fan, Blake Conrad."
He could see the young man's face light up when he read it as he waited for Emily to sign his other book, no less starstruck by her, but somehow much less of a personal connection. He collected his book from her, gave her a little bow and excused himself, as another Dahlia Hairtrigger cosplayer approached with a magazine cover for Emily to sign.
The rest of the afternoon went off without a hitch, and it wasn't until they were walking down the private hallway towards their suite at the Olympiastadion when Lexi stepped in front of him, as they saw a rather attractive blonde young woman leaning against the wall outside of their skybox. She was dressed in black leather pants, a rather tight white sleeveless shirt-vest, a black leather jacket and long, thigh-high black leather boots. Her blonde hair was shaved to short on the sides, but grown long on top and pulled back into a ponytail that hung over the undercut along the back of her head.
"Relax, Lexi," the woman said, her English impeccable but the undercurrent of a German accent still lingering around in the background. "I come in peace. And unarmed, as uncomfortable as that makes me."
"Zelda Sohns," Lexi said with a chuckle. "You won't mind if I pat you down anyway, will you?"
"I would expect no less."
"Andy, Fi, Em, Sarah, Piper, Mel, this is Zelda Sohns, currently of Kommando Spezialkräfte, the German special forces," Lexi said as she searched the blonde woman for weapons. Phil and his Team were joining Team Rook at the concert a little later, so they weren't currently with them. "We had a few occasions to work together when I was back with the CIA."
The diminutive German woman grinned, giving Lexi a little wink. "Did she tell you about th--"
"Yes, they know all about me losing the damn plane, so leave it, will you?" Lexi said as she finished her patdown, while Melody moved past her to head into the suite to give it a once over before the family headed in. "A'ight, you're clean. What are you doing here?"
"I'm here on both business and pleasure, joyously enough," she said. "May I join you in the suite?"
"As soon as Mel finishes her sweep, sure," Lexi said. "But maybe you'd like to get into what this is all about? I didn't expect a courtesy call just because I was in-country and you felt like swinging by for drinks."
"Ah, yes," she said with a little smile. Andy had to admit, the woman was very attractive, in a sharp way. He could definitely see the military training around her, as she moved in tightly controlled movements, much like Lexi and Melody did. "I'm here on behalf of the Bundesregierung, the German federal government. They have entreated to me the opportunity to make an offer for a, shall we say, cultural exchange, something that would help both our countries better their relations."
"I hear a lot of talking and not a lot of details," Lexi chuckled. "C'mon, Z, you used to be a lot more straightforward than this."
"Mmm," the blond grinned. "I've been hanging around you spooks too much. The Bundesregierung would like to have a contact reporting on the American research into both DuoHalo and all the various versions of the Quaranteam serum. In exchange, we will give you complete access to all the research we've done accordingly, and if you would like to implant a member of your country's intelligence within our research ranks, we would be happy to accommodate that, assuming you're alright with accepting someone into your Team."
"Wait," Lexi said. "You mean you, and in our Team."
"That is what we're suggesting," Zelda chuckled. "Is it so hard to believe?"
"Considering you guys went and built your own version of the serum, maybe," Andy said. "Can you give me some kind of good faith gesture for free?"
"Certainly," Zelda said, stretching her back like a cat preening in sunlight, something Andy had no doubt was meant to attract his eyes to her shapely form. "Doctor Adam McCallister. We have him. We abducted him from the Russians, and he has been working for us for several months now."
"My country's going to want him back," Andy said.
"Come now, Mister Rook, you know that's an ask too far," she said. "He fled your country, and we kidnapped him from the Russians fair and square. He's imprinted to several fine German soldiers who are doing everything needed to keep him safe. But if you agree to this, your country will have access to him and his research, obviously."
"Tell you what," Andy said as Melody came out of the suite and gave them the all-clear. The group of them moved into the skybox and it was between sets, as it looked like the stage was being set up for Beyond The Black. "I can only imagine this kind of thing if there's genuinely some strong reason you want or need access to our research. Tell me what that is, and I'll make a phone call to the President."
"Certainly," the woman said, moving to drape herself partially over a chair, her legs dangling off over one arm. "Our version of the serum and yours have a number of sizable differences, and we simply do not have access to the 'large Team' data that yours does. You are significantly ahead of us in this regard. That said, we have also seen more success than you at being able to trigger non-imprinting regenerations, at least in some regards. That is access we would gladly share with allies in an open discourse about this kind of research."
"And how do we know we can trust you?" Lexi said. "No offense, Z, but you are special ops."
"Therein lies how committed I am to this exchange program," she said with a smirk. "When I am reassigned to you, I will permit you to issue me one single instruction - 'You can never lie to Andy Rook.' That is how important we feel this alliance is."
Andy took a deep swallow, because he could see in her eyes that she was being serious.
"Alright, let me make a phone call..."