Conversation · Sunday Friend

"That's why the Institute of Price Stabilité works to keep inflation just below 2%..."

"This is fascinating, but I wanted to ask you something else."

"But not too far below, no. Too below is also bad -- below, but close to 2%."

"You're not answering my questions at all."

"The Coalition believes in the importance of informing the public about the benefits of ze price stabilité. Transparency is one of our principles. Would you like an informational pamphlet?"

"No, I'm good."

"A sound monetary policy is essential for addressing uncertainty. Stability is the raison d'être of the Moralintern. It's the reason why I identify as a moralist."

He pats his pockets. "But, oh! I don't have my leaflets on me today. That's too bad. You can always call our information line. Making information available is part of the Moralintern's commitment to transparency."

"Okay, sure, give me a leaflet."

"Below 2% of what?"

"How does this benefit us, exactly?"

"Take your daily bread, par example. Too much inflation, bread becomes too expensive; too much deflation, it becomes too cheap for bakers to produce..."

"Okay, I think that's all I needed to know."

"That doesn't tell me anything."

"Enough business, let's talk about something else."

"Whatever you wish, officer."

"Okay, but what are you doing here in this apartment?"

"Ah, well, I'm renovating it. It is an interesting project. The building used to be a twelve-story skyscraper before the cannons took the top four stories off. This of course happened when the Coalition forces landed here..."

He smiles. "You could say I'm undoing some of the material damage the international community caused when we arrived here."

"Tell me about Sur-la-Clef."

"What's there to say? Sur-la-Clef is a modern, urbanized country that measures very high on the Human Development and Freedom Index. Mostly, though, it's known as the executive heart of EPIS..."

"Moreover, it is a great sponsor of less-emerged countries. Revachol is only one of its many darlings whose progress it supports and cherishes."

Darlings? That can't be an official designation.

"What makes Revachol Sur-la-Clef's 'darling'?"

"Because a great percentage of Revachol's culture hails from Sur-la-Clef -- its language, its people, its cuisine even, or at least in the downtown La Delta area."

Jamrock and other parts of the International Zone have been mercifully spared of Sur-la-Clef's love for meatballs and mashed potatoes.

"That's nice of them."

"Oh, yes. Sur-la-Clef is mega-benevolent to its darlings."

What is it about this 'benevolence' that makes you break out in sweat and want to run for the hills?

"The man who was lynched outside your window was from Oranje."

"Oh? That's unusual. The Oranjese are not the kind of people you associate with heinous crimes. It's such an upstanding and responsible country..."

"Yeah, that's all I wanted to say."

"Very good. What else then?"

"That's not how I would describe this guy."

"Well certainly one cannot rely simply on generalizations -- that would go against our commitment to individual freedoms..."

"And, of course, any loss of life is a tragedy." The man seems to observe a moment of silence. "So tell me, what have you learned about the victim?"

"That's all. That's who he was."

"As I said, the loss of any life is terrible, no matter who the person may have been..."

"I do hope you're able to bring his killer or killers to justice. We must show that the rule of law still applies... even in Revachol."

"He liked to get high and brag about war crimes he'd committed."

"Extremely distasteful behaviour. I cannot condone either drug use or needless boasting..."

"Suffice it to say, that is not how we do things in Sur-la-Clef."

That's because they're all a bunch of squares who like to sit around with their fingers up each other's assholes.

"He was a motherfucker and a killer."

"Officer, you shouldn't speak ill of the dead!"

"It's okay, he told me so."

"He... so you spoke with the victim before he died?"

"No, this was after he died."

The man gives the lieutenant a nervous look.

The lieutenant raises his eyebrows as though he'd stopped paying attention.

Your partner's doing you a favour by pretending not to have heard your insane ramblings.

"I... see. Well, you must be a very thorough detective. So what else did you learn?"

"Yeah, it was a wild coincidence. Let's move on, though."

The man seems slightly relieved, as though he's just narrowly survived a perilous bend in the road.

"You're right. That was disrespectful of me."

He nods. "Anything else?"

"As a merc, he killed a lot of people on the Semenine Islands to advance Oranjese business interests."

The man shakes his head solemnly. "A great shame, yes. Colonialism is a dark spectre in Oranje's past..."

(Shrug.) "What's a bunch of dead kipts where there's fortune and glory?"

"A bunch of what, detective?"