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The Long Road – Pt 1

It was a cold night, colder than normal for the time of year in the City of New Babbage.

It had been more than two months since the ‘judgement’ of the High Council inflicted upon Mornington had taken its form.  The incident with the plague of last year may have been largley forgotten about by the citizens of the city…but the council was a different matter.  Mornington sat on one of the benches next to a grave in the city cemetary behind the Mechanix Arms, he looked at his watch, it was just past 3am.

There was not a sound around the cemetary, so the rustling of a few bushes hailed the presence of one of Morningtons less…reputable friends, Charles Wilson.

Wilson was an old aquaintance of Mornington, the sort of chap who aquired items, no questions asked, no trace left behind.  He walked up to Mornington and held him a faded manilla envelope with the seal of the Regency of Croatia on it.  The seal was rough, old, it had been there for a long, long time.

Mornington looked up to Charlie and nodded…he held Charlie a small purse bag and Charlie wandered off back into the shadows.  No questions asked, no trace left behind…just the way Mornington liked it.  Mornington broke the seal off the envelope, and opened the old letter that was inside.  It was a birth certificate of a Lord Victor Alfred Mornington McAndrews.  He looked at the date of birth and half chuckled to himself…

“dang…im THAT old now?  I thought i was at least 50 years younger…your slipping Vic”

The certificate bore the coat of arms of the old McAndrews family overlayed with the coat of arms of the long since driven out of Croatia Mornington family.  He stared into the darkness and chuckled to himself again and said a single word…

“Varcolac”

…and chuckled quietly to himself again.

He folded the certificate up, took out his lighter…and set the certificate on fire.

Two days later he met up with Charles again, this time in his home in Academy.  Charles quietly knoekce don the door at a little past 4 in the morning bearing a plain envelope which bore the mark of the City of New Babbage militia on it.  He also bore a much thicker larger envelope with the city state seal of New Babbage on it.  Mornington motioned to Charles to sit down.

“So Mr Wilson…how hard was it to get these two?”

“A lot tougher than you said it would be Mornington, the seal on the milita archive safe was a touch cookie to crack, the archives though wasnt as bad as i thought it would have been”

Victor opened both envelopes and looked at the contents.  He packed the city archive file’s on himself back into the envelope and handed it back to Charlie.

“You can put that back in the archives again…rough up the envelope a bit, make it look like someone has tampered with it.”

Mornington then looked at the Militia files and a small look of surprise fled across his face.  Charles asked if there was a problem, Mornington simply replied that he was surprised that the Militia had dug so deep into his recent past…but they only dug back to 30 years ago.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhh, they would need to dig back another 130 odd years before they found anything…incriminating about me, ok Charlie, ya can put the militia files back as well.”

As charles was walking out the door he turned and asked Mornington a question…

“Why all the trouble of sealing off your past Mornington?”

“Well Charlie…I have a feeling my past is slowly catching up with me, i want to make sure the officials of the city suspect nothing, to them im just happy old Mr Mornington, hotelier and part time inventor, i want to keep it that way.”

Charlie looked at Vic and grinned…

“If they only knew…”

“Yes Charlie…but none of them will…”

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One Comment

  1. Emerson Lighthouse Emerson Lighthouse May 24, 2011

    ((hmm, someone who looks so good at your age *should* arouse suspicion.))

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