First off, huge confession: I keep stats on this blog.

I like to see how many people are dropping by, what they’re looking at, and where they’re coming from. For quite a while the numbers have been pretty steady … a mix of visitors from around the globe who typically view a few pages per session. Occasionally I’ll get bursts of obvious bot activity but most of the time the site’s traffic looks like regular people just poking around and exploring.

For the last little while, however, I’ve been noticing a certain trend:

You get the idea. So what to make of this?

In my mind there are two main possibilities.

First, China is a big and populous country, the state hasn’t blocked my site (or people are breaking through), and TCL is simply gaining a bit of traction there. If the idea among readers is to gain some exposure to proper English then woe be to them, but I try to take interesting pictures from time to time so maybe that’s the allure. If that’s all there is to this then welcome, 中國人民!*

The second option is a little more sinister: the ostensibly Communist Chinese government has taken an interest in my site, scraping it for any and all content. It’s not as if I haven’t been critical of the Canadian government and its many tendrils, something I imagine the CCP’s domestic propaganda outfits may find appealing.

I suppose that I could also just be cynical and/or jaded. Maybe I’m just misreading the stats. It could also be that I’ve encountered bureaucracy and have scried the truth by gazing into its abysmal maw. Either way, I won’t be singing the praises of the Chinese government, or the Communist ideology any time soon. Socialism, no thanks. I have a few things to say about a few other systems too and if I ever I sing any of their praises, rest assured it’s been coerced.

_{* if this is wrong then it’s Google’s fault.}

Last and in many ways least among the agents of Section B, Medic was forced to face his lackluster existence and the attitude that accompanied it. When even his few meager accomplishments started circling the drain and his life started to fall apart, along came Rebekah and sealed his fate. He goes by Brock now.

Additional information on Brock is available on his page.

Sometimes Elvis can be a bit of a worrywart but sometimes that’s exactly what you need. He might be a bit inexperienced, maybe even a bit naive, but he can also move physical objects with just his mind. Besides, if he’s already a capable Section B agent at this age, one can only imagine where this lad is headed.

Elvis’ deets are on his page.

According to Mira, her family’s history may be intertwined with torture and mass murder. She also claims to have been involved with drug runners. To casual onlookers these might seem like fanciful tales but to those who have seen her “special dance” such suggestions might come across as unnervingly brutal facts. Either way, she doesn’t really care.

You can find out a little more about Mirabelle on her page.

Dominic joined Section B just as he was recovering from a career-ending boxing injury. This had been his final attempt at trying to find a calling in life and it ended with him throwing in the proverbial towel. Then he met Rebekah, they talked, and suddenly his search for purpose didn’t seem important anymore.

Read more about Dominic on his page.

Maybe it was a crisis of conscience or maybe it was the classic middle-aged variety but whatever the cause, Dmitri parted ways with his old life right about the time he met Rebekah. Maybe it was because of her. Either way, they quickly developed a complex relationship that she occasionally regrets having made inebriated contributions to.

There’s some more info on Dmitri on his page.

Now that /sectionb is about to close the loop and maybe even answer some of those nagging questions, I thought it might be nice to share some stylized headshots of the gang. I went through many iterations to ensure that I captured the most accurate and authentic representation of each agent.

The woman pictured above is Rebekah Heinrich, alias “The Handler”. She has a brief bio on her page.

Having fallen behind I decided to do some “studying” at the local hub of the TPL today, little knowing I’d be in for an unexpected treat.

It’s not that I hadn’t faced some occasionally tense situations in the library before but that was some time ago, a branch away, and a whole bookshelf over. But you never lose that feeling of something being just a bit off. Like today.

His hair was a little mussed up and he could’ve used a shave but otherwise he seemed like a regular patron: small but muscular build, clean but nondescript clothes, a few small items on the table in front of him.

Maybe it was the fact that the chair he was sitting on was completely covered in a large plastic bag (hint: not library-issued), but right away it seemed that something was not quite right. The absence of people in his immediate vicinity appeared to signal something as well. Then there was the rocking back and forth and the vigorous shaking of the head, as if he was doing his best to avoid some dark impulses urging him to do something. Sometimes his whole body shook with the effort of restraint.

I found this display so distracting that it took me some time to register the pair of scissors that he had sitting in front of him. To be fair, a rumpled tissue was partially obscuring them on the table but I ultimately noticed them when he went to blow his nose. I was, however, already set up and comfortable, so what’re ya gonna do?

While occasionally picking up and holding his scissors in a way that nobody uses for cutting paper, he remained relatively calm most of the time. But when an old man stood in line for the washroom just behind him he gripped the cutting tool tightly and hissed over his shoulder, “Don’t you FUCKING stand behind me! Don’t you EVER FUCKING stand behind me!”

Me sitting beside him didn’t seem to bother him as much (or at least he hid it better).

Luckily the geriatric quickly shuffled off, the scissors were (temporarily) put back down, and imminent bloodshed was avoided, but I couldn’t help but think how exciting the place had become since my youth. They have 3D printing now, professional audio and video production studios, and the fully immersive experiences are really keen. Take that, books!

I haven’t even mentioned the guy with “Wing Chun” emblazoned on the back of his jacket, bold and bedazzled sunglasses riding a craggy mug, parading around the premises and complaining loudly about all the, “goddam inbred motherfuckers in this fucking place!”

I don’t want to spoil the ending for you so let me just leave you with a couple of things I took away from the afternoon:

1. I didn’t get stabbed. Nice.
2. Little bits of inspiration are everywhere. Sometimes they’re very subtle but if you pay close attention you might just spot them, even some place as subdued as the library.

… in which Section B discover that they’re being watched and listened to. Unfortunately, their discovery occurs just after they unwittingly reveal some sensitive information.

This morning I finished reading “Twenty-five years in the Secret Service” by Major Henri Le Caron (real name Thomas Miller Beach). While the focused history of Irish separatism in North America in the late 1800’s was mildly interesting, the book seemed to be mostly a recitation of names, dates, events, and places. Beach’s infiltration of various Fenian organizations was made to seem effortless, even predestined, and there was little to no discussion of any sort of tradecraft. Large parts of the narrative were outright dull.

But I did come away with the impression that the Canadian government of the time was reactive rather than proactive. For example, the second Fenian raid of Canada is described thus:

“Under the command of General John O’Neill, and a number of other gentlemen of high-sounding ranks, and distinctly Irish patronymics, the raid actually came off on the morning of the 1st of June, when about 3 A.M. some 600 or 800 Irish patriots, full of whisky and thirsting for glory, were quietly towed across the Niagara River to a point on the Canadian side called Waterloo!

“At 4 A.M. the Irish flag was planted on British soil by Colonel Owen Starr, commanding the contingent from Kentucky, one of the first to land. Unfortunately no Canadian troops were in the vicinity, and O’Neill’s command, which had by the next day decreased to some 500, marched upon and captured Fort Erie, containing a small detachment of the Welland battery. Matters, however, were not long allowed to go in favour of the invaders. In a very little time the 22nd Battalion of Volunteers of Toronto—a splendid band of citizen-soldiers—appeared upon the scene, and at Ridgeway, a few miles inland, there occurred a fair stand-up fight, in which the Fenians in the end got the worst of the day’s work. Ridgeway has frequently since been claimed by the Fenian orators as a glorious victory, but without justification. It is true that at first, flushed with their almost bloodless victory at Fort Erie, the Fenians advanced fiercely upon their opponents, and for the moment repulsed them; but in the end the Canadians triumphed, and succeeded in putting the invaders to flight, driving them back to Fort Erie a frenzied, ungovernable mob, only too thankful to be taken as prisoners by the United States war steamer Michigan, and protected from total annihilation at the hands of the, by this time, thoroughly aroused and wrathful Canadian citizens.”

The first Irish separatist raid had, according to Beach, been openly advertised and supplied by the U.S. government:

“This, which was the first invasion of Canada by the Fenian organisation, took place upon the morning of the 1st of June 1866. As I have already stated, the design had been flourished in the face of government and people for six months previously. All this time active preparations were proceeding, and thousands of stands of arms, together with millions of rounds of ammunition, had been purchased from the United States Government and located at different points along the Canadian border; while during the spring of the year, military companies, armed and uniformed as Irish Fenian soldiers, were drilled week by week in many of the large cities of the United States.”

It seems obvious, based on this historical record, that the Canadian government was either ill-prepared, overly incredulous, or too incompetent to deal with something that it had previously (and recently) encountered. Or maybe it was dealt with that way on purpose.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

I compared this to another book I’d finished recently, “By Way of Deception” by Victor Ostrovsky and Claire Hoy. Here an ex-Mossad katsa relates, among other things, how porous and welcoming Canada is, and how useful that is to foreign intelligence agencies.

It wouldn’t be the last time a thing like this has been brought up.

Considering that many non-state actors and proxies are in the mix these days, the idea that a large and liberal Canadian metropolis like Toronto might be teeming with the secretive interactions of opposing factions doesn’t seem so far-fetched.

It might be happening right in front of us. Would we even know what to look for?