Jacob was deep in the archives when the news came. Two weeks had passed since Stan Wilcox had found an invite in California, weeks Jacob had spent digging through old records. The announcement was delivered by an overworked intern, passed between officers as quickly as possible. The final invite had been found in Paraguay. The hunt was over.
Jacob was buried in wartime reportzs when the intern found him. He had done a deep dive, but only uncovered a few more pieces of evidence. Facial analysis of the mysterious figure in the recording was inconclusive; a detailed scan of the negative had provided a few details, but nothing had registered with facial recognition. Jacob had put in a request to the other North American card agencies, but he wasn’t holding his breath on a response. While technically the continent had a security arrangement, it was rare for anyone to share intelligence. Every country was suspicious of their neighbors; with the card hunt they were doubly so.
Jacob had pursued an eclectic approach towards uncovering more about Wonder Corp., chasing the lead he had been given in the video. After his grandfather mentioned it, Jacob dug heavily into the company’s attempt to gain a government contract, searching through official documentation and purchase orders from the insurrection. He tracked down the posters his grandfather had mentioned, as well as a few press releases from that time period. There were one or two news articles relating to card use in the war that mentioned Wonder Corp. - mostly fluff pieces meant to drum up patriotism and support. The evidence included a few new details - apparently Wonder Corp was headquartered in Vancouver, before moving to international waters - but most of it was well known. As his grandfather had predicted, Wonder Corp. had done an excellent job at maintaining secrecy. Most of their history was erased from the record, creating unusual gaps where things had disappeared; they hadn’t caught everything though. Taken together the evidence didn’t make a huge file, but one that had promise. It was the beginning sketches of a larger picture, explaining a few of the early choices made by the company.
He was in the midst of going through another wartime fluff piece - an interview of a Cascadian soldier just after the insurrection ended - when the intern came in. They found him easier this time, buried in papers at his assigned terminal. Instead of gathering at the station, the archives had set up an area in the viewing room to watch the incoming news. There was only one transmission available, a national station that broadcast to Paraguay expats living throughout North America. The signal was rough, coming in and out with odd distortions. Jacob crowded into the space with government employees from every organization and agency, who watched the news in silence.
“…is unavailable at this time. This is the last known photograph of the winner, Businessmen Harmon Mentiro, who found it right here in a little shop in Asuncion.” The reporter on Paraguay’s national channel was a small man, in a close fitting grey suit. He looked to be in his fourties, and spoke with a very light accent. Jacob guessed the English language broadcast was intended to bring Paraguay’s news to a global audience, with a separate internal broadcast for citizens of the country. It was a strategy most nations - Cascadia included - had adopted years ago to build up their country’s expat communities. In times of geopolitical tension it was also used to sway international opinion, and was an important part of most countries’ foreign policy agenda. “Mentiro is a part of a small but growing card community in Paraguay, and has been a vocal supporter of the recent efforts to procure a new treaty for card access. We are sure he will represent the nation well to Wonder Corp., and are proud to have the final winner here in our country. That’s our regularly scheduled broadcast, we’ll be back with a recap of the news and any developments at 11pm.”
The broadcast faded into static, and the archivist in the viewing room switched on the lights. Another archivist turned off the viewing equipment, and the screen went blank. There was murmuring around the room, before the archivist in front stepped forwards.
“Alright everyone, attention up front.” The archivist called out. It was the same archivist that had helped Jacob project his wartime footage; the old man looked exhausted, just like everyone else in the room. “Your respective offices have all gotten the same broadcast you did; none of them know any more than you. If you’re here from the War department, the Card Enforcement Agency, the National Bank, or the national legislature: finish up your files and head back to where you came from. You’re being recalled. Everyone else, feel free to reach out to your agency for guidance, we’ll let you know if we hear anything.”
The murmuring continued as the mass of bodies flooded out of the room, returning to their work. Jacob quickly packed up the things he had found regarding Wonder Corp. into a box, then put the rest of the material he had out into its respective containers. Once everything was cleaned up he grabbed his box and made his way to the front desk of special collections. Frederickson was the one manning the desk as he got there.
“I need a rush order of these, sent over to the CEA.” Jacob handed Frederickson the box, and the old man grunted in approval. He pulled out a bright red form, and began filling it out.
“Types of material?” Fredrickson’s tone was dry; Jacob saw a stack of four other boxes waiting behind the man with a similar notice.
“Posters, News articles, Government reports.” Jacob replied, speaking quickly
“Anything classified?”
“Two government contract proposals, classification level basic.”
“Time you need it by?”
“As fast as possible.”
“Same as everyone else.” Fredrickson finished filling out the form, sighed, and placed the box on the stack behind him. “Digital or physical copies?”
“Digital is fine.”
“They’ll be ready within 2 hours, we’ll send it to your terminal.” Frederickson handed Jacob a small red piece of paper, with a confirmation and government request number on it “Hope you found something good. Come back any time kid.”
“Thanks.” Jacob took the paper and rushed out. He was going to get an earful at the station.
*****
“Five invites, five winners.” The station chief was gruff as she spoke, projecting her voice across the station’s presentation room. On the screen at the front the faces of each of the five invite card holders was projected, along with their names and basic information. The pictures had been gathered from a variety of sources, with the Paraguay holder’s image notably blurrier than the others. As she spoke interns passed down folders to the rows of officers, filled with profiles of each of the winners. The profiles had been compiled from those submitted by every officer, and as Jacob opened his folder he already saw some of his notes on Kerl and pieces of his investigation report from the facility raid. The profiles were xhaustive, approaching their potential involvement in the Wonder Corp. tour from every possible angle. Jacob raised an eyebrow the more he went over them; the agency had gone above and beyond in compiling them, and the effort felt like overkill.
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“Each of the five cards was found in a different country, which means there’s four other governments gunning for the same information we are.” The station chief continued, pausing occasionally to sip from the coffee cup in her hand “Since the third invite was found in our backyard, we’ve been put on point in keeping an eye on the invite holder. Unfortunately, she has a pretty strong grudge against the agency, so we expect no cooperation. Headquarters has already been in contact with our counterparts in South Korea, Germany, and the California Republic. Paraguay’s Card Agency has been fairly stand-offish, but no one is surprised there.”
Several of the Officers around the room grunted in acknowledgement. The Southern American Card Agencies were known for being even more secretive than their North American counterparts, particularly when it came to international cooperation. They worked well amongst themselves, but still held a lot of grudges against the North American nations for the past few centuries of history. While Cascadia as a nation wasn’t directly involved in that history, it was still part of a cluster of nations that had been. Cascadia had its own suspicions it cast towards its Eastern neighbors, suspicions it knew the California Republic to the south shared. The world was a suspicious place; no nation truly trusted another, and half didn’t even trust themselves.
“Now we know for a fact the Californian and Korean governments have already launched their own intelligence gathering efforts; we believe it’s likely they’ve already struck a deal with their winners to share everything they learn on the tour. California has been kind enough to share their dossier on the company and their winner; it’s in the back of your files."
Jacob joined the other officers in flipping to the back of the folder to read through the profile California had provided. While all nations had learned to be mistrustful of each other, California was the closest Cascadia had to a true ally. He quickly skimmed their reports on Stan Wilcox and Wonder Corp.; their profile on Wilcox was detailed and well prepared - a fact that made sense, giving Wilcox’s citizenship. Their Wonder Corp. file on the other hand was much smaller; a single page of text outlining estimated income numbers, a few hypothesized locations for their headquarters, estimated sales in the California Republic, and a few notes on hypothesized corporate structure. There was a short paragraph at the end with the reporting officer’s assessment; their opinion largely matched that at the Agency: Wonder Corp. was hiding something, but it was impossible to know what.
“Their profile of Stan Wilcox is helpful in getting into the headspace of the California Invite holder, but unfortunately does little good to us here given we have no access to the individual.” The chief continued on, switching the screen to a map of the North American Continent; its eight nations were each colored in different shades, creating a rainbow on screen that felt more appropriate in a grade school classroom than an official briefing. A large red dot was put on a small port city on the East Coast of Canada, next to its border with the United States. Several additional dots were placed throughout the Atlantic, matching the suspected headquarters locations hypothesized by the California Republic, as well as a few hypothesized by the agency itself. “Unfortunately, besides a few hypotheticals, the California report on Wonder Corp. doesn’t really give us any information other than what we already knew. We’ve reached out to the other North American Card Agencies, but unsurprisingly have heard nothing back.”
“Olivier!” The chief suddenly snapped her head to look at Jacob in the back of the room. Jacob jumped a little in his seat, closing his folder rapidly.
“Yes?” Jacob called back. He had a sinking feeling he was about to get in trouble for something, but had no idea what. He thought of his Insight of Soul card, but knew he couldn’t equip it with so many officers staring at him. He made a mental note to equip it every morning to be safe, in case of more moments like this.
“Front and center.” The chief gestured next to her, and Jacob quietly gulped. He stood up and waded through the officers beside him, before making his way to the front of the room. If he was in trouble it was something severe; the chief would only bring him up to make an example of him. The chief pressed a button, and a messy looking slide of documents appeared on the wall. They appeared to be from the box he had pulled at the archives, which must have been scanned while he was listening to the briefing. He saw multiple wartime posters cluttering the space, alongside multiple government document scans. The blurry form of the shadowy figure’s face was blown up to fill half the slide, their features sharpened but barely discernible.
“Olivier has been digging through the archives downtown, and has found some interesting evidence about the early days of Wonder Corp. This is the first time some of this has been seen in decades, so give him your utmost attention.” The chief gestured next to her, and smiled wryly at Jacob. She was enjoying putting him on the spot. He swallowed to ease his nerves, then stepped to the side of the projection.
“Just tell them what you’ve found, and what you think it means.” The chief said softly, so no one else could hear. She stepped aside, and the room turned its attention fully to Jacob.
“Well.” Jacob started nervously “Most people seem to know pretty much nothing about Wonder Corp., as California’s profile demonstrates. They’ve been very careful about guarding their secrecy throughout their history; The archives have plenty of information about their competitors, but there’s a massive gulf where anything about them should be. It almost looks like the records were purged, but even with that there appears to be a few things that were missed that only our archives would have.”
“What makes our archives so special?” A voice Jacob didn’t recognize came from the group of officers. Jacob glanced over but was blinded by the projector.
Jacob cleared his throat and walked in front of the projection to point at the government reports. “These do. According to these petitions for government contract, Wonder Corp. used to headquartered here in Cascadia, in the industrial area of Vancouver.”
Jacob walked back to where he was standing prior, as light muttering filled the room “We all know that when the portals opened, five machines were seized by companies before governments could get their hands on them. What is less known is that Wonder Corp. was founded after the portals opened; how they got their hands on a machine is unrecorded, but they were incorporated shortly after. During the Insurrection Wonder Corp. applied for a government card contract, which was unsuccessful. It was their only time applying for government contract, and after the insurrection they moved their headquarters into international waters. They’ve been neutral in every other conflict, and have never supported any other government or cause.
The photo here is from an old film reel from that application; it is my opinion that this still frame is our only shot of the Wonder Corp. founder. Or one of his higher ups. Given all this it’s unlikely that one of the invite cards being in Cascadia was a coincidence. Cascadia was always going to receive an invite; the unanswered question is why.”
Jacob paused, then looked back over to the chief. She raised an eyebrow, then moved to join him.
“Unfortunately for us, that connection is one we can’t capitalize on.” The chief said, grabbing the room’s attention “For now. The invites were an unprecedented opportunity to get inside Wonder Corp., but they won’t be our only opportunity. The tour happens in less than a week; until then working this connection is our top priority. I want to know every detail about Wonder Corp.’s operations in Cascadia; every action, every employee. Once the company doors close for the tour, it’s likely they’ll close for good. I want to know what we can do to pry them open, and why they’re opening to begin with. The prosecutors office is going to keep working Ms. Worth to try and get some cooperation, but for now we’re going to consider that a dead end. Section chiefs will have your assignments; till then, you’re dismissed.”
The chief nodded towards the back of the room, and the lights flicked on. There was the sound of scraping chairs as every officer stood up, and began making their way back to their duty stations. Jacob looked at the chief and raised an eyebrow. The chief adopted a wry smile again.
“I said give me an interesting file.” The chief said “I didn’t say what would happen if you did.”
The station chief patted him on the back roughly, and chuckled a bit as she headed to her office. Jacob frowned, then quickly moved to leave the station. His shift was over, better to get out now before he was given another task. As he was going he nodded at Anderson, who had set up shop for the night shift at their shared terminal. Anderson nodded back, and Jacob moved quickly to leave. Before he knew it had stepped outside, taking a deep breath of the night air.
The final invite had been found. The search was over.
and read, even though scenes like the one above are necessary to move the story along. I’m very happy to finally have the invite card section of the story over, though those who know the story I’m basing this book on knows we have a few more twists ahead of us. I love writing scenes that build intrigue; I struggle to write scenes that build detail. As a writer it’s always a balance between writing what you want and what you need.
trust in the cards…
What Invite Card holder are you most excited to meet later in the story?
