The Armourer: An Opco Boone Adventure

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Hare looked the kid up and down. He was working on a handheld device of some kind. His eyes were wide. He had a hunger to learn.

The boy looked up. “Finished. I done this one.”

“What? Give that here.” The Precedent Commander scowled. It aggrieved him to see this undirected, crackling energy.

A.J. tossed over the piece. Hare inspected it. The workmanship was rough, but sound. It was put together with a young man’s vigour. The structure was sturdy: the defs were true — zilch redundancies. The cross-refs dovetailed — xml field-embedded, auto-updating. The multi-level numbering was rudimentary but true. Hare lined up the counterpart assembly and took a sighter. Straight. Clean.

“Yeah, that’s not bad, but there’s not a lot that can go wrong on a calc agent appointment side letter. You got a bit to learn yet, lad.”

Hare tossed it back.

The boy looked at him with blazing, fierce excitement. “That’s all I want, sir — to learn. Whatever you got, I’m buying!”

Commander Hare shook his head thoughtfully. The kid had it bad: it was time to have some fun with him. He chuckled to himself, dug into the hopper and pulled out a lightweight chro-moly engagement iron with a silencer.

He tossed it over. “What do you make of this one then, lad?”

The boy took it low, with his left hand. Reflex catch — he moved with graceful economy. You could already see he was a natural. He weighed the piece in his hands, flipped it over, locked his elbows, splayed and peered down the boilerplate.

“Well?”

The boy nodded “Nice pick-up. Handles smoothly, though a touch front-heavy — I guess on account of that front-loaded defs module.”

“Go on?”

“That extra weight lends the piece a certain confidence, sir, but really it isn’t necessary. I mean, it might be handy in a scrape at close-quarters, but over a prolonged engagement, that’s going to wear you down.”

This was quite the piece of analysis. Whatever they were drilling into him on the Eagle Cadet Training Programme was sinking in, fast. “Very good. And what about construction?”

The boy deftly disassembled the piece and lined up the parts, studying then for a moment. “Finance-grade, for sure. Seems a bit over-engineered.” His hands flew urgently but carefully over the reps magazine. He skittered through the standard confi playbook, a kid hopping on stones to cross a river. Nimble. He must have committed it to memory. He didn’t miss a beat. The boy was well-drilled: there was no denying it.

“Limited scope, no affiliates, need to know. It looks good, sir. Plus points: it’s sleek, measured, nice baffle quotient in the early phases. I like the elaborate construction phase up front. Diverts a front-on attack."

Hare purred. “See? That’s how you do it, lad."

“ — But the balance is off by quite a bit, and there are a couple of back-door security issues.”

“What?”

“No NOM or EA. It’s susceptible to a D.E.A.A., sir. ”

“Er, a D.E.A.A. —”

“Denial of Entire Agreement attack, sir.”

Smug little bastard.

“Significant parol vulnerability.”

Hare gritted his teeth. “That’s excellent work, soldier. You’ve picked all all of the issues with this one. Strong analysis. I’m impressed. You are learning fast.”

The boy continued to inspect the side-arm. “Oh, look at this. There’s a general indemnity. That’s mad! Who the hell fits one of those onto a confi?

Hare cleared his throat. “Unusual in a civilian model, but a military gr—”

“What the hell ... A BOC indemnity!” The boy flipped a catch and set the piece down carefully on the bench. He fished a redliner out of his utility belt and started working on the piece. He took it slow. “That’s positively dangerous.”

He made a couple of careful incisions and delicately, withdrew the offending mechanism, holding it at arm’s length and dropping it into a sterilised waste receptacle.

Hare looked on, warily. “I —”

The boy exhaled. “That was close, sir.”

Then Hare heard himself blurting out, “What is a “bock indemnity”?”

The boy’s eyes glittered. “It’s an indemnity in the contract breach, sir. Someone must have crossed a wire here: it has routed a reimbursement covenant into the breech mechanism. The terminals are close together, and it’s easy to do, but standard reference works cite an elevated risk of localised explosion from this configuration. A high degree of indeterminacy, exothermic chain reactions possible.”

“Oh, a Bee-Oh-Cee indemnity,” Hare said, quickly. “Right.”

The boy snorted. “Who the hell drafted th—”. But at that moment he saw the date-stamped authenticated signature below the serial number. “B.A.H.” The boy read the room. He flipped the piece over and inspected the handle. "Whoa: this destroy or return recoil is a nice piece of work. Sweet.”

Hare glowered.

A.J. smiled back. “Gimme another one, sir. We got a lot to get through. The Eagle Squad needs these at the front line”

Hare snorted. “Meh. Take your time kid. Those peashooters don’t need nothing.” He thought for a moment, then brightened. “Oh, this bump-stock is off-balance. Lad, would you be a star and fetch me a weight?”

“A weight?”

“Yeah, a weight — a fairly long one, I think — to counterbalance this stock.”

“Fairly long?”

“Yeah, make it a long weight. Say a five. Or even a six. I can buff it down if need be.”

“You got it, sir. Where do I get one of those?”

“Commander Burke can show you. He runs the counter in the precedent depot.”

The precedent depot was a caged area recessed and towards the back of the warehouse. It backed on to the armoury. As A.J. entered, he ran his hand along the rail. A patina of dust lifted. Busy down here much? He reached the counter and pinged the bell.

An elderly man in a yellow cap shuffled into the booth, expectorating into a soft commitment. He set down a cigarette. His eyes were red-rimmed but kind. He smiled, pleased of the visit.

“Sorry about that — I was, ah, distracted for a minute. Now, young man: how can I help you today?”

“Morning, sir.” The boy snapped out a salute. “I’m looking for a long weight. Commander Hare said you might be able to help me.”

“Did he, now? A long weight.” The old man rubbed his chin. “Did he say how long?”

“A six, please.”

“Oh, a six. That’s a long one.” The old man paused, remembering something important. “Now have you got your badge, son? I don’t want to stand on ceremony, but this is a restricted area. Only credentialised Eagle Squad officers have access.”

The boy fumbled with credentials he knew would not pass muster.

“Eagle Cadet E.J. A.J.,” the old man intoned, inspecting it carefully. He sighed. “So you’re this famous A.J. fellow.” Burke studied the boy carefully. “Well: rules is rules: there’s no access with this, I’m afraid, young man.”

The boy looked worried. “But Commander Hare sent me here for — wait: what do you mean, ‘famous’?”

The old man chuckled softly. “All right, all right. They talk about all you cadets in the officers’ mess, you know. They say you’re a good one. Boone said you nailed your closeout aptitude testing.”

Barbarossa froze. “What did you say?”

Burke shrugged. “Commander Boone was talking about your CAT score, that’s all —”

“He was? He— he — he knows who I am? Commander Boone knows who I am?”

“Sure he does. You’re one of our bright young things.”

The boy looked star-struck.

“But, now you need a long wait. Now, listen to me: as long as you promise to not touch anything, I will let you in. But, son: this is a sacred space, understand? This is reserved sanctuary for the Eagle Squad Commanders. There is their clause library; their control; their golden stream of authority. There is so much vital wisdom here, catalogued and arranged carefully. Some of the scripts are extremely fragile.”

Burke slapped a pair of white cotton gloves on the counter.

“Wear these.”

“Oh yes sir, yes! Yes, of course I understand that.”

“All right, lad. In you go. The waits are stored at the far end of the boilerplate stacks. Head down to row five, column eight. I’ll be down presently. And don't touch anything.”

A.J. navigated the boilerplate, running his gloved finger across the dusty spines. It was all here: all the ineffable, intricate, technical engineering and wiring schematics they contained. This was the articulated history of the Eagle Squad’s exploits, written not in the coloured narrative of some historian, but encoded in the primary source of action, thrust, counterpoint, parry and blow, forged in the white heat of conflict. Here was all the derring-do; all the struggles; all the pear-shaped hulks and wrecked prospectuses, uncoloured, unspun, encoded upon — comprising — the very fabric of history. Every aspect: third party rights, representations, warranties, covenants, conditions precedent, conditions subsequent, waivers, notices, assignments, governing law, non-exclusive jurisdiction, exclusive jurisdiction, sovereign immunity, process agency, and protocols, organised by trade association and cross checked by regulatory regime.

There were shelves and shelves of them, all housed on ancient mahogany. He hit the ISDA stack. He stood before it in awestruck wonder at the ancient wisdom it contained. There it was: the motherlode: the 1985 Code. The ’87. The ’92. The ’02, and even a prototype 2008, still in its shrink-wrap, never used. And every conflict, every situation, every skirmish, every desperate last stand in furtherance of those sacred testaments that the Eagle Squad heroes had ever mounted. User guides, tax addenda, elections schedules, bail-in protocols, master confirms, closing agendas, global securities — everything. Work manuals to deal with every situation.

EJ drummed his fingers. No sign of the old timer. Where was he? It had been fifteen minutes now. But the young soldier was happy — he was in heaven. This was like the Library of Alexandria. Time to kill meant time to check out all these precious artifacts. The boy hit the mark-up depot.

“Oh, man.”

His pulse quickened. This was the special sauce. Assorted, curated clips and parchments, some dating back decades — manuscript amendments, balloons, blobs, riders inserts, side letters, handwritten variations, accessions, scribbled mark-ups in the hands of these fallen warriors of the FAS Wars. A complete set of the Enron Corpus. Everything was here: the sum total of Eagle Squad learning.

“Wait a minute! Could there be —” he said out loud, but before he finished the thought, he was racing down the aisle. The stack was alphabetical, by topic. He let his fingers do the walking. “BIPRU ... BIS ... Bid-ask ... bifurcation ... big data ... Biggs”

There it was. He pulled the file. It slid out easy, like a sword from a stone. Gently the boy cracked the file. It was light. It was — empty. The hoson was missing. The boy noticed an insert in a cardboard pocket glued inside the folder. It was date-stamped “1997”. He pulled it.

REMOVED FOR SECURITY PURPOSES. Refer armoury. [Signed] O. R. M. Boone, E.S.C.

As it ran away from him, the corridor darkened into a black hole. E.J. shuffled down. He held out his highlighter. It was running low on charge but the out a weak orange beam. At the end, he saw a dark stained wooden door.

He remembered the old man at the desk. He called back: “Hi, how are you getting on there?”

Back at the desk, the old man had fallen asleep. There was a copy of Trout Fishing Monthly in his lap. Something in his subconscious registered the boy’s call and he stirred. “Hmm? Eh? What?” He glanced at his watch. “Be with you in a couple of minutes. Five or so. Maybe ten.” He went back to sleep.

Ten? E.J. looked about. There was no-one around. Dust lay thick on the files, the shelves, and evenly on the floor: there hadn’t even been a cleaner down here in a while. He approached the door. It was old, and in faded gold lettering it said “Armoury”.

The armoury was the receptacle for legacy small arms from the FAS wars. Most were falling out of use now with modern smart contract weaponry and chatbot tech, but sensibly the Eagle Squad kept the armoury maintained for emergencies of system failures.

The volume was dry and worn away at the edges. The spine was cracked. He carefully leafed back through the pages — 1999, 1998, 1997 ... August, July, June — but then thought, no. Let’s do this properly. The way it is meant to be done. He closed the book, balanced it on this palm. As the august legal commentaries of his apprenticeship had predicted it would, the volume, so beloved of Eagle Cadets over the ages, fell open at page 532. A.J. regarded it: a yellowed, waxen page, pinned in the corner. On it, smudged, faded pixels. He could just make out the underlying, double-faxed text.

THIS LEGEND SHALL CEASE TO APPLY UPON THE EXPIRY OF THE PERIOD OF 40 DAYS AFTER THE COMPLETION OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF ALL THE SECURITIES OF THE TRANCHE OF WHICH THIS SECURITY FORMS PART.

And there is was, that famous, single-faxed manuscript, ringing the final full stop, a spidery line leading to a little balloon in the margin in which, rendered in a neat cursive, the words, “not bold” appeared.

“Whoa,” A.J. breathed. “The original Biggs Hoson itself.” There it was: that famous, emboldened period: the tiny, microscopic, indivisible unit of legal markup. A.J. just stood there and took it in, in its iconic, finical exactitude. So stark. So simple. So elegant. So pure, in its absolute, utter, limit-attaining pedantry. A.J. whispered: “None smaller. None more pure. None more pedantic.”

E.J. stretched out his finger to touch the sacred mark

“I better get back. I have to get a long weight for the Precedent Commander.”

“Long weight? You’ve been pranked you goose. He sent you out for a long wait. What did you do to him to deserve that?”