World On Fire: Shadow Ops [a Fantasy WWII Quest]

[><] Take a train

You decide to take the train to London. While substantially slower, even (or perhaps especially) with the war on, you have plenty of time, and you can always pick up something to read on the way if you really need to. Your family don't lend themselves to the long, flowery letters some others in your squadron get (and you don't really have any sweethearts at home, despite the attempts of your grandparents), and you've long since learned that a short letter is a lightly censored letter for your family.

After gathering your things on base, you head to the station. As you walk to it, you spot a bookstore.

[ ] Ignore it
[X] Buy a book
- [X] Specific title?
[ ] Buy magazine (Topic?)
[ ] Buy a comic book (Same options as book, but no specific author, no nonfiction, and you can choose superhero comics)

You step inside, briefly greeting the owner, and look about. After debating for some time on a book, you ultimately settle on Bram Stoker's semi-modern classic of horror, Dracula. You know, of course, that the real fate of Vlad Dracul shares only broad similarity with the novel. Abraham Van Helsing told you and most of SHADOCOM such himself, one night at the Sherlock Holmes Arms. It was the longest you've ever heard him speak uninterrupted without stuttering once, so either he had been expecting the question for a while or he'd been asked it quite a lot. Probably both, now that you think about it.

You pick it up, and head straight for the register, only to stop at a nearly-cleared shelf of books in the historical fiction section, with the name Forester on the side. Looking quickly about, you step closer and realize the books are indeed from the Horatio Hornblower series. You were gifted the first one by your squad leader when you first joined the 71st, and you tore through the second one as soon as it came out. The only thing preventing you from doing the same was, for the most part, time. Time and responsibility. This one appears to be the newest book in the series - Flying Colors - though it was published nearly three and a half years ago.

You grab it as well, and step into line, resisting strongly the urge to take a peek at either before purchasing. It's not illegal, but it always feels wrong to do so.

Your business in town done, you enter the station, buy your ticket, and wait for the train. Your wait is mercifully short, which means you might be able to do something else in London.

You find an unoccupied cabin, a true rarity this close to London, and open the first of the two letters, this one from your younger brother, Ichiro. A bit of a brat as a child, one would think playing in a sport as prone to focusing attention on a single person as baseball would have made him worse, but it actually mellowed him out. And despite being your job as the eldest sister, you didn't even tease him about it.

Ichiro had always wanted to join the Army, but his outlook on the odds of that had been realistic. With Japan antagonizing the rest of East Asia, it was always possible that the US would go to war with Japan, and that would quash any chances of serving. Your uncle Hisaishi thought (and still thinks) it's because he convinced him of the superiority of the Imperial Army, but he's one of the very few people in your extended family who actually believe that. Even your grandfathers, both of whom served in the war against Russia, think Japan's chances of victory are slim as long as America keeps the will to fight.

His current letter, though, says that he thinks he might have a chance now. Apparently, a lot of Japanese-Americans living in Hawaii want to serve, and they want to serve badly. He seems to think that if they get their way, he might have a chance himself. As usual, he says he intends to volunteer the instant the doors of the United States Army are opened to Japanese-Americans. He doubts he'll see much of you - he just doesn't have the knack for flight you do, or the interest in learning - but he hopes to at least get in closer contact once he's in.

Besides that, his letter mostly talks about how the baseball team he's in is doing. As a shortstop, he gets a lot of attention from other teams that want to "poach" him as he says, but he's perfectly happy with the team he's on. Any talk about his work at the bank is almost a side note, also as usual. It's not that he hates it, he just considers it too monotonous to be worth mentioning unless something goes wrong - or right.

A light rain begins to fall, coming out from the sea. The sound of rain hitting the car's metal roof makes you jump ever-so-slightly, as you re-fold your brother's letter and open the second one, from your father. As the rain intensifies and the sky darkens, your mood darkens with it.

He starts with the good news first. The injury to his foot from his last letter has healed nicely, and he's already back to work helping "touch up" construction at the camp.

He says, however, that he is starting to not see the point in working on Manzanar, since he's heard rumors that he and most of the residents from San Francisco and Sacramento will be moved to another camp later in the year. He thinks it's in the Rockies, but he isn't sure.

Far more importantly, though, your younger sister, Naoe, has only been growing closer and closer with your uncle Hisaishi. She has always been fairly... nationalistic, but far from curtailing it, the war seems to have intensified it.

He mentions that she's been speaking to your parents (and Ichiro) less and less, and with Hisaishi and his "goons" more and more. He admits to being worried about her, and hopes she doesn't get into any trouble.

It is with such words that you enter the outskirts of London.

Head for...
[X] Straight to business, head for SHADOCOM HQ
[ ] Sherlock Holmes Arms
[ ] An actual restaurant (Write in cuisine, remember it's 1942)
[ ] A British Restaurant (Not a true restaurant, British Restaurants were essentially soup kitchens that served more than soup and didn't require a ration card.)
[ ] Some other thing to pass the time, perhaps? (Write-in)

SHIZUKO'S LOADOUT

• Wand
• Silenced Colt 1908 Pocket Hammerless (7 round mag, 2 spare mags, .380 ACP)
• Silenced Sten gun (32 round mag, 2 spare mags, 9mm)

SHIZUKO'S TEAM

• Simon Bonheur
• Doris Tremblay
• Roy Thompson
• Harbir Singh
• Indra Gurung

SHIZUKO'S ORDERS

• Free her team
• Interfere or stop Ungern-Sternberg