mines, yet only recently they got help from an unknown benefactor, which seemed to be turning the war in their favor. Cordovan President Hector Sula’s recent American aid has helped, but his often poorly-trained Cor- dovan Armed Forces (CAF) troops cause indiscriminate deaths among the civilians, which creates more recruits for the CAR. Additionally, his admin- istration’s corruption and other shortcomings have been exposed by the CAR, further worsening his chances to remain in power. Mabel still had family in the disputed island nation and prayed daily about their safety. She thought that the recently elected American president, Natalia Smith, was being outmaneuvered, but she appreciated that Smith at least tried to help her country just the same by intervening instead of ignoring their plight. She might be the first female president, but Mabel didn’t vote for her on that basis. Rather, she thought that Smith brought more centrist ideas to the office than her competitors had, enough so that she won with a very narrow margin over what she thought of as more extreme candi- dates like Cruz and Globocnik. Scene #3 – 30 minutes later Brody laughed while watching a comedy clip on his holo-tab, one of many he was doomscrolling when a somber text appeared and made him sit up. It read, “Vanya sez lieferservice - 3 hours” to which Brody replied, “wagga?” and waited. After a short delay came a reply, “two pep, one ancho anna taco salad widda big MD to 21 Acacia Street, you wuz just dere Tues” to which Brody nodded knowingly and replied “klaro.” He was used to the codenames, slang and such so he knew exactly what Jade Eagle, aka “Kontrol,” the massively powerful AI brain-like system that autonomously operated the game, wanted him to do. The players just called it “Kontrol” when in fact they had no idea of its real name or what it called itself. In fact, it was just part of his day answering to Kontrol, and he thought nothing of it. He had made a deal weeks ago via a dark web contact, Mako. The deal called for him to fly missions in an advanced piloting game he knew quite well, and then he just collected the in-game rewards like a sort of summer job. He was earning so many he used them
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