Season 1, Episode 4 - The Microwave Postscript 3 - "Coming Home, Ten Months From Now"

Ten years. For ten years, Asenov worked down there in the Caribbean. Whenever Asenov faced a task, he would put his whole effort into it, even if he didn’t like it. First came whipping the Bahamas into shape, something he did by the book, a clean effort with organized elections and local representation incorporated into the new colonial government. It did look good for the papers, and looking upon a country he literally built from scratch (well, that’s what the newspapers said, and Asenov was a religious reader of the news) made him swell with pride.

But back home, things with New England grew quiet. Pulaski instituted a quiet rule over his homeland, the rowdy paramilitaries mostly incorporated as Military Police battalions in charge of keeping the peace in various cities. The Unified Pact decided they could overlook this since Pulaski seemed to offer a stable rule, with financing from the Pan-Asian League ending the financial woes of New England. With the war reparations issue settled, the soldiers of New York packed up and left Naugatuck Valley, the scars left behind on both sides largely overlooked in favor of the lightshow known as the global economy. The stock markets of Shanghai and Shenzhen boomed, which helped the London and Berlin stock markets boom, which helped the New York stock market boom, and all of that helped the world’s economy to soar. Citizens grew rich from speculation, the poor bought radios and the wealthy bought televisions, and a new generation grew up in a world that knew less and less about the wartime sacrifices.

Asenov watched this all from afar in his island chain. Murphy was right; Asenov sat at the lowest end of New York’s priorities. Technological progress meant a large amount of obsolete material went to Asenov, who kept detailed records and made sure everything remained serviceable. Both New York and the Unified Pact soon forgot about the Asenov’s nation-building project, especially as President Tompkins's illegal Niagara dealings came to light. Tompkin’s fall brought little pleasure to Asenov as the new government brushed off his request to return home, instead choosing to keep him down there.

In a way, that was the best thing that could’ve happened to Asenov. When the auditors came to the Bahamas, Asenov and his administration looked clean, and as the public demand for fiscal responsibility gradually went away as the stock market highs seemed to only go up, Asenov grinned to himself. The auditors could only see so much, and again, the Mandates were the lowest of their priorities. When the auditors returned home, Asenov resumed his usual business. The islands might seem tiny on a map, but they could provide for a lot of businesses within their small confines.

Asenov was an honest man. He was at the start, at least. Both his military commanders in the First American War and in Naugatuck Valley were clean until the very end. He performed a clean job in the Bahamas. But that wasn’t enough to get him back home. He could only watch on the sidelines as his people grew more complacent. Largely forgotten about, down there in the Gulf of Mexico, Asenov decided to the ends of his ultimate plan justified the means of funding it.

Ten years passed in the Bahamas. Sitting at his desk on the bridge of the airship Mantle, the sight of Lieutenant Fitzpatrick brought Asenov out of his thoughts.

“We have a telegram from the home branch,” Fitzpatrick, handing over a manilla envelope. Home branch, of course, meant his agents back on the mainland.

Asenov flipped through the contents. “Our profits are down,” he surmised.

“Read on, sir,” Fitzpatrick explained. “Our men there have run into some difficulties, specifically within Elizabeth Pond.”

Asenov grunted and kept reading. Over the years, the general heard the stories of West Narragansett Technical Academy erecting walls and closing itself off from the rest of the capital city, so his operations there were little more than an after-thought. He supposed that he shouldn’t feel disappointed by the results, but here he was.

“In September, our agent there got captured in some hare-brained kidnapping scheme of a school genius,” Asenov recounted. “And now it’s even rumored he’s working with them. Later that month, we lost two of our leading agents in the smuggling tunnels below the district. One dead, the other imprisoned. To top it all off, it looks like the smuggling operation within Elizabeth Pond has been shut down entirely.”

Asenov rubbed his chin. It wasn’t easy, working with the Second Restorationists, who were simply centripetalists of a different stripe. The centripetalists were Asenov’s main enemies down here, after all, steadily marching northward after the followers of that ideology seized the governments of Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru. But the Second Restorationists were good at what they did. Their underground networks controlled most of Narraganset’s underworld, having gained the upper-hand over the traditional mafia and mob groups in the city in the chaotic years Quinetucket Years at the end of the First American War.

Asenov’s men brought in the products and had general oversight of the smuggling routes through the tunnels, but it was the Restorationists who dealt it out. They worked efficiently in their dealings and always made sure to give the proper cut back to the CEF. And that proper cut could be quite large. The Restorationists bought a lot of its arms from Asenov. Funding that group made Asenov feel slightly conflicted, but money was money, and Asenov hoped the Restorationists would be thorns in Pulaski’s side. And Asenov planned on crushing New England in the end, no matter who ruled it by the time he got there.

Household and personal goods also brought in a lot of money, too. New England’s tariffs on New York, thrown up in the economic slowdown following the recent collapse of the Asian stock markets, meant many of New York products could no longer reach New England – and New England had little domestic producers of its own. That’s where Asenov came in. His smugglers sent upscale microwaves to the rich of Narragansett, radios to the poor. They were all little things – microwaves, radios, the occasional television, ice boxes, things you couldn’t find in New England for cheap nowadays.

But what racked in the most money were the vices Asenov sold – drugs like Dopamine Rushers and others produced in hidden facilities in his various islands. Those made a killing, both in New England and elsewhere. Asenov made a point to never sell them to New York, but he knew it would reach them some day, if it hadn’t already. They would only worsen New York’s complacency, but Asenov supposed it would be a temporary sacrifice until his triumphant return.

And the funds were certainly put to use. The New York government would never approve his plans of building the air base on the eastern end of Puerto Rico – if they even bothered to look at it - so New England paid for it. The PT boats that patrolled his seas – those would be purchased from East Africa, something that also greatly disturbed Asenov, for East Africa was the home base of the centripetalists, the first state ever founded that followed that damned ideology.

But, oh well. His ideological concerns could be dealt with one day. He had a laundry list of both short-term and long-term hurdles to overcome. For now, he still needed to crush New England, and after that, New York could fulfill its true destiny of remaking the former United States in its own image. But until then...

“So I take it we won’t be making a profit from Elizabeth Pond any time soon?” Asenov surmised.

Fitzpatrick nodded.

Asenov leaned back in his command chair. “Unfortunate. That would’ve been good money. We’ll just have to redouble our efforts in the rest of Narragansett.”

“Those Rddhi-types sure love their microwaves, whether they’re in Elizabeth Pond or Kendall Bridge,” Fitzpatrick supposed.

“That they do..." Asenov shifted in his seat, pondering his future plans. “Elizabeth Pond was an after-thought, anyway. It’s a damn shame about the agent we sent there, though. We shouldn’t have trusted a New Englander, even if he lived in New York for his whole his life. And to think we sent him to check in on a home-grown operation...we should’ve known better. How’s he doing, anyway?”

Fitzpatrick took his seat at the bridge, below Asenov. “The home-grown? He's doing alright, so I hear. He’s the one sending us these reports, after all.”

“Tell him to sit tight while we reorganize things there,” Asenov ordered the telecommunications officer at his telegram machine. The officer saluted and got to work on crafting a message. Asenov ran a hand through his hair.

Though it’s not like he does anything besides sit tight...damn that mother of his for dragging me into this. Home-grown operations my foot. I should only trust those personally vetted by me first...and even then, you can't be too careful.

Asenov sighed. He had seen a lifetime of warfare...bringing a permanent end to it remained the goal. But one thing at a time. Before he could remake America in New York's image, before he could crush New England, right now he needed to secure the Caribbean from the resurgent rebels, he needed to cement things with the Carolinians so his proposed January expedition to the ruins of Louisville would run smoothly, he needed to make sure that the Gran Colombians didn't start shooting at each other during their upcoming presidential election in February, and he needed to make doubly sure that his own country's presidential election next year went his way.

One thing at a time. Looking out through the airship’s windows, seeing down into the forests of the island, the calm seas beyond its coast...

We’ll be home soon. We just need to keep going until the end.