Interpol Manzai 1: The Assange Affair Concordance The section which we explain some things we mentioned in the plot, or just decide to add more jokes in. Many of them are Japanese lingusitic or cultural explanations General note: Since there will be quite a few languages in the story, I've used different quote marks to distinguish language rather than say what they're speaking every time. I've tried to use quote marks typical of those languages, too. Japanese speech appears in ｢hook brackets,｣ English uses "quotation marks," French uses «guillemets,» thoughts use and other languages use [square brackets.] November 16, 2010 ``Her workload was heavy enough without being summoned to the Department Chief's office. The caseload of a Public Prosecutor is roughly twice that of their equivalents in the United States; this is likely the largest reason for the 99.7% conviction rate. ``｢Oh no.　It couldn't be.｣ I am trying to keep track of what they are saying in Japanese, as poor as my skill is. This is actually Yomi saying "Dame yo. Masaka." ``I'm sure that you know public prosecutors also serve as law enforcement officers. Public Prosecutors in Japan actually do some investigatory work, and can legally execute warrants, which is something of a police power. November 27, 2010 ``A large building with two long windowed arches in a wedge shape Google Maps and Street View is seriously the best. You can easily get the feel for a place that you've never visited. ``Tomo grabbed her badge, held it forward, and spoke French to the man, «I demand that you start this baggage carousel at once! This is urgent International Police business!» If you've ever had to wait at an airport, you will understand how Tomo feels. Moreover, apparently Yomi and Tomo both know French. Tomo did call Osaka's yawn «très bien», so I guess that's canon? I wouldn't be surprised if Yomi took it in college. ``｢The time zone, you don't...｣ This sentence construction is brought to you by the Japanese language. You'll only notice it in partial sentences, where the Subject-Object-Verb order will get different information out first. November 28, 2010 ``Tomo turned into a small alcove in a building on Rue Garibaldi which led to a small ground-floor parking lot. Lyon's Rue Garibaldi, named for the builder of the Italian nation and Hero of Two Worlds, Giuseppe Garibaldi, also counts as a reference to Michael Garibaldi of Babylon 5 here. What better place would there be for a young, idealistic police officer to live? ``Tomo exclaimed, as she dived and contorted her body to catch the spinning eggs in the pan a mere ten centimeters above the floor. If everyone used the metric system, there would be sunshine and rainbows for everyone. Especially for you, young Prince of All Cosmos. ``Wait, are you wearing shoes indoors? The author has personally experienced what happens when you walk in dog doo and don't realize it. If only I had listened to you Osaka, if only I had listened. November 29, 2010 ``We have a pretty informal dress code in our division, and it's a beautiful day today. Given the Major's outfit, Aramaki really couldn't be the type to keep a strict dress code. I would probably write costume porn (ridiculous amounts of clothing description) if I actually knew what any feminine clothing was called. ``Tomo picked up a sharp-looking jacket, walked to the door, and declared in English, "To the Tomobile!" The "Yukari-mobile" is "Yukari-guruma" in Japanese, but Tomo is using English for the obvious wordplay here. I suspect she picked up the idiom from reading about the batmobile. ``｢That's it, Yomi-chan. Welcome to Interpol!｣ It might seem like I'd been skipping honorifics in the Japanese, but I think they probably use the null honorific a lot. ``｢Ah! Never mind, we're going to be late after all.｣ Azumanga fics can always use more あ! ``The secretary outside of the Chief's office greeted them I don't know why they're always called "administrative assistants" these days. It's not like women can't do important jobs like being a secretary; just look at Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, or Madeline Albright. Julie would consider herself a "secrétariat", anyway. ``«-Mademoiselle- Julie Lafayette,» she said, stressing the first word. Usage of "mademoiselle" is debated in France, where some think it's demeaning. On the other hand, for some women who are too aware of their age, using "madame" is like calling them "oba-san". ``Mary McCormick approached the pair of them. "You two had better hurry. The Chief is waiting for you," the pretty blonde woman spoke, her American accent carrying a serious tone. There's an old saying in Russia that any tale that begins with an original character named Mary will end with the Devil. I'm afraid that's a risk that we're going to have to take. ``Chief Daisuke Aramaki was a man in his early forties with dense salt-and-pepper hair, his hairline mostly receded to a ring around the back of his scalp. Ah, Aramaki. Given the dates given in the manga (around 2030), his apparent age, and the current birthrates in Japan, I'm going to assume that Japan will have gotten rid of the mandatory retirement age. I don't believe that the future geopolitics depicted in Ghost in the Shell will come to pass, if for no other reason that the Azumanga girls are in this world. Sure, the world does have darkness, and shades of gray, but some people--just by virtue of the way the live in the world--make the world a brighter place. The Azu-girls are some of those people. `` Giovanni Scarpa ... -Mademoiselle- Julie Lafayette ... Officers Sharif and Chen are out on assignment Oh man, a lot of original characters here. The girls need good comedic foils, and there's no way I could justify the entire Azumanga cast being here. ``"Do you swear to help prevent and fight crime in a fair and equitable manner, in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the regulations of the International Criminal Police Organization?" I couldn't find anything really fixed like an oath on Interpol's website (probably because they don't actually work that way), so I made one up. ``/♪ Aerosmith "Janie's Got a Gun" _Pump_ ♪/ Yes, I know what the song is actually about, but it's just a cool guitar riff with about girls with guns here. Also, about running away from Yomi's aiming skills. ``"And remember to store it in Tomo's gun safe when you're not using it. Gun safety is a priority one." I don't really know what the gun laws in France are, but if Jason Bourne can have them, so can Tomo. Yeah, that's it. ``"America smiled at Yomi..." This so reminds me of "Brazil thinks you're cute" in A Miracle of Science -- a sci-fi webcomic with a great story that you should read. ``"Tomorrow we will issue a Red Notice for the arrest of Julian Assange, and recommending his extradition to the Kingdom of Sweden." A Red Notice is one of Interpol's rainbow of color-coded notices, and the most common. It requests governments around the world to detain the suspect for the purpose of extradition. It's essentially an international arrest warrant, but without actual legal force. Even in this universe where Interpol has field agents, I can't see governments giving up so much sovereignty to allow for a global arrest warrant. ``University of California, Davis I got to travel to a lot of different universities in student government, so I could have set Chiyo at CalTech or CU Boulder, or Berkeley just as easily. The fact that I decided to choose UCD, my alma mater? I blame you, Gryphon. ``Wasp was a mysterious black hat who career on the net who had become something of a legend in the hacker community. You know, I didn't just set out and decide, "Hey, you know what would make a great addition to Azumanga? Lisbeth Salander!" She just sort of naturally appeared in my mind with the combination rape + Sweden + hacker culture + girl with pigtails (like Pippi). ``The bright fluorescent lights washed the pale walls in a harsh light and reflected off the linoleum floor, which was an odd mixture of mostly white tiles with scattered red and green squares. If you want to know what Kemper Hall looks like, you can see its halls in the movie Technolust starring Tilda Swinton. Which unlike her Narnia performance, I don't really recommend for kids -- but that movie did use color really effectively. Or, I guess I could just point you to the Davis Wiki: ``Wasp: Assange is working from 212.58.246.93 I hope that someone will read this in the future and wonder what an IPv4 address looked like. IPv6 didn't really start getting widespread support until 2012, and even then was not ubiquitous. ``"That's me! I'm Dr. Chiyo Mihama." I did have a professor who got her undergraduate degree in chemistry at age 18, but I'm still not sure how Chiyo-chan is on tenure track at age 20. I guess she invented something really useful like MapReduce with her super-genius skills? I'm sure I'll come up with something. She spent 3 years as an undergrad, three years as a PhD student, and 1-year as a postdoc, before getting the assistant professor position at UC Davis -- this is her very first term at the school. I'm glad my calendar allows me to completely miss Chiyo-chan's teenage years. I can't really imagine an angsty Chiyo-chan, unless she, um, had issues being adopted by a cat-ish thing-person? Yeah, still can't see it. Tuesday, November 30, 2010 ``｢Wait a second. So big, claws, live on the ocean bottom? Didn't you just describe crabs?｣ Biology: scarier than you think. Hi Adrienne! ``Yomi and Tomo each got their baths in turn; within a half-hour, they were both nestled in their shared bed. Oh man, no bath fanservice? Some fan writer I am. Also, we're in England now, so I'm pretty sure they're "pyjamas" currently. Wednesday, November 1, 2010 ``Tomo spread the curtains, and a flood of light entered the room. "Good morning, Yomi-chan," she said cheerily. Tomo is definitely a morning person while they're on vacation, frequently waking Osaka up to see cool stuff in canon. ``[Tomo's] long, khaki trenchcoat kept the morning chill at bay. Yomi's figure, dressed in a royal blue sweater, long navy blue skirt, and dark woolen thighhighs, followed close behind. It would certainly be easier to write if the girls were wearing seifuku every day. ``Not feeling up to a full English breakfast, they placed their orders for eggs with toast and jam, with some tea. In the very first D&D game I ever played, there was always this joke that the characters would go out of their way to find breakfast, but we never did anything about any other meals. Looks like this tradition is continuing. ``the three-sided rotating sign lettered "NEW SCOTLAND YARD" Incidentally, one of the three sides of the rotating sign actually says "Metropolitan Police", but England's largest police agency is much more well known by its (former) location. I was describing my writing process in this scene to a prereader, and ended up writing this: ``I didn't even know that Tomo had a camera until I put them in that short little walk from the tube station, and Tomo decided she wanted to interact with the sign. >look at sign This is a large, triangular spinning sign that says "New Scotland Yard" on two sides, and "Metropolitan Police" on the other. Very iconic. >get camera from coat Got the camera from your trenchcoat. >get yomi Got the Yomi, but she's feisty and may escape at any moment. >use camera on sign with Yomi Precious memory achieved! `` She was bored, because not many cases had come the petite redhead's way in the last couple of weeks Poor Michelle Hayward won't be nearly so bored in six months' time, when the phone hacking scandal hits. In fact, she'll be too busy. ``You should have seen the two of them in Assistant Commissioner Yates' office. John Yates was the real life Assistant Commissioner for Specialist Operations at that time. Thursday, November 2, 2010 ``The large but surprisingly stealthy man leaned over her head and queried, "How is it going with your case?" I see a lot of police shows where the the chief or the superintendent give the detectives a hard time about their work performance. However, in this department, most of the grief comes in the form of teasing. ``"... Not all of it true." Especially not this story! ``Actually, they've been a lot of fun. All in all, these two women have been quite courteous by speaking in English this whole time so Michelle doesn't feel left out. Heck, it's even helping me type it. Thanks, girls! ``｢Oh brother,｣ Yomi exclaimed. "Oh brother" is "yareyare" in Japanese here. Though I believe a better translation for that phrase would be "uff da", I don't use it for the benefit of my non-Scandinavian readers. (Or non-Prairie Home Companion listeners, for that matter.) ``While she considered, the only sound in the room was tinny laptop speakers, still playing an interview wherein Assange noted ironically, "We've had Pentagon reports written about WikiLeaks, which we leaked..." The video playing in the background here is at . It's not an amazing interview per se, but it does illustrate that just six months earlier, Assange could easily travel to the U.S. ``"If you don't have anything better to do, you should write Chiyo-chan a thank-you letter," Yomi said. I'm pretty sure that for her high school friends, the honorific in Chiyo-chan's name is going to stick with her well into her thirties, if not her forties. Friday, December 3, 2010 ``｢That's okay, it's not like Chief Aramaki is here to make us hold buckets of water in the hall, again.｣ A form of corporal punishment in Japan, students are asked to hold buckets filled with water outside the classroom. Of course, Tomo's homeroom teacher, Tanizaki Yukari, was quite often tardy herself, so Tomo only got to experience this punishment once, to her unlikely dismay. That it only happened once. Yeah, Tomo's wierd. ``"They have public Wi-Fi, most likely," Yomi noted. About five years prior, this place might have been called an "internet café". However, cafés with WiFi have become so common that by 2010, it would be like saying "talking movie". On the other hand, the RIM Blackberry phone has gone completely out of style by 2012 in a meteoric fall, and no self-respecting hipster would be caught dead with them these days. ``Sure enough, on the bottom of the card was a WEP key to access the Internet. WEP -and- written passwords everywhere? This network is definitely not set up for security. ``Our soldiers are getting killed by the Pakis, because that idiot wants to publish the whole world's secrets. Yep. Probably a Tory. And Yomi, of course, can't resist wandering in to an argument on ethnic slurs. ``Focused on her task, Michelle adroitly connected her laptop to one of the vacant Ethernet ports, and installed a custom firmware on the router that would let her see the logged usage of the network. When you use someone else's internet, you really are trusting them to protect your privacy. SSL may protect your data, but those IP headers have to point somewhere. ``Tomo exulted, "Now, the stakeout begins!" Could they monitor the internet traffic from elsewhere? Sure. But they couldn't follow or catch anyone that way. ``"C'mon Yomi, that car was calling my name!" If this was a manga, Tomo would have little words next to her saying "Rent me, Tomo, rent me" -- but I thought it disrupted the flow of the text too much here. ``｢A skosh egg? It looks pretty big to me.｣ "Skosh" is an English loanword from Japanese "sukoshi", so yes, the pun works in Japanese too. ``"She had gams as long as Tokyo Tower, with a kick that would make a Vegas showgirl proud; her silky stockings ran up just below her skirt, offering the smallest glimpse of heaven." This "Tomo Takino, Private Eye" bit is brought to you by the Catchup Advisory Board. ``Yomi took a look at the smooth, pale skin of Tomo's bare behind peeking out from the towel Hey, there's some fanservice after all. Saturday, December 4, 2010 ``From news report, I found that Gustáv is WikiLeaks collaborator. Chen Shen isn't entirely sure where articles go in the English language, but she's quite the researcher. A VPN is a Virtual Private Network, a way of securely accessing a remote server as if you were part of a local network. It's similar to the idea of a proxy server. ``"Well, nothing much, we just did this and that." "Doing this and that" is a euphemism for having sex in Japanese, where in English it means doing nothing interesting at all. ``"This is Charlie-Uniform-Tango-Echo calling Bravo-Alfa-Kilo-Apple, come in Yomi over-over." That's the NATO radio alphabet (well, except for the apple), used for spelling words and licenses on the radio. "Baka" is, as most anime fans know well, the Japanese word for "idiot". Sunday, December 5, 2010 ``"If you ladies need any more help, just ask." I like how Robert Poole is completely helpful to the main characters, yet still comes off to me as a flawed, regressive person. ``"He looks a bit like D.S. Hathaway over in Oxfordshire, if only he had long enough hair to make a ponytail." And thus like a long-haired Laurence Fox. And we just crossed over to Inspector Morse here, didn't we? ``Malcolm『Nisei』 Tomo is using the same Japanese syntax as for "Lupin the Third" here, who is one of her manga heroes. ``"Mal-2 is the handle of a person who frequents the IRC Channels used by Anonymous." IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat, a common way that Anonymous uses to network when planning ops too involved to just use an imageboard. Also used by ordinary programmers collaborate remotely. ``This is about informing people about their own governments, not about destroying lives ... If the Americans show that they truly want vengeance, well, they'll have to deal with my insurance policy. None of these are actually words that Assange has said, though I'm trying to represent him somewhat realistically with some fictional dialogue. The "insurance policy" is a real thing, however -- a widely distributed set of sensitive information, where the decryption key remains a secret. The key presumably has a deadman switch somewhere that ensures it gets released automatically if something bad happens to Assange or WikiLeaks. ``the ｢Itai!｣ of pain from Tomo's voice The sound "ita" or "itai" is Japanese for "ow" or "ouch". It's included here because that's what Thomas would have heard. ``The Kingsway Tramway Tunnel had not been used for trams for nearly sixty years, leaving this portion of the tunnel completely vacant. The Kingsway Tramway Subway is a real place, and as a DM for Dungeons & Dragons, I couldn't resist using a place like this. Besides, geeks (like me) love investigating tunnels , and Malcolm Thomas is certainly part of that culture. Many of the underground features are extrapolated from photos of the tunnel , including the fire exit sign. Fonts are surprisingly tied to the zeitgeist; Comic Sans MS sure reminds me of the halcyon days of Web 1.0 and MySpace. ``And then, in an experiment that took place less than a kilometer from the halls of the Royal Society, Yomi and her lab assistant Tomo once again confirmed Newton's laws of momentum and gravity by gracelessly falling to the floor. The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge (which everyone calls the Royal Society) is one of the most important institutions in the history of science. Isaac Newton was President of the Royal Society for nearly 25 years. ``After rinsing, Yomi did not yet feel like coming out to face Tomo, so she pulled the metal lever to plug the drain and draw a bath. Standard procedure for taking baths in Japan is to shower yourself outside the bathtub first, so that the hot water in the tub stays clean enough to be reused by the rest of the family. When your author was in Japan, long before I became an anime fan, I was awfully confused as to to why the hotel rooms in Japan had drains on the floor -- I only found out later from exposure to more ecchi things. On the other hand, the fully-featured toilet seats over there were amazing. ``She yanked off her pyjamas and fastened the buttons a clean pink shirt obtained from the closet. She slid her keycard into her jeans before opening the door. I tried to imagine Yomi in a T-shirt and sweatpants, and it just wasn't working. She has a much higher standard of dress than Tomo, who would probably wear T-shirts to work every day if she could. Of course, when it's cold, Tomo doesn't mind rocking the Zenigata look. Monday, December 6, 2010 ``embraced her like a circle around the sun. This astronomical reference is actually to James Taylor's "Circle Around the Sun" waaay back on his self-titled 1968 album. ``Tomo laughed. ｢So natsukashii. We sure had fun back then, didn't we?｣ You might have noticed that I used natsukashii (懐かしい) untranslated. "Nostalgic" isn't a suitable replacement for it -- it's more about the feeling when recalling good times, not about longing to return to old times. I agree with blogger Richard Newton here -- and so I'm using natsukashii as an English word. ``Half a world away, a tall, raven-haired veterinarian sneezed. You've probably seen it in anime, but if you haven't: it's a common superstition in Asia that a sneeze means that someone is talking about you behind your back. Also, it's good to see Sakaki-san hard at work -- we'll see more of her in later chapters. `` I didn't know that Queen Elizabeth was a magical girl! No seriously, look at the The Soverign's Sceptre with Cross. That could definitely belong to a magical girl. `` ｢I'll catch you next week, Lupin!｣ A frequent exclamation of ICPO Inspector Zenigata, in a bit of fourth-wall breaking on Lupin III. It seems Tomo often does things just because she thinks they're funny, ne? ``British Library's hidden underground base A premise of the Read or Die series is the Special Operations Division of the British Library, whose secret agents meet below the Library proper. ``The first hieroglyph was a bird, the next one a kind of upward pointing trapezoid, and the final one a long wavy flat shape. I'd have actually included the hieroglyphs for this, if they were more commonly distributed in fonts. The characters are hiding on the Supplementary Multilingual Plane, at u+1313F (O24a), u+12375 (D48), and u+130AA (G1). The combination of Mt. Fuji, a hawk, and an eggplant are very auspicious in a the first dream of the new year . When I was writing it, I didn't know that Lupin himself did the very same gag while translating heiroglyphs in Lupin III, season 2, episode 22. Damn you Lupin!!! *raises fists like Zenigata* ``The thought of the sweet fruit started to make her hungry for some kind of fancy-sounding cake. The Azumanga Daioh OP song, "Soramimi Cake", was translated on at least some subtitles I've seen as "Fancy-Hearing Cake". This becomes sort of a meta-joke when you take into account a better translation: "Cake of Mishearing". `` I think it's even bigger than Daikanransha! Daikanransha (大観覧車, literally "big Ferris wheel") is Tokyo's biggest wheel. It can be seen in other anime -- the ending credits of the first season of Inuyasha comes to mind. `` ｢Hey, they even have takoyaki here!｣ Takoyaki is balls of octopus meat, battered and fried. Ｃ:◦ミ `` /♪ Sakurakou Light Music Club "Fuwafuwa Time" ... ♪/ This particular crossover was planned months in advance of me actually seeing the K-On movie, because I knew it took place in London. Once I actually saw it, it solved more plot issues than it created -- though it still took me a week to figure out how to integrate it. Also, I guess my version of HTT took their pre-graduation trip in December, even though that's quite a while before March, when the Japanese school year ends. Incidentally, Sawa-chan-sensei always seems like she's drawn a head taller than her students. I know that's supposed to represent her age in the Puni Plush style but, geez, girls are mostly grown by age 18. So I'm just assuming that she's extremely tall for Japan (~175cm), and leaving it at that. ``IF GRAFFITI CHANGED ANYTHING – IT WOULD BE ILLEGAL This work was actually created the next year by Banksy in London, but I don't know where exactly. Also, you heard it here first: Banksy is a girl. I mean, perhaps not in real life, but if you were trying to stay anonymous, wouldn't you want people to be looking for the opposite sex? ``｢That penguin is getting more common. Are you sure?｣ Tomo asked. 2011 will be the Year of Linux on the Desktop... oh wait no. ``Tomo replied, "We're just following orders, Mr. Assange." A fine troll post by Tomo. ``Assange yelled, "What about the people in the subway system next door?" The funny thing about bomb shelters is that they're designed to provide shelter from bombs on the *outside*, and are typically reinforced the most on the top. (Or at least as I'm imagining them, IANA civil engineer.) WWII bomb shelters were built adjacent to, or as a part of, subway stations, so I just imagined one near Waterloo Station. ``/♪ Pat Benatar "Invincible" ♪/ If the lyrics of this song seems a skosh too serious for the story, just interpret the "bloody" part in the first line as a curse word. There, all better. :) ``｢Twenty seconds! We're not going to make it.｣ ... But, at over sixty meters to the waterline ... A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation reveals that Tomo couldn't run a ten-minute mile even if her life depended on it. ``Yomi's shoes grabbed on to the board, and she put her entire weight down on the very edge of the wooden plank. I'm not telling you the length of the plank, nor the weight of the bomb, so I don't get physics emails that include the phrase "assuming a spherical Yomi." Also, Yomi demands that she be approximated as a slender cylinder. ``The London Eye had just enough momentum to make it to Westminster Bridge, where it came to rest against the crossing's side. This would be a bad time for Tomo to slip on her Guy Fawkes mask, given that they almost destroyed Parliament. ``A middle-aged Japanese man answered the call, ｢Shiinomi Preschool, this is Godai.｣ I'm not sure if it's Shiino or Shiinomi based on internet sources, and the anime is too blurry for me to read. Anyone who knows for sure, let me know. ``Michelle seemed relieved -- she knew enough Japanese to guess that Tomo must be talking to a teacher in the city of Osaka. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I'm guilty as well: Being ignorant of Japanese verb conjugation, it took me a long time to realize that Kamineko wasn't named for being the top cat (上猫) or a cat god (神猫), but instead for being a biting cat (噛み猫). ``"Leet! Do leet!" Tomo demanded. Michelle entered "51l3n(3", and hit enter; this time, the password was accepted. Leetspeak is, of course, the concept of replacing letters with numbers and various ASCII characters that sort of resemble the original letters. Only the most *elite* haXX0rz can read such text with ease. In passwords, it only increases entropy by a bit -- one could still run a dictionary attack against common permutations, but the aggressive timeout shown here does help against such things. Tuesday, December 7, 2010 The date itself is important here (and not just because it will live in infamy), since I tried to follow to the real life timeline: Interpol Red Notice issued November 30, warrant issued December 6, Assange's surrender reported December 7. So the story is framed around those facts, with a lot of imagination added in-between. The IRL Assange Affair is frustratingly short on facts -- very little about the actual charges he faces in Sweden have been written about by the middle of 2013. I assume this is because the trial has yet to occur. So for the most part I avoided discussing the allegations themselves, and instead concentrated on the political situation surrounding the issue, which is probably more interesting anyway. ``Right above a baggage trolley that looked to have half-disappeared into the wall, a black sign with white letters proudly identified the site as "PLATFORM 9¾". A Platform 9.75 display does exist, though it's been moved since the time in which this story is set. The version that Tomo would have seen in 2010 can be seen here: ``｢That wasn't our fault!｣ At the end of the Dirty Pair comics, Kei and Yuri would always claim blamelessness in a similar manner. Of course, just as in this story, actual innocence in the catastrophic explosions is well... complicated and relative. It should come as no surprise to fans of DP that the Japanese title for this story is ｢あずペアの大観覧車｣ (Azupair no Daikanransha). Copyright 2013 Brent "Vorticity" Laabs Released under the same terms as the story itself (CC-By). IM1 Concordance: Version 1