Red Line Orchestra

very experimental

They've been driving for about two hours, as far he can tell - where to? He's unaware due to the impertinent black glass, but what did he expect? These people are not your usual street mafia men and if they were he'd be dead by now. How naive must one be? How naive must one be to disguise himself as a mobster and try to infiltrate a meeting? Too many hollywood movies watched would be a fair excuse if this one were not a professional journalist. They're stopping.

As soon as the car door opens he's struck with dazzling sunlight which forces him to look at the one direction deprived of such pain - at the direction leading to a big mansion. A few steps taken, these partly forced by the oppressive men behind him, he realised "Oh... It's so I can't tell where I am and/or try to run away..." and after so a small sense of disappointment towards himself originated - he should have realised it right away - "What a day..." He thought.

Entering the building he was somewhat surprised with the lack of furniture, and not only that as he later realised, the place although stabilized from the outside seemed to be still in construction on the inside, and just as he was taking his mental pictures for the article he would later write, one single figure crossed past him and flushed his whole line of thought.

"Come come..." He said as he entered a room.

"Wha.." Journalists don't usually have the famous condition of getting excited before celebrities but this one seems to have sparked something - he is none other than the founder of Red Line Orchestra: Swan.

And just Swan is his name, he's the founder of Orchestra, he's short, well fit, has long blond hair, white at roots, stopping at his shoulders, probably in his forties - This all Philip and any of his colleagues know about him, his whole life is a nightmare to any detective or journalist. There's just too many discrepancies regarding the reports of people who claim to know him, a few say he lived in Paris and did this and that, a few others will say he was the coach of the local football team in some south african neighborhood, a few others will say he lived in Texas all his life until his whole family got abducted by martians - and it just keeps going. What pisses Philip off the most is the fact that it always consists of the "few", it's never "this large amount of people agree that he did this" and this frustration may be part of the motivation who got him into this situation.

"Philip right?" Swan asked as he sat on a chair before him.

He looked around and noticed that he was now alone with Swan, the other men had left while he was lost in contemplation.

"You are Swan..." He sat also on the chair behind him, carefully and slowly, not taking his eyes off of him.

"That's one of the names I'm known for, yes. You wanted to know things right?" He speaks in a youthful and quick way, which gives him the aura of a young man in his twenties, someone like Philip “Let’s do this.” Philip cannot identify his strange accent.

"Uhm..." His mind is processing it... Yes, that's it, they didn't get him here to ‘punish’ him. He wanted to sneak in and just spy on them for a bit, an interview with the founder was not part of his hopes. But he would not ruin this chance "Yes, I did, I still do... Uhm can I get a piece of-"

"No you can't get a piece of paper because I'll be telling you some very sensible stuff which need thought from both the speaker and the listener, and I, believe that you'll be more 'able to think' when your only task at hand is talking to me. Sorry."

"Oh uh I totally understand, it's totally fine." He was actually furious but his naivety was not at the point he would contradict Swan.

"So go ahead, start asking." He finished the sentence with a nice sincere smile.

Philip took two seconds and then came up with a cliché question "What are Red Line Orchestra's goals?"

"Well that's cliché." That hurt Philip "As we usually tell the media, we're advocates for human artistry."

Red Line Orchestra became known about three years ago (it is suspected it existed years before that), at first they were just an agency of artists like painters and musicians, but as it grew big and against everyone's expectations it also began to act in the military and political fields, possessing it's own army and building influence in the most powerful governments in the world. All these events lead people to become sceptical when the administrators say they're doing all of it solely for the sake of human artistry, specially when many of their actions are without doubt, illegal.

"Are you aware that most people these days doubt that?"

"Oh, fully. You see..." He leaned forward as if to talk more directly "The thing is 'most people' do not have the same concept we have of 'art'." And he leaned back "And now, with that hint, I hope you can make better questions."

"What is art to Red Line Orchestra?"

"Everything that is wonderful."

Philip was admired with the answer "What is wonderful to Red Line Orchestra?"

"Men, and the works of it's mind."

"In what way would you say that the ex-president of Turkey threatened 'men and the works of it's mind'?"

"General Akir wished to wash the minds of his citizens with violent and forced anti-europe propaganda, all forms of media were censored, all forms of expression and communication were strictly regulated and oppressed, at the direction it was going it was just a matter of months before it became the modern USSR - and in a state like that the human power of mind becomes rather limited if not stale." Pause "We warned Akir, hell, we warned everyone, and no one listened. We did what we had to do."

Turkey, 2018, Red Line Orchestra launched the first military offensive against the country that had become an harsh dictatorship after the military coup by General Akir. The offensive met no significant resistance in overthrowing Akir with an efficiency that shook the whole world. Later they handed the power to the temporary senate which proceeded to rebuild the democracy on the country. After this quick war, Orchestra's name gained a new totally different tone. Many condemned their acts, labeling them 'terrorists' and 'warmongering' yet their power did not waver, not even a bit, while at the same time they gained many supporters who disliked the usual scruples that the nations have when it came to interfering with other countries in critical states.

"Do you not fear the powerful nations like the United States and Russia who constantly condemn your actions?"

"No we do not. Before even considering the military approach we built a 'system' that would allow us the enter these dangerous fields and secure our path through it. And those 'powerful nations' know that very well."

This is new, his interest has been ignited - "Can you tell me more about this system?"

"No."

"Oh..." He was surprised, Swan's frontality led him to assume he could ask anything.

"Not yet. Sorry, ask me something else."

"Uhm, how did Red Line Orchestra start?"

"There we go, that's the question I want to answer." He pulled a suitcase from behind his chair and took from it what seemed to be a book, afterwards he dragged his chair to right next to Philip and opened the photo album "You see this guy?" He pointed at the photo of a teenager, Philip has no idea who it is "He's the real founder and leader of our na- ah! There's this idea you need to comprehend before we proceed - abstract nation - does it ring any bells?"

"No, it does not..." He could feel it, a large amount of information incoming, how furious he was he could not write it down.

"A nation with no land, no government, nothing, just a group of tightly connected people fighting for the same ideal - this is the short explanation - but as I tell you this story you'll get to understand it better. Anyways, the first person to propose this idea to me was this boy, after he suggested 'Let's change the world dude'" He looked into Philip's eyes, at this point the journalist understood he was being analyzed aswell "After that he told me how we would do it, how we would unite all the great artists of the world, and we would protect them, and how we would become the most powerful nation in the world. When he started talking about it, I thought of it as a joke, but with each scheme he presented more confident I became that that boy, no, that man would start something big. Are you ready for this Philip?"

Philip Wright replied his pressed gaze and after a nervous gulp he answered.

"Please, tell me everything."

"Ah! This is the story of..."

RED LINE ORCHESTRA

Author's Note

At first i was gonna make this a chapter of a book called Red Line Orchestra which is supposed to be the story of a group of youngsters who change the world and do some other amazing stuffs (the story is in my head but too lazy to lay it out right here), but "Chapter 2" will probably never come (cuz my imagination is stupid and im lazy) so here's this just in case

(also please tell me if anything's wrong, writing stories in english is still relatively new to me)