NTAA - Hayldrig trade delegation

Duncan Hayle stepped out of his 1998 Baition sports car after realizing the representatives from the NTAA had arrived. As he stepped onto the curb, he was approached by his current assistant, she cleared her throat before saying "do you always have to wear that?" Looking down to see the familiar sight of his armour he let an almost childish grin appear on his face for a moment. "Of course I do, I've had this since before that meteor took out our original City." "You know ,nobody remembers that but you." "It's in our history books." "Fair enough." He stood at base of the steps to the capital building with her at his side. The steps led up about 400 metres and the entire city seemed to be built around the hill that they led up. At the top there was the capital building itself, built in the 17th century after the wreckage from the meteorite had been gruellingly turned into a hill, this was what was built atop it. In front of him there was the walled city of Hayldrig, named after himself, by the original clerics, back when he was a warlord. It stood tall and glorious, with tax rates as high as they were, his people accepted nothing less, while some of the buildings still had anti-government posters pasted to them, he knew that a responsible citizen or city serviceman would be along to clean them up. He had no real problem with the posters, he welcomed them, he just wished people would stick to the many billboards he'd had put around for them. For now though, the NTAA representatives were pulling up in their guest limousine, putting on a smile, he scratched his forehead and stood high, proud of his city.

Adriana stepped outside the Limousine, taking a second to make sure she didn't end up tripping as she stepped down. Adriana Antos was never the most comfortable in high heels, even after wearing them for decades. As the rest of the council stepped out, a council of several men and women, all looking to be in their forties or thirties, stepped out the other side.
"King Hayle. It's been a while since last we'd spoken." Adriana said with a thin smile. "You haven't aged a day - not that I'm surprised."

In the meeting room, Hayle took one of the seats on the side of the table, the head chairs remaining empty as always. His assistant took a seat next to him and pushed some papers in front of his spot. "What's this..? Oh, thanks Audrey."

"King Hayle. We'll be brief." Adriana said, sitting in the middle, with the rest of the advisors sitting to either side of her. Adriana was their spokesperson, and while they were hardly wallflowers, they left it up to her to present most ideas.
"Our nation's tiberium refining has reached a new peak. As a result, we're in no short supply of precious metals and minerals. We've come here looking to trade them with you in exchange for some of your nation's scientific expertise - which we want to put into play to help our own ravaged agricultural land." Adriana said, thinking back to the last time she'd seen a real farm - before the NTAA had even existed.

"Adriana... we've not exactly reached the point where we can convert tiberium fields into farmland..." He responded. "We can offer you quite a lot of our excess food production, I am sure that would be helpful, and having our scientists work together would only benefit both of our nations. Finding a way to get rid of tiberium more efficiently than our current harvesting operation in the north would be ideal."

"We've found our harvesters to be an effective method of control for keeping tiberium out of sensitive areas. If you'd like, We can send some of our own to work with you on a joint project." Adriana said with a grim nod. "And I do understand, King Hayle. In that case, I'll merely ask regarding the acquisition of your excess stores. We aren't to the point of shortage, by any means, but I wouldn't be surprised if we won't hit that point with the number of refugees we're taking in every day. Tiberium-affected aren't exactly popular in most nations." Adriana said sadly.
"Thankfully, the fact that we've been able to get up close and personal in a way few others have has given our scientific departments quite the boost. I'm certain we can learn from each other's research." Adriana said with a short nod. In return, we can give some fair discounts on processed metal from the NTAA. It's among the things our people aren't lacking in at the moment.

"How many harvesters do you have, exactly? We've only managed to get our hands on three, two of which are proving difficult to keep in proper repair. At this rate, it'll take well over a year to clear just what is currently in the northern area, and I doubt Candegron will assist the operation willingly." He sighed, it was well known to most that Candegron was a puppet state of Hayldrig, not the Candegs themselves, of course, but it was no secret to the rest of the world. The state of captivity that their leaders suspected made them show no small amount of disdain, though that did little for the Hayldrijans to still recieve most of Candrgron's excess supplies.

"We do have plenty of food to give you, to the point of ours rotting in severe cases." He spared a disparaging glance toward Audrey, who responded with a slight grimace and glare that said "yeah I know." "We'll give you all of our excess, think of it as a gift, just as our research agreements are somewhat between allies working toward a common goal." he smiled happily, Adriana being an old friend of his, one that he had come to trust after years of unfaltering loyalty to each other.

"As for the spare metal you have, we could use it definitely, we have some projects, namely the wall, and we could use any metal we can get for it."

"We've been manufacturing them from what we've been making... it'll be a bit hard on us, but I think we can spare at least two." Adriana replied with a smile. "We'll have to confer further, however, particularly regarding transportation. I'm certain we can have documents for you at least by tomorrow." She said with a thin smile.
"On that note... There are some matters I'd like to discuss in private... Behind closed doors." Adriana said, which was simple code for "somewhere with a complete lack of wiretaps and impeccable soundproofing" to any politician.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply we needed more harvesters, you should keep what you have." He hesitated and shuffled the papers around before continuing. "If the joint research agreement is successful, we should both be able to maintain and construct harvesters much easier with the resulting 'tib-resistant' material."

"Audrey, could you please escort Ms. Antos' people from the room, as well as yourself? And make sure nobody listens in on us while we're in here." He then looked at his equal. "The room has no wiretaps, I've made sure, people are technically allowed to come in and see what's going on in their government whenever they want, but right now, Audrey will have that taken care of." He got up. "But despite that, I feel we should move into this room, which has proper soundproofing, he gestured to his left and made his way to a thick wooden door, which he opened, entering into the smaller windowless room. "Now what would you like to talk about?" he asked, having just finished closing the door.

"Firstly, and I need to make this very clear: This can't leave confidentiality between you and me for now. If this leaks the riots might continue for years." Adriana said, rubbing her temples. "I need to ask you if you can work with us on developing a cure for the forgotten - as a joint project." Adriana said bluntly. "and in full secrecy."

"I can do that" He stood with his hands palmed and looking at the ground. "I've got just the man for this, he'll be the sole scientist on our side working on this." "I hope you understand I'll have to use him and nobody else if we want this to remain a secret. Do you need it that way so as to not raise false hope? Or..." He thought for a moment. "Do your people not want a cure?"

"It's... For several reasons. One of the main things we're trying to encourage right now is an acceptance and pride in being Tiberium-affected." Adriana explained. "And we genuinely mean that. But these cures would allow children, recently infected, and those dying from tiberium poisoning from their own body to have a real chance at a life amongst the rest of the world. Still, we can't seem like we're double-talking the people, either, or that we feel we need our nation to be "Fixed.". Adriana explained with a soft demeanor. "But I wouldn't call for this level of secrecy for that alone." She continued, steel entering her voice.
"We've heard news of terrorists within the NTAA. A new movement that's been potshotting small facilities of nearby neighbors and towns, while preaching that this is the time for our nation to get revenge, imploring the government to begin open war.
Naturally, we have no patience or interest for this warmongering. It would be suicidal and hypocritical, and would only end with even more racism and death for our people. But they apparently have an informant somewhere within our ranks, and I begin to suspect the rest of the council. If it were to be known that Hayldrig were helping us in this regard..." Adriana trailed off. "I wouldn't want trouble to appear within your borders over it. Your wall is still new, and these terrorists are armed and without scruples for the uninfected." Adriana explained.

"The wall..." he showed some uncertainty before he began again. "It was meant to contain the tiberium but the rest of the continent couldn't accept that it was possible, we managed to clear it up." Walking around the small desk now, he continued. "Nobody can know this, Adriana, but I've dubbed our walled off zone as the first, and only 'black zone'" his hands formed quotes as he spoke the term. "the tiberium has unexpectedly mutated and left its original plant form, they seem to be forming crystals now. I hate to say it, but I think I've forced an evolution." After a short pause he began again "Jesus, I'm rambling now, I just needed to tell someone I could trust with that, we'll begin research on a cure, we have the resources for it, but I'm pretty sure a precursor to a human cure, would be researching tiberium resistant metals."

"That's... terrifying. Are you certain it's the only one of these black zones?" Adriana asked, noticeably shocked. "We could send in a... No. We can't." Adriana said. "I'd rather not send forgotten that might be exposed to the same mutation, and become even worse mutated, when we know so little." She said with pursed lips. "That could doom every nation.". Adriana nodded as Hayle continued. "I understand. frankly, that would be a good smoke-screen if the project's found as well. Our interest in such metals would be entirely justified, given our current state of affairs."

"We're not sure if it's the only black zone, we found something odd in the Antarctic that we're investigating, I hope that's it."  A buzzer went off in the room "oh, excuse me a moment."  He went through the door to open the one in the outer room.  There was a brief discussion with someone outside before he cursed loudly and came back to the open door.  "Would you like to see this?  We've lost contact with one of our planes near the suspected black zone."

Adriana's eyes half-closed, as she took a deep breath. "...When it rains, it pours... Yes, I would." she said, pausing only a second before leaving. Sighing, she walked out a little quicker than her normal pace with a slight wince, her lips thin.

"It's a lot worse than we thought sir, the last transmission that came from the plane wasn't exactly an SOS, but... oh just listen to this."  

"Two minutes! ..."
*garbled*
*audio loses all quality for several seconds*
"-UMTHING!"  *garbled* "-detonated real fuckin' close!  Get back there and start-"
*several seconds of dead air before recording ends*

"What's this mean?  What happened?  Are you seriously telling me that one of my planes got shot down over the fucking ANTARCTIC?!  Adriana, do you have any idea who could have done this?  What nations have a stake there that big that they'd risk international war?"

adriana considered this.
"Marche noir, Sidonyia, and the Rufetic federation all have holdings in the antarctic... but none of them large or especially necessary... At least, that's what intelligence reports." Adriana said with pursed lips. her manner of speech was very contained, and it was evident she was shaken by what she had heard.