the_last_resort | Belloq Log

"There are always people that want something that they're told that they can't have for the good of everyone. And they're willing to go through everyone else to get it.

"Be wary of your bosses. Even the warriors I side with are honorable, but money is their constant. Yours, I'm not so sure of what dealings they do but you should be careful. I hear the price for pulling away can be high." He actually sounded a little bit concerned as he warned him.

Belloq smiled ruefully. "I'm used to unpleasant bosses. I've been contracted by the Nazi leadership in Germany many times in the last few years, and they are not nice people. But they pay very well. The same, I think, is true of the Orions."

He raised his glass in a sort of salute to Niko.

"But the warning is appreciated nevertheless. You're a strangely good man, Mr. Bellic, for a criminal. I like you."

"Well, shit man. Considering your other contractors. You sound like you really need to be careful. I'll ah, take it as a compliment. With a very low bar that I am required to hop over."

He actually made a sound effect and a gesture for "hopping", before he finished with another drink.

A laugh burst out from Belloq at Niko's little demonstration of low bar hopping.

"I'm glad you enjoy the benefit of my low standards," he said with the laugh still lingering on his features.

"Out of curiosity, does Germany succeed in creating a new Reich, as they plan?" He shrugged. "It doesn't matter much to me personally, one way or another. They pay well, and if they succeed I'll continue as their contractor, if they don't I'll find others to hire me. But I am curious."

"Oh, believe me, it would have mattered. The moment someone displeased them they were put in camps." He was aware, dimly, that not everyone knew about the camps. The Poles were Slavs, too, and the Third Reich had had a terrible impact on the Serbs (who were a people widely known to not let anything go).

"No, they pissed off the Americans finally, and they dropped bombs on their Japanese allies. Big bombs. Ones that wiped out entire cities and left the ground ruined. As for the Germans, they were caught with camps where they took people they didn't like, starved them and burned them, murdered their children. Some even kept tattooed skin to make pillows."

Niko raises that thick brow of his and gestures around. "You'll be lucky that they don't. If you can untangle yourself before they are caught. I have worked for some bad people, it would be better for you to run from men that throw lives away like that. Not just shoot them down but draw it out, enjoy it, draw pleasure from it."

Belloq tapped his fingers against his glass, thinking.

"There is a particular German with whom I've often worked. A Gestapo man, Major Toht he is called. He's just the sort of person you describe: brutal, barbaric, no sense of beauty or real appreciation for the artifacts I acquire for him and his masters. He's the sort of man who would smash a two-thousand year old kylix just to prove that he can destroy whatever he wants. But he is efficient, very efficient."

He took a long drink from his glass, then made a face at the bitter, hoppy taste.

"I sometimes wonder if I ever shot at him across a poppy field back in 1916. I shot at a lot of Germans back then.

"You see, that's why it doesn't matter who wins and who loses. If the Nazis conquer Europe, yes, I'm sure it will be brutal and there will be many killings. But if they lose their coming war, do the killings stop, the wars? If they lose, maybe the Germans just come back yet again; third time's the charm they say. Or maybe it's someone else next time, the Britons or the Russians who decide that their Empires need expanding. In the end, the only thing that changes is who does the killing and who is being killed. Minor details. Better then to stand outside it all as a freelancer, shifting with the changing tides."

"You say that now, but freelancer will not save you. It doesn't save anyone, in the end."

Niko shook his head. "It's not about stopping war forever. That is impossible. Changing the planet is a grand, dream. Egotistical, born from people that have always had too much and used it in wrong ways.

"But it is about principle. One man can stand for himself and say that he will not put up with this bullshit and leave it. You should consider that. Especially since these men you work for are led by a man that will kill himself when he is cornered."

"The Americans are assholes, but they will have more money. For a while, anyway. The old Italian families, too. They will always have money."

"Once again you prove yourself to be an uncommon criminal," Belloq said. He found himself reassessing his scruffy, newly-hired driver. He wasn't sure if, in the long run, this streak of morality was a good thing or a bad thing.

"The Americans have Dr. Jones." He said the name with special emphasis. "But the Italians...I like Italians. They appreciate art and history and wine there."

"Well, it's not exactly the path that I would have chosen for myself. But as you noted, the world works in a certain way, and I learned to fight from a very young age. I am to this as you are to history, to artefacts.

"I'm not an artist, I don't thrill in it. But I'm good at it. And it is, on occasion, satisfying. Especially when I can hold those that fuck with me accountable." Then, changing subjects, he hummed on the idea of Italians. His recent experiences weren't fantastic, but he could say this. "They also make some beautiful, fiery women." With sharp goddamn teeth.

Belloq grinned at Niko's last comment. "That is something I can definitely agree with. And another point in Italy's favor."

His face sobered then. "So what's the particular bullshit that was more than you were willing to put up with. The way you spoke, it didn't sound abstract."

"It isn't really a story meant for a good time. Come on, lets not talk about wars anymore. We're here, on an alien planet with all kinds of alien assholes and new problems! You might as well have fun with them." He shifted away from the unpleasant topic, elbowing Belloq enough to jostle him.

Belloq accepted the jostle and the rebuff of his question. He switched topics easily, with an agreeable nod.

"Have you see the Asari women? The rumors I've heard...very interesting."

"I have. Is pretty much true. They don't have to do very much. One of them sang to me, and I came out feeling pretty good. Not good good. But ah... satisfied, I guess. I usually don't get that kind of sleep unless I got someone next to me, you know?"

Though there was a bit of awkwardness in that, more often than not lately, it was a short and irritable sniper.

"Someone should make gramophone recordings. They could make a fortune."

He finished his drink with a final gulp and gestured to the dog-faced bartender for another.

"Having someone to share your bed with is a fine thing. It's a thing that I don't have as often as I'd like. Beds are few and far between in the places my work takes me, good company even more so."

"I slept on the ground a lot during the war." Niko pondered, thinking back again to those days despite wanting to veer his head away. But the thoughts weren't so bad. "I had these friends, and Serbian ground is cold. Me and the other soldiers would sleep sort of close, in our sleeping bags. Not uh, the homosexual way. A brotherly way. We always felt pretty safe like that."

Then his thick brows rose. "But there's always a lady that will do better than this for the right price."

"Brothers-in-arms. Yes, we did that in the trenches, too, during the winter. But these days I have much better supplies than I did at Ypres, so the only time I found it necessary to cozy up to my guide and porters was on an expedition to Norway in 1929. An early winter storm came in as I was excavating a Viking burial mound and we all shared one tent for five days and didn't leave it, not even to defecate. By the time the storm was over I was nearly dead from the stench."

He pondered for a moment, then decided that he might as well ask. Niko seemed like someone who would know. "Are there any humans in the Petal and Stamen? I've been, shall we say, interested in looking at the flowers, but I'm not certain I'm entirely ready for aliens."

"I would have went outside. It doesn't matter. I would have found a way. I know Russians who have lived harder."

Niko shook off the idea of the stink with a jostle. "It sounds worse than the ships. And ah... yes. Yes there are humans. The aliens aren't so bad. Not all that different in some ways. Some are talented, some are beautiful, some feel a little different, but the end result is the end result."

"Yes, but those are Russians. They're crazy. And possibly freeze-proof. We French, not so much. Just look at Napoleon's invasion attempt."

He glanced at one of the alien patrons in the bar, imaging briefly what they might be like. He has seen humans of all kinds of cultures and colors, but the aliens are more strange than anything he's encountered before. Still...

"Then perhaps one of these days I'll be daring and give it a try. But probably not right away."

He takes a swig from his glass.

"I can hardly imagine what my Aryan employers would make of aliens beings. I think it would upset their sense of order in the universe."

"Hitler ends up discovering the same thing. Poor choices are made, there." Even if it cost a hell of a lot of lives.

He laughed a little at that. "There will be a lot of things that upset their order of the universe. America. The communists. You know, their country is split right in half because of this, and they are not allowed their own military. They are limited to under 400,000 men. But they're doing okay, now, that they spend money on themselves and making living conditions better. Less reason to kill each other off, I guess." Niko shrugged lightly and let his eyes roll over towards the Krogan claiming his victory. He'd never thought about it before.

Belloq snorted in dry amusement. "Going to Russia is always a poor choice. The only good thing there is the vodka."

But his expression grows more solemn as Niko describes Germany's eventual fate.

"And what of France? How does my country fare in the war?"

"Are you from before or after France surrendered?" he asked with an inquisitive tilt of his head, now better facing Belloq.

"Ah. Well I suppose that answers that question."

Strangely, he smiled at the news. "It's just as well for them. Better to surrender than have a repeat of the last war.

"Where...or when I come from, the year is 1936. The war hasn't started yet, but I know that the Germans plan to build an empire and I can guess that the rest of the world will not be eager to let them have one."

"Their camps treated them a little better. Not a lot of French Jews. But they took about 2 million of you. With us? The Croats sold us out. Half a million of us murdered and 50,000 of those in Jasenovac.

"Trust me, you'll want out of that business when you go back. You get caught helping them and they hang you. I'm not even shitting you, man. They actually hand the people in on it if they have a good excuse." He claps a hand on his shoulder, hoping that the archeologist would see some sense. After all, it wasn't worth giving your life to someone who dicked over your people. Which may be the most principled thought he had in a while.

"Two million? That's almost as much as the entire population of Paris. Mon dieu." It rattled him, hearing the specifics, in a way that talk of coming war in the abstract didn't. And the thought of being hanged rattled him even more. He absently brought his hand to his neck to rub along his throat.

"When I return, perhaps I will have to reevaluate my employment. Maybe move to California, they have good weather there, and no one ever invades California."

Niko isn't sure where California is. Maybe it's some place in the US. One of the middle states. Or what Canada used to be called? No one invades that and French people live there.

"Hey, from one morally questionable guy to another, alive is the best way to earn money. And not in jail."

(no subject)

archeologue - 2014-08-16 07:08 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

vengeance_driven - 2014-08-16 08:38 (UTC) - Expand