One of Mildred’s hands gripped the bridge railing and the other fidgeted against her pant leg. Each of the pirates’ rifles had a gravity that sucked authority out of the air, as real and immediate as any law of physics. She was tasked with not only wrestling that authority back, but turning it against them. As it was, she barely had authority over her bowels.

The Daisagi-Maru floated towards the guns, exempt from the forces that governed human emotions. Mildred wished she could borrow the boat’s transcendental poise.

“Good morning, gentlemen and ladies,” she called out, affecting a heavier and more stereotypical version of Sayuri’s stiff Kaihonjin accent.

This prompted immediate laughing fits. Mildred tried to imagine what Ms. Beth would do, but she couldn’t remember a moment when her students didn’t have total respect for her.

Sayuri growled. “How dare—!”

Mildred’s hand shot to Sayuri’s arm and squeezed it to shut the girl up. Trying to stop them was the worse idea. As the boat drew nearer to shore, the laughing died off to a few bubbling giggles.

Unfortunately for Sayuri, Mildred found that clenching the girl’s arm grounded her. Or maybe she was trying to siphon off the girl’s aristocratic air.

“Are you all quite finished?” Mildred asked.

This prompted even more laughter. She could feel her face turning red against her will.

Mildred turned to Sayuri and said, “kono toui souha ao kunareba.”

Sayuri looked up at her like she was crazy.

“What in the wor—”

She nudged the girl’s ankle and continued, “inaka no midori no tsukasa mitai.”

A look of realization dawned on Sayuri who rattled off something incomprehensible in Kaihongo. Fortunately, this had the precise effect Mildred had hoped for. The laughter stopped. Their faces took on serious scowls and their eyes offered up rapt attention.

It was no wonder the Kaihonjin possessed a natural arrogance when interacting with Æfrians. The language of colonizers, of higher classes, was as powerful, or perhaps even more so, than any gun. Or rather, the language carried behind it the threat of an entire civilization. Even speaking gibberish, Mildred felt powerful. She let go of Sayuri’s arm.

“Now that you are finished guffawing like baboons, we have business to discuss. Who is your chief? Take me to him,” Mildred said, emulating the colonial police’s clumsiness of word choice.

“Howsabout we start with who the fuck’re you, eh?” one of the men said, gesturing at her with his gun. Their fingers all rested on their triggers. Even when the gun wasn’t being brandished, they could just as easily blow her head off by accident.

“Or perhaps we can discuss your poor firearm etiquette, you dog,” Sayuri said.

Mildred didn’t know what firearm etiquette was, but she did know in her Kaihonjin guise she was supposed to keep her subordinates on a tight leash. She turned to Sayuri.

“Enough, Ms. Ashimoto. Your opinion has not been asked for,” Hinomiya said.

“My sincerest apologies, Hinomiya-senpai,” Ashimoto replied.

Hinomiya turned back to the pirates. “Nevertheless, you would do well to keep official representatives of His Augustness out of your gun’s sights if you know what is good for you.”

“M’Gun’s got a mind of ‘is own ‘e does. Goes where ‘e pleases,” the man said through rotten teeth. A scar extended one side of the man’s cruel grin towards his ear, only a thread of flesh separating it from his lips.

A jackal-looking woman with a shaved head and cheek gauges cackled. “'E's tellin' the truth! Guns got spirits in ‘em, make ‘em do fings.”

A large, bald man wearing only a shirt and no pants or undergarments sauntered up beside the scarred man and in a voice Hinomiya could only describe as dumb, said, “‘ow’s’about we see some i-deti-fiction?”

Mildred knew from dealing with police that Imperial officials had no legal obligation to provide identification. But it undeniably looked bad, especially when weighed against all the other details like her baggy pants and the fact that her jacket was thrown over her shoulder. The best she could do was point upwards.

“That,” she said, gesturing to the white egret flapping in its purple field over the Daisagi-Maru, “is all the identification you require. You are duty-bound to cooperate with His official representatives for so long as you reside on His land, or are bound by a contract of labor with one of His chartered companies.

“As for me, I am Enforcement Agent First Class, Hinomiya Akiko, of the Imperial Mining & Resources Company. I oversee Imperial interests in Region Five, which we are presently standing in. This is my extern, Ms. Ashimoto. Do you have any further questions?”

Her heart pounded as fast as the boat motor. More than once she had to pause to take short, quick inhales so she could gallop through more head-spinning lies based on whatever she could remember about Kaihonjin political economy. Everything had to come out or she would freeze up again.

“Impressive stuff. ‘Cept we don't right care about 'is Augustness out 'ere in the woods, do we?” said the scarred man. The rest chuckled at this. “So ‘ow’sa’about I send ya back to yer fishfuckin’, pajama-wearin’ desk-humpers with a wee memo about our official policy. Wouldja like to ‘ear it?”

In the distance, Hinomiya heard a quiet humming, slowly growing. However, she needed a bit of time before she could use it. Even then, it was a long-shot gamble.

“May I have your name first, sir? We require one for the official report,” Hinomiya asked with fake primness.

The response threw the scarred man for a loop and deflated his defiant swagger.

“Smiles, right, on account o' me cheery disposition,” he said, the strand of skin between his scar and lip stretching like a piece of gum.

Dark gray shapes were visible in the distant sky now. Ms. Ashimoto noticed them too, though the pirates seemed too amused with taunting the Kaihonjin to notice.

“Ms. Ashimoto, please note down that we are currently communicating with a Mr. Smiles. Now, may I have the name of your band of brigands, Mr. Smiles?”

“We're the Pinkwaters, since we love to turn the river pink when we're done wiv our business,” the jackal lady said.

The rumbling roar in the air was close enough now that the pirates took notice. If her mouth wasn’t busy spinning yarns, Hinomiya would have used it to hail Loothsa.

“I see. Now, may we have your formal response, Mr. Smiles?”

A grin crept back onto the pirate’s face. “Aye, ‘ere it is!”

His response entailed digging his erect penis out of his trousers and waving it at the two of them. The pirates erupted with laughter again and the other woman, a mousy, malnourished thing with sunken cheeks, moved her finger in and out of the jackal woman’s cheek-holes to make even clearer the meaning of Smiles’ gesture.

Ashimoto gasped and averted her gaze, horror plastered on her tomato-red face. Enforcement Agent Hinomiya was familiar enough with the offending object, however.

“Thank you for that, Mr. Smiles. However, I would advise you to reconsider your response, as failure to comply with Imperial mandate will result in collective punitive response up to, and including...”

Hinomiya paused. The pirates could no longer hear her as a squadron of seven gunships passed low overhead. The treeline shivered under their propellers.

These were Kintoki Arms Services gunships, no doubt scrambled for a Genji incursion. The pirates probably knew this too. But that was abstract. Reality was thousands of pounds of titanium, gold, and lead thundering overhead, laden with enough explosives to level a village, and this was one small contingent of one conglomerate of a massive Kaihonjin juggernaut of force and power. And for once, Mildred commanded a small piece of it.

Once the gunships lumbered on, Enforcement Agent First Class Hinomiya continued, “...up to and including capital punishment. That means execution, if you did not know. Would you like to revise your response?”

Smiles’ nostrils flared but his genitals were stowed back in his pants. There was no more laughing. Hinomiya and her assistant stepped onto the shore.

“What’s the fuckin’ Emperor want wiv us wee group then?” Smiles asked.

“As I said, we have business with your chief, not his underlings,” Hinomiya replied, looking up at the scarred man. She could smell him now. His odor was a noxious mix of too many nasty things to identify.

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He spat a glob of tar-black saliva at her feet. “We ain't underlings, right? S’called a volumtree cow’awp’rive, like what them Zooks’re goin’ on about. We ‘on’t ‘ave a chief.”

“I am familiar with voluntary association and the basic tenets of Companionism, Mr. Smiles, and I know full well that criminal groups do not typically embrace them. Do not play games with me. The Emperor possesses means shy of execution to make your life inconvenient.”

“Oi, Smiles? Shut up,” one of the other men said, shoving Smiles hard in the back. The shover was a blond man with a short beard and the glassy-eyed stare of a sociopath. A rusty machete dangled from his belt. The blond man tilted his head while staring a hole through Mildred.

“You really Imperial?” he asked calmly.

There was nothing accusatory about it. He simply wanted to know. Mildred quietly nodded before realizing this was too demure a response.

“I am. Do you— you should not have cause to question me,” she said, hearing how hollow she sounded.

“Strange…” the blond man said, stroking his beard.

His soft face and soft voice would’ve been attractive were it not for the bad energy radiating from him. Years of trade had given Mildred a sense of danger for men like him. Men who, without experienced prostitutes watching out for their younger cohorts, could trick girls into coming with him, never to be seen again.

“Yer sayin' she's a lil’ fake, Babycheeks?” asked the mousy woman.

He smiled and continued in the same calm, gentle voice. “M’not sure. But she didn’t have any identification. I’ve never heard of officials who don’t love giving out identification.”

“Yeah! Where issit?” the jackal woman said, pointing her assault rifle at Mildred.

Mildred was starting to tremble. “You have no right to— to ask…”

“Hinomiya-senpai?” Sayuri said from her side.

She looked down at the girl. “Yes, Ms. Ashimoto?”

“I am sorry to be a bother, but would you please give me permission to address the subjects?”

“You may.”

The Shroud descended. In the void of meaning, Mildred realized how pathetic this all was. How pitiful the state of her people. Where was the promise of an independent Æfria? A moment ago, she had been proud of her charade, taking pleasure in the power she borrowed from the Kaihonjin nation. Now she felt sick.

With numb disinterest, Mildred watched the rifles fly from the pirates’ hands and form a ball in front of Sayuri as their ugly steel barrels twisted into a knot before dropping to the ground with a thud.

The Shroud released.

Everyone but the blonde man, Babycheeks, was stunned into silence. Mildred wasn’t stunned, but her self-hatred followed her out of the Shroud, and she struggled to pull herself back into the role of Enforcement Agent Hinomiya.

Sayuri was the real deal, after all. Mildred was a little girl playing dress-up.

“Hinomiya-senpai, thank you for allowing me to contribute to His Augustness’ mission in some small way. I defer to you on how to proceed,” Ashimoto said.

“Hmm? Ah, apologies, I was distracted thinking of all the other things we must get done today. I am sure you will do your best, Ms. Ashimoto. Now, would you all cease the profitless face-saving games and take us now to your chief?” Hinomiya said.

They were escorted up a winding hill paved with autumn leaves towards a barricaded camp. Rusted and hollowed-out petrol cars formed a perimeter wall.

One rocket from the Kintoki gunships would have wiped it out, but the point wasn’t defense. The walls were built to keep out the feeling of owning no security. She knew, because she felt the same. The machine gun nest on top of a yellow van was enough to scare other property-less Æfrians, but it was only because the Kaihonjin were busy exploiting more profitable land that the pirates got to keep their little camp.

Through a gap they entered a camp of tents draped in blue polyethylene tarp. Front flaps opened to reveal messy dens spilling out with dirty children’s toys, dishware, ratty clothes, torn books, bottles, and broken plastic furniture. Inside most was space for one mattress and plastic drawers along with rifles, machetes, knives, pistols, jam-jarred petrol bombs, and shotguns.

A group of four children ran through the labyrinth of tents playing tag while the rest of the pirate camp drank, smoked, or slept with used needles at their feet. Spray painted on the side of one of the vans was “Glédhamm”.

“You used to be a village?” Hinomiya asked with feigned disinterest.

“We was,” Smiles said with a frown. “Made cars. Me da’ did, n’ my grandda’ did, ‘til you fishfuckers pulled yer gold out and left us 'ere ter rot.”

“And now you rob your fellow Æfrians for pocket change?”

“It’s do ‘at or starve ya squinty-eyed whore!”

Mildred’s voice started to lose its accent. “And when you’ve pillaged them, then what? You’ll still be—”

“Ahem! Ahem! My sincerest apologies,” Ashimoto said, coughing with no pretensions of sincerity. “The polluted air of poverty is infecting my throat.”

It scared Mildred how good the girl was at saying things without saying them. She took the clue and stopped arguing with the pirate, but the burning vexation she felt at Æfrians again failing to unite against their common enemy remained.

At the center of camp was a pavilion tent three times the size of those around it and resembling a squat castle tower tethered to the earth by nylon rope. Sitting outside in white plastic chairs were a group of men, sunken-eyed and hollow-looking. They looked like Mildred and her coworkers during the famine. All except one.

A tall man with a black top knot, rough beard, thickly muscled forearms, and wearing a camouflage outfit stolen from a conglomerate’s private army sat with feet planted on the ground and a rifle in his lap. This was a real rifle. Not one of the crude continental imports, but a modern, top-feeding rifle with electronic aiming, made of polymers instead of steel.

His resting expression, with upturned brows, had a hint of gentle concern, but Mildred could picture that same expression on him while he murdered people.

“Aye, sorry to bovver ya, Wulfric, but the river washed in some grenner trash.”

Wulfric waved Smiles off as he stood up from the warped plastic chair. His full frame was only slightly smaller than Thomas, though in much better shape. Beside her, Sayuri’s hands were shaking. So were her own.

“In the name of His Augustness—”

“No, shh. I’m not done examining you yet,” Wulfric said in a softer voice than she expected. She thought to protest, but nothing came from her throat as he circled her and Sayuri, taking his time to look from all sides. Suddenly, the jacket slung over Mildred’s shoulders was torn from her.

“Excuse me!”

He ignored her, walking back around to the front and turning the jacket inside and out before pressing it to his nose and taking a long sniff.

“Smells like a man. Your women smell like fish, but this smells like gasoline. What do you make of that?”

Hinomiya blinked to reset her face. “I make nothing of it but to note that you have stolen property which belongs to His Augustness!”

“Hmm? Let me see something.” Wulfric strode forward, unfolding the jacket, and pressed it directly to her torso. “Doesn’t fit.”

Mildred’s pulse drummed in her ears, in her neck, and in her clammy palms. Her spit felt like swallowing a cockroach. He knew she was a fraud.

“I said, hand back His Augustness property! You— You lard-eating dog!”

His look of gentle concern bloomed into one of worry, like someone watching a loved one in pain.

“Lard-eating dog… I do like pig fat, yes.” His thick and knobby hand touched her upper arm and squeezed up and down the length of it. “Would you prefer I not eat it?”

Mildred was too scared to wrench her arm free of his groping.

“I-I don’t care what you mongrels eat. I only care about— about the Emperor— His will being done in— in the colonies…”

Wulfric took a long, slow breath with his eyes closed and his chin turned to the sky. After almost half a minute he said, “you’re too thin for a grenner. And too easily intimidated. But you’re too delicate and well-spoken to be an Æfrian. And you’re not a representative of the Emperor. What are you then? Tell me.”

“I am Enforcement Agent First Class Hinomiya—”

“Are you a half-breed?”

“—Aki…” her voice petered out.

Sayuri cut in. “Hinomiya-senpai, w-we—”

Without breaking gaze with Mildred, he softly shushed Sayuri with a finger to the girl’s lips. “I’m not speaking with you right now, I’m speaking with your friend. Now answer me, are you a half-breed?”

She pursed her lips. “I am.”

“Interesting. What are you doing here, really?”

“I will explain this to you one last—”

“Don’t lie—”

“Do not interrupt me!”

She took his wrist and sank her nails as far as they would go into his leathery skin and extracted it from her arm. Mildred fixed an icy stare on Wulfric.

“We are here as representatives of His Augustness in the colonies in our capacity as enforcement agents for the Imperial Mining & Resources Company. You and your gang of criminals have caused trouble for one of our logging camps. To wit, the abduction and false imprisonment of an infant for the purposes of extorting a ransom from His labor force. You may cooperate with His Augustness’ wishes and return the infant or suffer the consequences.”

Wulfric raised an eyebrow. “Which are?”

“Death. For you, and for everyone in this camp.”

“Death? Wow.” He wagged a thick finger at her. “That’s something.”

Turning his back to her, Wulfric picked up a dark green bottle and took several chugs from it before wiping his mouth. “Why did you turn your back on your people? Was the money enough to convince you? Or did you want to borrow power that doesn’t belong to you? You know…”

Wulfric stopped in front of her and stooped down. Mildred could smell the juniper on his boozy breath. “Those fishfuckers won’t ever accept you, and we sure don’t want you neither. Thin bloods like you? You’re loyal to nothing. You’re all power-hungry little rape babies.”

Mildred set her jaw. “You kidnapped a baby for ransom! You cannot tell me extorting a mother, scared out of her wits, for whatever scraps she and her neighbors can cobble together, helps the Æfrian people. Call me power-hungry if you will, but at least I am taking power without harming my countrymen. You can’t say the same, forking over money to conglomerates just to save your own hide.”

Wulfric grabbed her by the collar of her shirt and pulled her to her tiptoes. “Why do we only have scraps, huh!? You tell me right now! Whose fault is it!?”

After scrambling for balance, she grabbed him by the neck with her sharp nails. “Ours! We let them tell us to stomp on our neighbor for money and we did! Just like you’re doing! Now get your filthy fucking hands off an official representative of His Augustness before you have to see what real power looks like.”

Wulfric held her for a moment before Smiles ran up and whispered something in his ear. He let her go and Mildred barely managed to keep from falling on her ass. Sayuri rushed to help her up.

“I don’t care what you are, Imperial official or not. What I respect is her hatsuden,” Wulfric said, stabbing a finger towards Sayuri. “Now take the baby and get the fuck out of my camp you half-bred whore.”

His insults meant nothing to her. After twenty years of hiding from the call, Midred had finally won a small victory for the Æfria she wanted to see.

No one had to tell Milly where Hilda’s baby was. She could hear it crying inside Wulfric’s tent, nestled into a wicker basket beside a row of unloaded rifles. The moment she took the basket into her arms, the infant ceased crying, sensing something had changed in its hostile environment. The baby looked about nine months old, with pudgy cheeks and a shock of wispy black hair, but what struck Milly about the infant was that the baby nestled in her arms, looking up at her with searching brown eyes, was half-Kaihonjin.