Moskurg's Capital: Moskurg
The capital of Moskurg, also named Moskurg, is technically one of three cities that comprise the capital; Moskurg, Alstrad and Erching. The original capital, as conquered and established by the British centuries ago, was actually Erching. However, the larger port of Moskurg attracted more attention and became the functional industrial and political hub of the country, even if the administrative hub was the palace at Erching. With the Industrial Revolution, tens of thousands of Moskurgs migrated from the rural lives they had led in the mountains and plains and moved to the desert, where oil and manufacturing based industries served as beacons for those looking for better lives - often, said beacons were misleading and brought poverty, cramped living conditions and dangerous working conditions.
The city of Moskurg eventually expanded to the point where it met the borders of Erching and then encompassed them - the latter city effectively became a borough of 'Greater Moskurg'. It is only in the last thirty years that the booming petroleum industry in Alstrad has expanded it enough to be included in Greater Moskurg, but the establishment of commuter railroads and a motorway have solidified its inclusion for as long as Moskurg stands.
Life in Moskurg
Alard is a Moskurg, living in the capital with his young wife Belle. Alard works as a mechanic for the Bureau of Industry, Belle works as a munitionette in a filling factory. They are an example of the typical middle class member of Moskurg society.
Alard lives on the outskirts of old Moskurg, quite close to Alstrad. He wakes up at six a.m. each morning, thanks to his alarm clock. The clock is a fairly rare import from Britain, who still holds trading ties with their former colony. For breakfast, Alard has scrambled eggs made from egg powder, as real eggs cost too many ration coupons. He remembers having boiled eggs as a child, nine years ago before the plains were 'ceded', as the history books put it. He has a glass of orange juice, which is relatively cheap and unrationed because the plantations in the jungle are still going strong. He puts on a suit and shirt of mountain-spun wool and gives his wife a kiss before leaving for work.
Alard rides the bus to work each day, as he lives too far out from the Bureau to walk. He does pass others, typically the poorer members of society, who do make the long walk into the city and back each day, and thanks God for his good, secure job. The bus stops at a traffic light, a relatively recent addition to the streets now that automotive vehicles are becoming more common, and witnesses a belligerent, homeless drunk shouting slurs about the Great Leader. Blue and silver uniformed officers arrive and drag him off the street. Alard is thankful such an annoying man has been taken away, assuming that after a short beating they will let the drunk off. The bus pulls on, giving a beep of its horn when a rich Moskurg in a shiny blue Struunk speeds through a red light.
Arriving at the Bureau warehouse floor, Alard removes his suit jacket and gets into some white woollen overalls. The wool sometimes itches when it hasn't been processed properly, but cotton has been rationed these past nine years. He smiles, as the warehouse is already buzzing over its project; one of the few T2 Breakers in production. He joins in with his fellow mechanics in applying the new armour panels they have been shipped in.
Belle wakes up at seven a.m. after an hour of dozy sleep. Alard has left her some scrambled eggs for breakfast, which she finishes off with a glass of orange juice, followed by a cigarette. Cigarettes are cheap, and unrationed. On a bad day, she will go through eight or nine, but usually she will smoke three; one at breakfast, one with the girls at work and one at the end of her shift. She puts on a blue cotton dress, a gift from her husband, and some cream leather shoes. The shoes are her guilty pleasure, actually smuggled over the border from Arstotzkan East Forenia and made available through her friend with contacts in the black market.
The filling factory is just outside Moskurg, so Belle is able to walk to work, carrying a blue woollen handbag. She gets some catcalls from a handful of workers on a construction site, but she ignores them and walks on. One of the workers gets insistent and starts following her, making suggestive statements. She draws the Cascade sub-machine gun she carries in her handbag (a wedding gift from her mother-in-law) and points it at the harasser, who is dissuaded. She continues the rest of the way to work unmolested.
Belle arrives early, and a handful of other women have arrived at the factory and are putting on their aprons and hairnets. Belle gets a few envious looks for her dress, which she enjoys. Belle removes her wedding ring and places it in a pocket in her dress, as she does not want it to scratch against the bullet casings when she is working. She makes her way to her place along the conveyor belt and has a few minutes of chatter before the whistle blows and the conveyor belts start moving. She is surprised to see that she is filling Breaker shells today, apparently with the new explosive charges. A co-worker makes a crude joke about the size of the shells, and she laughs along.
Alard reaches the end of his morning shift and the whistle blows for break. He wipes oil and grease from his hands and sits down in the break room with the other men in his crew, shirt sleeves rolled up and happy to take his cup of coffee. Some of the other men smoke pipes, but unlike his wife Alard has little taste for tobacco. The radio is on, and the MBC is playing Vaughan Williams' [\i]The Vagabond. Not in the mood for chatter, Alard picks up a copy of The Moskurger and reads about the issues of the day. There is a coupon for cheap sarsaparilla, which he carefully folds and tears out, putting in his shirt pocket for later. The radio broadcast breaks up halfway through [\i]"White as meal the frosty field / Warm the fire-side haven..." and is replaced by a familiar voice. "Moskurg, Arstotzka, Forenia. My name is John Otto, and this is-" The radio is swiftly turned off by the supervisor, fearful of agents from the Bureau of Integrity.
The supervisor asks Alard outside for a moment, and asks how familiar he is with the Tiger. Alard assures him that he is very familiar with the truck design. The supervisor seems pleased, and instructs Alard that he has been ordered to Tiger Paw Base in the mountains to deal with some problems they are having there. If everything goes well, he should be home by nine p.m.. Alard is a little disappointed, but accepts his orders and goes to change back into his suit. He makes use of the warehouse telephone and asks for the operator to connect him to the filling factory. His wife is not available, but the woman on the other end promises to take a message for her at lunch.
The train station is not far from the Bureau, so Alard walks. Along the way he catches lunch; hot oil-drenched meat in a bun, with a shot of cheap government tequila on the side. He arrives at the train station, which is quite busy even for the middle of the day. He hands his ticket to a conductor and is directed to the appropriate train, which will take him as far as Torskurg, in the foothills beneath the mountains. The Bureau has not exactly seen fit to pay for a first class ticket, so he boards the second class carriages and gets a compartment he shares with a woman with a screaming child and an old, snoring man.
Belle visibly relaxes when the whistle goes for lunch. She needs a cigarette, and heads straight to the lunch hall to light up. The factory provides lunch to keep the women on site, so she sits down with a corned beef sandwich and a mug of hot, sweet tea and a cigarette. After a couple of minutes of quiet smoking she joins in with the rest of the girls on her table, talking mostly about typical gossip; who might be sleeping with whom, what the latest ration changes are, news from the front. One of the girls is quite visibly concerned about the last topic, as she has had no word from her fiancée, a pilot, for a week now. Belle joins in with another girl in calming her down, lighting another cigarette in the process.
Alard has headed to the dining coach, helping himself to another couple of shots of government tequila and a banana pie (not rationed) and cream (costing 1 ration token). By now the train is most of the way through the desert, and he can hear the distant thunderclaps of artillery fire. The track passes close to the front by this point. The screaming woman has already left, and the snoring old man revealed himself as a Bureau of Integrity agent, checking Alard's papers before leaving at his own stop. He wished Alard luck in the mountains, and asked him to give his regards to the commander at Tiger Paw Base. Alard helps himself to a third shot of government tequila, trying to ignore the increasing volume of the artillery shocks.
Belle finishes her shift at five p.m., and as it is the right day of the week, stays behind ten minutes to receive her pay packet as well. She smokes her fourth cigarette in the queue. One of the girls mentions to her that her husband left a message, saying that he won't be back until nine. Belle takes the opportunity to go for a drink at the local pub with the other girls, and sits down to several cups of tea and some oiled bread (butter is rationed), as she is part of the local Temperance Club, although mostly for the social events. There is a shooting gallery at the back of the pub, and she and a few of the other girls take turns with the pub's Horsekiller. The landlord refuses to let her use the Cascade, although she does enjoy showing it off there sometimes.
Alard finally arrives at Torskurg, where the weather is a little cooler than his thin woollen clothes are ideal for, but he is glad for once that he is not wearing cotton. He shows his papers to the conductor and asks for directions for the bus to Tiger's Paw Base. The conductor laughs and points to a handful of mule carts outside the station. Alard is a little frustrated by this, but the carters take his Bureau chitty, albeit with a little annoyance. It sometimes takes days for the local government to process them and pay up. The cart ride is long and rickety, but it is still better than walking.
Belle heads home, taking a different route in case the construction workers are still there. She takes a shortcut through an alleyway, plastered with government posters such as TIGERS DON'T TALK - secrets kill soldiers, and resistance posters, usually featuring stylised images of John Otto. Someone has painted DETH TO THE GRATE LEEDER on the wall. She hurries out of the alleyway, glad to be back to the electric lamp lit streets. Alard usually cooks, as he gets home before her, so she stops off at the local butcher, who professes the paucity of good meat and loudly asks to see her ration tokens before taking her into the back room with him. She pays good money for a black market steak, and gives the butcher a kiss on the cheek as well. She takes it home in a brown paper bag, which she conceals inside her handbag.
Alard finally arrives at Tiger's Paw Base, a military encampment connected to a fairly broad road in questionable repair. He is greeted by the commander, who he informs about the Integrity Agent's greeting. The commander laughs, as it turns out he and the agent are good friends. He gives Alard a thick woollen coat for the cold and leads him to the camp's Tiger trucks, explaining that he and his men cannot seem to determine the reason they refuse to work. Alard promises to take a look at them, and a soldier brings him some hot cocoa (rationed, but freely available for the armed forces) whilst he works.
Belle turns on the electric lights in her home and puts the steak in the pantry for the moment. She pours herself a glass of government tequila and picks out her copy of the Bible, which she spends a little time reading before saying some short prayers. She then picks up her copy of Frankenstein, which she is part of the way through, and reads for an hour until the clock reads ten minutes to eight. She heads over to the sitting room's radio, which is her husband's and which he built himself from parts and is his pride and joy. She turns it on, getting a short blast of Cole Porter before fiddling with the dials until she reaches a very specific frequency. She adjusts the broadcaster on the radio, sending out a series of carefully measured beeps. A voice comes from the radio, that of Samir, one of the resistance commanders. Belle gives her a short report of the week, followed by a mention of the number and type of Breaker shells being produced in the filling factory. Samir accepts the information and both hail the resistance before tuning out. Belle tunes the radio back to the government channel and turns it off. She sits for several minutes in silence, steadily drinking government tequila and staring at the wall until she reassures herself that Bureau of Integrity agents are not going to kick in the door. Then she goes to prepare dinner.
Alard returns from the Tigers and heads towards the commander's tent when he hears a distinctive whirring sound and a soldier tackles him into a nearby ditch. He puts his hands over his head and curls into a ball as the whistling of the bombs comes, and he hears several explosions, some quite close, followed by the heavy thudding of a Stallion from an overhead Wasp. Alard stays in the ditch for a full minute after the sounds of the dogfight and bombing run cease, carefully climbing up to look at the wreckage. Less than he expected - a couple of tents gone, some of the more permanent buildings, but less dead than he would have figured. He has to wait another thirty minutes before he can speak to the harassed commander. Alard explains that the Tigers were sabotaged in such a way that unless you had built one of them you likely would not recognise the damage. He has fixed them, and the commander takes it as a small relief. The commander offers Alard a trip back on one of the tanker trucks as far down as Torskurg, which he accepts.
Dinner is getting cold, and Belle has already finished hers. She takes to her book and drink again, but cannot help escape a deep sense of unease. She frets for several minutes before turning on the radio and waiting for the news, which takes until ten p.m. When the news comes, there is a one-line mention about continued bombing in the mountains, and her blood turns to ice. No amount of government tequila seems to thaw it, but she does eventually pass out on the couch.
Alard reaches Torskurg station with a lift from the Tiger tanker, but it transpires that the line is temporarily out of service due to shelling. The trucker offers to take him the rest of the way to Moskurg, and Alard eventually falls asleep to the thrumming of the engine. He is woken about fifteen minute's walk from his house, and leaves the truck driver the payment chitty he would have spent on the train as a thank-you. Alard eventually gets back to his house at midnight, and is knackered. He spots his wife asleep on the couch, radio still playing, and turns it off. He gives Belle a kiss on the forehead, but she is sound asleep. He smiles and sits down to his cold steak, to tired to heat it up again. Alard pulls a small bottle of imported black market scotch from underneath the kitchen sink and pours himself a tumbler of it. He drains the glass, washes up and carries his wife to bed before turning in himself.
What a day, he thinks to himself. Perhaps tomorrow will be better.
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