[ WP ] You are a mapmaker , part of a secret order of mapmakers who have been inciting wars and rebellion for centuries in order to stay in business updating maps .

My hands trembled with excitement as I examined the updated map. Every line was pregnant with the seeds of new conflict. Even a novice would see how the econo-topography of this landscape would not permit a lasting peace and how the thousands of kilometers of squiggly black lines were like the microfractures in a wine glass held too tightly, just before it burst. And in the hands of a novice that would be all it amounted to, a bursting glass and thousands of new lines, redrawn at once when the dust had settled and the quarreling nations had run out of bombs or willing soldiers. I was a master of the Mapmaker Guild though and with my guiding hand this glass would burst over generations, over and over until the glass resembled a mosaic and the econo-topographical potential had been tapped fully. In these days, borders like this were hard to come by. In the early days of the Guild, when the Europeans had finally stopped fighting each other and instead embarked to conquer the world every border in America, Africa and Oceania had had this potential and more. Of course, back in those days the art of econo-topography had been primitive and the waste enormous. Few knew about the Guild and those who had a faint idea of our power blamed every conflict on us. This latest war had not been our doing, the area had been tapped long ago and only the unexpected flare up of old tribal hate had redrawn the borders in this marvelous way. In truth, the Guild had probably prevented more suffering than it caused as slow burning, small scale, conflict was usually the more efficient way of tapping a land. I still remembered the cold war, which had divided the Guild as much as it had the rest of the world, but not on the issue of which empire should conquer but instead of the issue *if* either empire should conquer. The radical side always wanted new slates to explore. I had been on the conservative side and they had won out in the end. Now the radicals were on the rise again, spurred by the new satellite maps and the fear of accurate mapping algorithms and of course the old fear that statistical analysis of conflict would reveal their hand in it and so turn the entire world against us. That was nonsense. As long as each state actor had incomplete information about each other state actor they would never piece it together. The true danger lied in betrayal. The Guild had a way of policing their own. Econo-topography could also be applied to a landscape of people and relationships and the likely traitors and deserters put under surveillance before they even knew of their own future betrayal. I put the map down and pulled out another from a desk drawer. My own personal map of this Guild chapter. On my own scattered interest-islands **You know** had been written in black ink. 
 
 
 I could smell the sweat of my own fear. I had not bothered examining my own interest-territory in a long while, there had been no need, my loyalty to the Guild was absolute. Now I could see what picture the map painted, each border in itself an innocent amount of tension but adding them up this might as well have been an example of a traitor long since committed. They must understand! They must understand that I would never let something so obvious go on, that it was all a mistake! I calmed myself and examined the map again, as if it was my first time seeing it. As a neutral observer two sides of conflict emerged. Myself and Jostaph, the radical Head Master of this chapter. The untapped potential in this space was vast and mirrored that of the real world map also on my desk. But neither of us would gain from this conflict, these conflict maps were purely for private Guild use and the re-draw potentials worthless not of any actual value. Jostaph knew this, and he knew that I would n't fall in that thought trap either. I trusted him and he trusted me although our opinions on the long term future of the Guild differed. A conflict that re-drew our positions would be completely poi9ntless! Unless. Unless the Guild had a parasite. Another Guild that purely mapped that abstract space that was our own politics. The thought was absurd, paranoid. But so was the idea of the Guild itself and yet it existed. There was a knock on my door. It must be Jostaph, he must have figured it out too. But Jostaph was already dead in his office. I opened the door and was greeted by a dagger thrust up my abdomen.
