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Post by Ktsed Vereq on Jun 28, 2007 10:40:05 GMT -5
This story is different from most here in the way that it takes place in modern times. The main character will alternate every chapter.
The Triumvirate The Death of All Hope The interrogator eyed the man suspiciously. He doubted that the man had done anything or would in the future, but with all that had happened within the last several years, noone could be too sure of anything. He had been in training to become a dentist before the war started. He had lived in a small town in Massachusetts before chaos had engulfed the country. He was drafted as a soldier and was forced to fight in numerous battles in places he grew up, killing some of his best friends without a choice. He had been one of the lucky few that survived. Now that the war was over for the most part, he was stuck interrogating people from the Infected Territories, the term for areas that had been under the enemy’s control during the war. The war had been a terrible one; easily one of the worst in America’s history. The interrogator felt sick just thinking of it. He had to stop himself before he fainted, as he did whenever he thought of the horrors he had seen. The war had robbed him of everything: his job, his future, his fiancé, and even his identity. Who had previously been known as Robert Quincy was now just 4563F42-INT3M. The 4563F42 represented who he was. The INT3M represented his occupation as INT, or interrogator, number three in section M. There were times when after being known by his ID for so long that he could barely remember his name. Now he was stuck in this dark, damp bunker performing one of the most dull and tedious duties ever. At least it was better than being in battle. “Please state your name and any applicable ID,” Robert Quincy stated mechanically to the man seated before him like he had done five hundred fifty eight times before, making this man currently R559-3-IT. The R in front of his name was, to any member of the military, a red flag that this person was suspect, the 3 represented Quincy himself, he was interrogator number three, the IT, which would be permanent, stated that he had once dwelled in the Infected Territories; the rest of the ID would eventually change. The Government had initiated the ID act shortly after the war broke out in effort to keep track of everyone. It had failed miserably. “My name is Octavian,” the man stated cooly. He had a superior feeling to him. He seemed like the exact kind of guy that Quincy would have tried to avoid before the war started, but now he had almost gotten used to them; every single one of his commanders had been like that. R559-3-IT looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties. He appeared to be in much better condition than any of the other five hundred fifty eight men, women, and children Quincy had interviewed before. His face was clean shaven, and his long, curly brown hair was devoid of even the slightest trace of debris. Quincy began to grow suspicious. This man may be a black marketeer. He realized something then that, if he hadn’t, may have gotten him executed. Octavian was one of the names that was red flagged for further investigation. “Please state your surname and any applicable ID,” Quincy was surprised by how metallic and emotionless his voice sounded. He shifted uncomfortably in his folding chair in which he had been sitting all day. He started tapping nervously on the shabby card table that separated him from his subject. He had learned long ago to refrain from placing anything on it to prolong its life; there were several interrogation rooms with nothing but two rusty folding chairs. Another of the annoying drips from the ceiling landed in the small, accumulated puddle on the table, splashing Quincy on the face with some sort of filthy liquid that may have once been kerosene judging by the smell and odd color; he had learned from the first day that smoking in or around any of the bunkers was a bad idea. The man calling himself Octavian didn’t even hesitate half of a second before answering: “I have neither.” “Octavian” seemed to think very quickly. Quincy became aware of another fact of the man that made him suspicious: his clothes. He was wearing clothes from a designer brand that was too expensive for all but the richest of the rich since the wore broke out and luxuries became a thing of the past. Quincy himself hadn’t worn anything but a uniform for several years. “If you can’t tell me at least one, then I will be forced to assume the worst and lock you up permanently. Now, please state your surname and any applicable ID,” Robert Quincy said angrily. He had never had a subject be this difficult. He was tempted to lock him up for a few days and see if “Octavian” was still so much better than him. Somehow he had a feeling he would be. “Fine. Octavian is my last name; my first name is Julius,” he responded within less than a fraction of a second. He had a smug look on his face. “And my ID is R0000x00-ZXY0-IT. The first X is lower case,” he said rather importantly, enunciating very carefully to make sure that the interrogator got it all. Quincy looked at the ID he had scribed into the steno notebook. It was like none he had ever seen before; he doubted it was real. The man had probably made it up just to prolong his interrogation. The interrogator got up and left the small, dingy interrogation room to a slightly larger, but equally dingy, central room for all of the interrogation chambers. It had one central database that resembled a computer, but Quincy wouldn’t call it that. It’s only program was an internet-like connection that held all of the ID numbers of any known citizen. It didn’t even have Word. Quincy made sure to double lock the door to the chamber as soon as he shut the door; he didn’t trust “Julius Octavian.” He walked across the grimy, concrete floor to the database, which was about the only non-concrete thing in the room other than the doors, light fixtures, and a small space of metal grating in the corner of the room that served as an excuse for ventilation. As he reached the database, one of the large fluorescent lights flicked and went out for a moment, leaving the small room in an eerie half light until it resumed its job. Quincy entered the supposed ID into the database. The bare essentials green and black screen read “PROCESSING...” in an out of date 8-bit script for a few seconds, and Quincy could hear the machine humming as it attempted to locate the single strain of ID from several hundred million others. Quincy thought that a little touch of “PLEASE WAIT” would have made all the difference for this machine, showing that it had at least some consideration for the user, but, these days, nothing seemed to have any consideration for anything else except for survival. The computer never got the chance to finish its command. As it was probably nearing completion of the compilation of the ID’s data, everything went black. Quincy was sure for a few seconds that he had blacked out, but he soon realized that the power had failed. He had never seen this happen before. He grabbed the flashlight from his belt. He hadn’t realized the use of it until just now; there was absolutely no light in the room. He flicked the switch, and the light flickered to life reluctantly. He looked around and felt unsettled by the flashlight’s unreliability; if it decided to die, Quincy would probably become lost in the labyrinthine maze of bunkers. He walked towards the door which he had locked just a few minutes ago, afraid he would find it opened by force. He was relieved to discover that it wasn’t, but he was still nervous. He walked into the room after slowly unlocking the door. Octavian sat right where Quincy had left him, nothing at all different about him except for a the look of skepticism on his face, which was about the only visible part of him; his black clothes blended in with the inky darkness. “What’s so surprising? This bunker’s wiring is about as reliable as the stock market; it’s amazing they don’t have standard drills for this type of thing,” Octavian said, the comment sealing Quincy’s dislike for him. “Get over here before I lock your inappropriately placed comments in here and save us all some trouble,” Quincy barked empirically, placing a threatening hand on his standard issue pistol. Octavian rapidly stood up and was at Quincy’s side quicker than he expected. The man seemed to have an obedience and fitness beyond military standards when he called on them, which, from what Quincy had gathered, wasn’t very often. At least not for the obedience. Octavian gave Quincy a look that seemed to say “carry on” and kept his sarcastic mouth shut. Quincy grabbed the bulky, out of date radio issued to interrogators from his belt and tried it. All he got was static and what seemed to be the latter half of a scream, but Quincy was sure it was just interference. Even his commanding officers wouldn’t respond when he set the radio to their frequency and signaled them. He muttered more than one curse under his breath, which got him only an “Oooh, edgey! I could really care less, just shut and hurry up!” look from his sarcastically exasperated friend who, Quincy just noticed, was quite a bit taller than him. He almost jumped when he heard the sound of a voice coming from the dilapidated junk as he was replacing it to his belt. “...obody is answering. I need assistance, my partner is injured, and I think they’re sti-“ was all that Quincy could hear before the man cut off. The unfortunate was probably a sentry on duty in the generator room when his partner had stumbled into some electrical wires, injuring himself and shutting off the power. If that was so, which it probably was, then the lights should relight in a matter of minutes. Quincy thought he could hear a door being lightly shut and light, muffled footsteps that were almost soundless. This seemed to almost bring physical pain to Octavian. “Follow me. I think the lights should be back on soon...” Quincy was still uneasy, and that last sentence had been partially for his own benefit. Something about the situation was unsettling; it all seemed wrong. Then it hit him. There was a generator room, but this bunker was different from the rest: it received its primary power from an outside source. The generator wouldn’t have been in use when the power went out, and it was set up so that, if the power from the nearby electric plant should fail, it would kick in without any instruction. It was nearly impossible that both sources of energy would fail. Octavian saw the look of shock in Quincy’s eyes and seemed to derive pleasure from it. “Are you sure about that?” Octavian asked, but Quincy was sure the menacing tone he seemed to have was of his own imagination. Quincy decided to go to the senior interrogator with his questions and worries; surely the old battle hardened Sergeant Washington would be able to explain it all. Surely. Or, at least, that’s what Quincy clung to to prevent a panic attack. There was no way they could be being attacked. Not after all of the peace talks. Not now. Quincy lead his charge to the interrogation room the good Sergeant ran. When he opened the door, after getting no response to his multiple knocks, he saw something beyond what all the worst parts of his mind had imagined, something that, even after the horrible battles he had been through, he would never forget. Robert Quincy, Private First Class in the United States Army, ID# 4563F42-INT3M, saw something that confirmed all of his worst fears and brought alive all of his worst nightmares. What he saw was the death of all hope.
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Post by Ktsed Vereq on Jun 28, 2007 10:40:27 GMT -5
The Calm Before... Several years earlier, in Washington D.C., there lived a man known as Jack Galyle. Jack Galyle was one of the most patriotic men there ever has been. Not necessarily in combat, while he had proved his bravery more than enough times in the United States Air Force, but in thought and action. He loved his country more than himself, and it was a close third to his fiancé and God. He was the perfect model of an American man: he had a good job, he had good morales, and he had a good family. He was the kind of man that American politicians tried, rather unsuccessfully, to convince composed the majority of the American population. Jack was in an all-around excellent mood. He had just been promoted to a high paying desk job in the military, and, more importantly, he had proposed to his girl friend the night before, after getting her parents’ approval, of course, and she had said “Yes.” The merry little tune he was whistling got him more than a couple strange looks as he walked down the street to his car. His job was that of an advisor and assistant to one of the most important men in the United States Air Force. He was young for the job, no older than twenty-nine, but the officer had taken a liking to him, his capabilities and his strategies. Jack, being the great, principled man he was, considered himself the luckiest man alive, not deserving of his post, and got down on his knees and thanked god after he got the news. Just before he reached his car, he stepped on a paper that was completely identical to a piece of trash. It was in no way remarkable, especially since it was just next to a garbage can, other than what was written inside the crumpled sheet. Jack wasn’t sure why he stooped and picked up the paper. Maybe it was fate. Maybe it was luck. Maybe it was the uncomprehensible planning of God or some other third party. Whatever it was, it was significant in uncountable ways and altered the entire world. If this one small event had not occurred, the world may turn out much like it is today, but because of this event, everything changed. The paper that Jack inexplicably, as he himself thought, picked up had a note to him on it. Maybe it had been left attached to his car and had blown off. Maybe someone had placed it in his belongings and he had dropped it earlier. It doesn’t matter how the note got there, it just matters that it did. As Jack read the note, which he expected to be nothing but perhaps some used napkin or unwanted ad, he uttered a word that was not at all befitting the great and near perfect man that he was. The note was simply “If you want to do your country any real good, Jack Galyle, then call on this number: 4299-10-7. Burn this now; tell noone.” The note was written in an almost unreadable handwriting. In fact, if he didn’t have a friend who wrote very similarly and he hadn’t been reading an almost identical script for most of his life, he probably would have found it illegible. He thought about it for a second, then laughed aloud as he realized that it was probably a prank. It was the kind of hearty laugh you expected from a model citizen such as Jack Galyle. The note, in fact, had his friend’s fingerprints all over it: “Burn this now; tell noone,” was just the kind of clichéd nonsense his friend found humor in. He decided to pay this friend a visit.
Jack Galyle arrived at Preston Loure’s house later that day, after calling his new fiancé and letting her know where he was and when he planned to return. Jack had been friends with Preston since they met in their first grade class. They remained friends all throughout their public schooling and managed to retain contact afterwards. Jack had always been the popular type; the kind that you would expect to turn into what he had become, but Preston had always been a little off. While Jack had managed a 3.87 GPA, Preston had always kept a 4.0, and he was always a bit geeky. Preston always had his bespectacled eyes on a sci-fi novel, even during lectures, and when Jack had to struggle and take notes to ace a final, Preston never seemed to care, and yet always got a better grade than Jack. People had found it weird, one of the most looked-up-to kids in the school hanging out with a kid usually regarded as just plain strange, what with his obsession with 20th century science fiction, but Jack and Preston had seemed, and actually were, oblivious. Neither one had changed much. Preston, as people had expected, had risen into a widely read author that wrote many best-sellers. It may be said that many authors are odd in at least one way. Some are addicted to drugs. Some act out their works with the passion of a six year old child. Some are just plain mentally unstable. Preston Loure was no exception. While he wasn’t addicted to any drug, even alcohol or nicotine, he only acts out his books when faced with writers’ block, and it was arguable that he was somewhat mentally average (though not always), Preston was still, as he had been as a child, just off. Except now the adults had a word for it: eccentric. Jack Galyle knocked on the door of Preston’s expensive house in the outskirts of Washington D.C. While the house was in no way a mansion, it was much larger, and more expensive, than Jack’s apartment. The house was as odd as its owner. As soon as Jack rapped on the thick, wooden door with the brass knocker, a deep, mechanical voice rang out: “To enter this fortress of Preston Loure, the best writer of all men to ever have existed,” Jack, startled at first, almost laughed aloud when that was said; it was just like Preston, “ you must first give the answer to this unanswerable riddle: Where is the best place in the world?” Jack almost fell over with laughter, and probably would have, if it wouldn’t have gotten his suit dirty. The electronic doorman must have cost Preston a fortune. The door spoke again: “No,” here was a recorded portion of Jack’s laughter, “is not the answer. I will give you one more chance, and then I will painfully disintegrate your bodily fluids.” Jack almost fell into another laughing spree. There was no way Preston would put something this random and just downright childish right for everyone to hear it. He was probably talking into a microphone, laughing his head off, and standing at some window watching Jack’s response. If it really was an automated door answerer, every salesman and squirrel that went by the door would get a nasty, albeit hilarious, surprise. It would be probably the stupidest idea Jack had ever heard off; then again, it was Preston Loure. Jack finally recovered enough to answer the impatient (he wasn’t sure how, he could just feel it) set of speakers. “The best place in the world is ‘noon.’” Jack sputtered, struggling not to laugh. It was an old joke between him and Preston dating back to high school. The electronic doorman reluctantly gave in with a “Correct, you may enter.” Jack was half expecting an obscene insult after the robot’s short speech, and he was positive that, if its programming allowed it, there would have been one. Jack was sure that he could feel menace and hatred in the mechanical voice; he had really ticked off that robot. This thought caused another short fit of laughter. Jack walked in the door, expecting Preston to jump from the shadows of the small, poorly lit antechamber, but instead he was greeted by a mechanical coat rack, of sorts. “Hello sir, may I take your coat?” the mannequin with basic mechanical arms inquired in that same slightly English accented robotic voice from outside. The point of the mannequin dressed up as a butler was that it would extend its arm when you walked by. You would place your coat on the arm before it retracted back into place and held your coat. Other than limited storage space, two coats, it should have worked fine. Should have. The thing’s arm extended in two motions: one outward, and one up. When Jack walked up to the robot, the outward thrust caught him in the groin, and he doubled over in pain. When the arm moved up, it hit Jack in his abdomen, knocking the air out of him. Jack fell over and lay on the ground until the pain started to diminish. He really didn’t like that coat rack. He got up and left the room. Preston was nowhere to be seen. Jack stood just inside the door, waiting. Preston may have just been taking his time to get there. That’s probably what it was. He just stood there and waited for about ten minutes before he stepped forward. Preston walked down the stairs to Jack’s left, and turned down the hallway to the same direction that led to the kitchen; his eyes stuck on a set of printed pages. He didn’t even notice Jack. Jack walked silently behind, following him into the well furnished kitchen covered with perhaps too much stainless steel. Preston set the papers down on a dining table and opened the fridge. Jack sneaked up behind him. Jack grabbed Preston in a headlock and held it in a way, he had learned from his SEAL buddies, that he could snap his neck. He said in a gruff voice “Where is it, Loure? What did you do with it? I want it back.” Preston, not recognizing Jack’s voice, was terrified. “W-what are y-you t-t-alking about?” the short man said. He stopped struggling. Jack laughed grimly. “Don’t try to fake me out. I know you have it, Prest-o,” Jack said, letting his real voice be heard. He let Preston loose. Preston turned around and cursed. “Galley! What are you doing here, other than considerably shortening the life of my heart? If you do that again, I’m going to kill you,” Preston threatened. It was kind of funny, for Jack Galyle was a tall man, about six feet even, and Preston was about five, five. Preston was really a small man. He had small glasses that cut his green eyes in half when you looked at them at eye level. He had short black hair that parted in the middle and a small black goatee. He wasn’t exactly fat, but he wasn’t in shape either, and his slight English accent (the robot was probably a mechanical version of Preston’s) went well with his unstylish vest he wore over a white dress shirt. “I came over about this,” Jack responded, holding up the note. It was crumpled and stained from something on the ground. Jack knew that because, except for his writing desk, which was unbearably messy, Preston was a remarkably neat man. He didn’t have a girlfriend, though he was trying to change that rather hardly, but he kept his house neat. His hate for clutter was almost as bad as someone with OCD. In fact, Jack sometimes wondered if he really did have an undiagnosed case of OCD; it would explain a lot of things. Preston grabbed the note with force, almost ripping it. When he looked at it, Jack missed the look of recognition he had expected. Preston had never been a good actor. He read it with a confused look on his face. “I don’t get it. That’s not even a phone number! Where did you get this?” Preston enquired, just as confused as he had been when he read it. Jack hesitated for a moment before saying “I thought it was from you; I mean, that is your handwriting.” Jack took the note back and studied it more carefully. He was sure it was Preston’s handwriting. Preston moved over beside Jack and looked at the note. “It does look kind of like my handwriting, but I have nothing to do with this. You have to believe me, Jack, if I did, I would be laughing my head off right now,” Preston stated with truth. Jack knew it. The note wasn’t from Preston. He was genuinely confused. “Never mind then, let’s not let this thing spoil our good time,” Jack said. As much as he said that, it was about the only thing on his mind the entire time he was at Preston’s house. As Jack was leaving a while later, Preston noticed a limp in his walk. “Did you hurt yourself?” Preston inquired. “Nope. But your little buddy did,” Jack said and then left. As he walked past the mannequin, he smacked it in the head. The next day after he got off of his job he pulled the note out again. “If you want to do your country any real good, Jack Galyle, then call on this number: 4299-10-7. Burn this now; tell noone.” It still didn’t make sense to him. He started to think about it. “Call-on” made one think of a telephone, but 4299-10-7 was not a phone number. What else could “Call-on” mean? Go to. Go to 4299-10-7. Maybe it was some sort of address. It didn’t list a street, though. Maybe one of the numbers represented a street. A tenth, or seventh street, maybe. Or it may be assuming he knew which street it was on. Maybe 4299 was a building number and 10-7 was more descriptive directions. Or 4299 could be code for some street; if Jack replaced each number with its corresponding letter, all he got was “dbjj,” so he gave up on that idea. He stood beside front of his car parked on the edge of the street on the sunny day. He was still unsure. He looked up at the building across the street and shoved the note into his pocket. He looked at every aspect of the tall office building to try to get his mind off of the more than likely joke of a note. The smooth glass and metal that blended almost seamlessly. The building looked like it was made to intimidate. It was the tallest in the surrounding area. Jack took his mind off the building so quickly that he didn’t notice something very significant, but, if you would have told him at the time, he wouldn’t have cared. He drove home to his apartment and his fiancé. The next day he found himself in much the same position. The note had been on his mind all day as he took notes for his boss. He had really been thinking of the note when he was advising his boss on various strategies, and he had almost slipped up. He stopped beside his care much as he had done the previous day. Numbers and some advance codes he remembered from his schooling and training were swirling in his head. If he had not been concentrating on the fact that he wanted the numbers to be some sort of advance code that he would figure out and save the country with while becoming famous he may have noticed something very significant on that same building he parked across the street from every day when he glanced up at it. Or maybe he did notice it, but just didn’t want to.
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Post by Xavier on Jun 28, 2007 11:32:18 GMT -5
I've already read this at your house. A very nice story to be sure, and I see you fixed some mistakes.
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Post by Zorel on Jul 1, 2007 16:51:01 GMT -5
What exactly is it about? Just wondering before I read it...
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Post by Ktsed Vereq on Aug 5, 2007 12:52:17 GMT -5
New chapter, and the next one after this is almost done. Read it NAO!!!!!!
Setting the Scene
Sergeant Washington had been a big man. He had been proud to claim that he could trace his lineage back to Booker T. Washington, but what was left of the kind man wouldn’t be making any more claims. Quincy could still imagine his kind face, which made it all the more painful to look at the mess of bullet holes that composed it now. Blood and gore was everywhere. A tear ran down Quincy’s face as he remembered the times that a kindly deed from the man, a sharing of a ration, the donation of a missing piece of equipment, had saved Quincy. Sergeant Washington had been Quincy’s best friend in the military. Octavian’s face tinted a shade lighter, but, other than that, he remained unchanged. He, proving that even the biggest jerks are capable of kindness at some moments, grabbed Quincy and pulled him out of the room, almost closing the door before they heard a human voice cry out “Wait!” Octavian, fearing the worst, grabbed the pistol from Quincy’s belt and stepped through the door, uttering a cautious “Show yourself!” that Quincy half-doubted the living person in the room could hear. Apparently the unknown party could, in fact, hear Octavian. A person stepped out from under Washington’s card table. The person raised their hands. “Help! A man came in hear and shot ‘em! Save me!” the man said. He was in ragged jeans and a filthy t-shirt and he seemed to be in his early twenties. His short black hair was covered in debris from the other side of the bunker. The young man was to the exact opposite extreme Octavian was when Quincy first saw him. “Please! I ain’t gonna hurt you!” he pleaded in his Brooklyn accent. Both Quincy and Octavian mentally noted this as odd, seeing as Brooklyn was not part of the Infected Territories and a ways away from here. That being said, it was plausible that a young man from Brooklyn got stuck in an Infected Territory before the war started. “Okay. Calm down,” Octavian assured in an almost rehearsed way, “I’m sure my friend Quincy here will trust you to come with us,” Octavian looked to Quincy for reassurance, which he received in a frantic nod. “Yeah, I d-don’t have a problem with you coming with us,” Quincy said, surprised that he and Octavian had become an “us,” and how much it sounded like he had a destination or purpose. They at least had a purpose greater than the man begging for mercy. “Okay,” the young man said, lowering his hands and stepping towards Quincy and Octavian, “my name is Raphael Doucelli, but everyone calls me Cel or Celli, so I guess you can.” As Celli stepped forward, Quincy noticed that he fit the role of the Don’s young son very well. The short black hair. The arrogant way he carried himself. But Quincy also knew that these days, Celli was probably of the oldest members of any gang he was in. They don’t make mobs and gangs like they used to. “If I ‘ave ta tell ya whe’ I’m from, ya don’t deseve ta know. Ya gotta problem wif ‘at?” he said in an exaggerated form of his accent. Quincy already liked this kid. Actually, maybe kid wasn’t the right word. He might have been a kid before the war, but not now. Celli appeared to be in his early twenties or late teens, but he obviously had seen many more horrible things than someone twice his age deserved to see. You could tell that because of his eyes. He had very expressive eyes that were like a window to his thoughts. So where the rest of his face was jolly, his green eyes were shrouded in melancholic veils. While Quincy laughed at this, it didn’t seem to appeal to Octavian’s sense of humor. He simply gave a fake small and motioned Celli to step over to them. Celli obeyed, and Octavian turned to Quincy. “Quincy, now where could we expect to find ourselves an exit or anything else that may prove helpful?” Octavian inquired, surprising Quincy with the statement’s lack of wisecracks. Quincy thought for a second. He finally decided upon a course of action. “Right now, our best course of action would probably be to head to the bunker’s commander’s office,” he stated, expecting approval from both faces. He didn’t get it, to say the least. “Yeah right! I’m not gonna go to some dead army boss’s grave when I should be escaping my own!” Celli said with anger and disbelief that made Quincy cringe. If Celli was this bad, he just couldn’t wait to see Octavian’s reaction. Quincy was surprised. “I’ll head in that direction,” Octavian said agreeably. Quincy realized what he had mistaken for sheer disbelief and anger had actually been deep thought and consideration. “I’ll probably even let you stop in there to make sure that you’re not the highest ranking man alive by sheer luck only. That or divine intervention,” he said with a kind of “in on a joke” smile. They turned to Celli. “Are you still going to avoid the ‘military boss’s grave’?” Quincy asked with a triumphant smile. Celli was baffled and at a loss. “The boss’s office is the closest room to the exit we want,” Octavian informed Celli with that same inside joke smile. Quincy realized how short Celli was. Quincy himself was just shy of six feet by an inch or two, and much shorter than Octavian, but even he was taller than Celli. He wouldn’t place him above five feet six inches. Celli rolled his eyes and said “Very funny, now can we please go? I don’t intend to die in here.” That last comment brought them back to reality. They were in a military establishment that was being assaulted by an unknown enemy force. But most of them were pretty sure they knew who it was attacking them. The Revolutionaries. The Rebels. The Attack From Within. The Infected. The New South. They all meant the same thing, and right now, to those three men, their meaning seemed very near that of “doom.” “Okay, Quincy, how far is this exit?” Octavian inquired, very much sobered from Celli’s contagious pseudo-joy. Quincy shot him a suspicious glance. “Well, maybe I should be asking you. I mean, you seem to know a lot about the lay out of this place,” Quincy said, his voice thick with accusation. Octavian turned to him, none the worse for the accusation. “You see, I know things. It’s kind of my thing. I got a map of the place smuggled to me and memorized it, just in case I had to, you know, break out,” he stated monotonously. It seemed he could really care less about Quincy’s accusation. Quincy still wasn’t sure if he trusted Octavian. His story seemed fishy. “What were you planning on breaking out for?” he interrogated fiercely. “It was simply a contingency plan for if you guys locked me up unjustly. I wasn’t about to just sit back and let it happen, you know,” Octavian said, getting emotionally involved in the conversation for the first time. The accusations were starting to exasperate him. Celli stepped in. “Guys, c’mon, just shu’p and let’s get outta here. You can settle those differences when my life isn’t in danger,” he insisted and grabbed both men and pushed them towards the exit. Suddenly, Quincy’s flashlight died. Quincy cursed the “infernal piece of crap.” Octavian grabbed it without a word and tried to get it to work. Celli simply slid down against the wall and started praying to any number of Catholic Saints. An unknown figure slipped soundlessly in the door in the interrogation rooms’ hub
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Post by KläsΘr on Aug 9, 2007 13:16:46 GMT -5
O.O The. Best. Story. Here. Seriously though, hurry up and post another, that was great
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Post by Ktsed Vereq on Sept 15, 2007 14:28:05 GMT -5
*coughnewchapterscough* Get ready to be blown away/By the very Darkest Expose I am sorry. I had to put it.
4299-10-7
Jack Galyle couldn’t believe his eyes. It had to be a coincidence. There was no way. But his eyes told him it was true and his logic told him it was no coincidence. He steeled his nerves and walked across the street. He felt excitement and anticipation growing within him, even though he knew it would most likely turn to bitter disappointment soon enough. 4299. The address of the building across the street from him was 4299. Jack had no idea what the building actually was. He had seen it nearly every day for almost a year now, but he had no clue what it was and never noticed it. Not until he got the note last week. There was no sign on it except an unhelpful “Octavian” just above the door. He had never entered it nor had he ever heard even a snippet of conversation about it. Whoever owned it seemed to do very well at keeping to themselves. He had to once again steel his nerves against the embarrassment that he was sure to about to experience when he showed the note to the lady sitting behind the large desk he could already see behind the glass of the door. He had a feeling he may even become acquainted with the unimposing security guard standing next to the elevator. As short and scrawny as the guard was, the pistol and taser strapped to his belt would probably get as much done as any amount of bulk and girth. He gripped the cold steel of the door handle and pulled the door open. He started his long walk across the huge lobby that was most undoubtedly designed to intimidate. Most of the floor was like a gray style of marble which must have cost a fortune considering the huge size of the cylindrical room, for that was the shape of the room. It was like to a giant cylinder standing on one of its faces. A cylinder at least two hundred feet across and tall. That was Jack’s estimate, at least. He never was good at that sort of thing. In the center of the floor was a symbol made of an O with the words “Tresviri Rei Publicae Constituendae” written all around the outside, but bolder and larger on the very top and bottom. Inside the O was an image of what appeared, to Jack, to be the Ancient Roman Senate building standing on the grounds of the White House. There was no sound in the room. Not the hum of light fixtures. Not the whirr of air circulation. Not the whisper of distant conversation. Just the click of Jack Galyle’s heels on the stone floor as he walked across the large room. The rather cool room was lit with lights set in the floor around the perimeter of the room and angled towards the middle of the ceiling in a way that there was a rather dim spot in the very center of the room, where Jack was now. Jack was almost certain it was at least five degrees cooler in the center of the room than elsewhere. He paused for a second, terrified. He looked around. The room seemed to have no walls. For a second he felt he had stepped into a limitless void just waiting to swallow him. He felt that the two people standing across the room from him were simply ghosts trapped in this never-ending doom with him. He was sure, for just a second, that he could hear some mechanism slip and lock into place, sealing his doomed fate. He had a feeling it wouldn’t be the last time he would feel like that. It took him a second to catch his breath, even after he realized that the lights were set a few feet from the walls, which were covered with some substance that was of the same color and texture of obsidian, but allowed no reflections. Even after he pulled himself from this fantasy he felt a sense of underlying doom just waiting to engulf him and pull him to its purposes. He started walking again, his feet moving hesitantly across the roof of the Roman Senate. He was just barely outside of the symbol on the floor when the secretary behind the desk called his name. “Mr. Galyle. You’ve been expected,” the young lady said with an enthusiasm and courtesy that had to be sincere, but Jack was sure there was a silent gloating in her voice. “Thank you, may I ask who I am to meet, and where I am to meet them?” Jack asked in a friendly tone. He was surprised at how at ease he sounded. He started to get a headache. She gave him a sly grin. Jack was now close enough to see her clearly, and she was quite attractive. “You, my friend, are lucky. You get to meet Mr. O himself. Just go to floor ten and find room seven. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble with that,” she said in her kind way. She had a beautiful smile and amazing light red hair and- Jack stopped himself there. He was engaged now. He couldn’t think like that. “Mr. O?” he asked cheerily and with a smile. He was amazed at his faked good mood right now. He never knew he could act so well. “Oh, uh, sorry. Excuse me. Mr. Octavian. Honestly, if you ask me, he’s a little creepy, but I think it’s just an air he puts on. I believe that he really is a good guy,” she replied. She was even cuter when she was embarrassed. Jack literally bit his tongue in effort to stop his flow of adulterous thoughts. He was trying not to think about her so hard that he almost missed the way she seemed kind of nervous when she said the last sentence. Almost. “Thank you. How about,” he stopped himself suddenly. He was about to ask the secretary out on a date. He wasn’t like this. It must have been the sense of doom distracting him. He wasn’t himself. “How about what?” she asked hopefully with that sly smile. Jack swallowed hardly. He couldn’t imagine disappointing her. But he had to. He shook any thoughts of completing the line he was about to say with an image of his fiancé. He wasn’t like this. “How about I ask exactly how lucky I am if I get to meet a man who’s ‘creepy’?” Jack asked playfully. It still made him feel horrible when he saw the disappointment in her eyes as she chuckled. “I don’t know. That’s a good point. You’re a smart guy. I see how you got a meeting with the big O,” she complemented, that smile back. Jack was standing at her desk now. “Oh, and my name’s Thrist, in case you’re curious,” she added, then chuckled as she realized the accidental pun she had said. “Thank you and, as much as I enjoy this conversation, Mr. Octavian doesn’t sound like one you keep waiting, so I must bid farewell,” he said with an astounding amount of cheesiness. He almost sighed out loud, but walked to the elevator following a slight wave which he got returned along with a kind smile. As he walked the short distance to the elevator, he passed the security guard. Jack glanced at him and got a sudden chill. The air surrounding the guard seemed even cooler than the cold spot in the center of the room. His cold hazel eyes were placed behind round black rimmed glasses. He was shorter than Jack, five feet six inches at the most. His black hair was stopped just short of his eyebrows and well kept. His skin was perhaps a little darker than you would expect from an average Caucasian American with a good tan. His face with its small goatee looked like it rarely, if ever, smiled. He was dressed not in an average security guard uniform, but in a black suit with a plain black button up dress shirt underneath. His left hand rested on the holstered pistol clipped to his belt, his right hand a centimeter at most away from the taser. He looked like he was ready to use either one at a moment’s notice. When their gazes met, Jack felt a sense of doom greater than that he felt in the middle of the room. He was certain this man was about to kill him for a split second, but he walked on into the elevator and pressed the button with “10" written on it. He walked to the back of the elevator and put his forehead against the cool stainless steel gratefully. He let loose a deep sigh of relief. He turned around, terrified that the security guard had followed him into the elevator. The closing of the doors sounded like the sound of some mechanism slipping and locking into place, sealing his doomed fate. The guard walked over to him. He held his hand out. “My name is Jre Iyn. I am the personal guard of Mr. Julius Octavian,” he said without any emotion in a voice completely devoid of any accent at all. “Uh, nice to meet you. My name is Jack Galyle, and I have no clue who Mr. Octavian is nor a clue as to why he wants to meet with me,” Jack said, shaking Jre’s hand. The grip was remarkably strong. “I’m sure you will find what the Great Revolutionary requires of you,” Jre Iyn replied. “Just so you know, you need not fear me. Yet,” he reassured threateningly. “Let’s see if we can keep it that way, shall we?” he added. “Yessir,” Jack replied, his military obedience slipping in. “May I ask one question, sir?” Jack requested, wondering what it was about this man that brought out his military habits. “Proceed,” Jre Iyn replied seemingly without care and not noticing Jack’s sudden military behavior. “Sir, why do they call Mr. Octavian the Great Revolutionary?” Jack questioned. “They?” The response was quick, but there was no mistaking its meaning. “Sir, I heard you refer to Mr. Octavian as the Great Revolutionary,” Jack responded, daunted. “I am sure you will be able to answer your own question after your meeting with Mr. Octavian is over,” Jre responded tonelessly. Jack couldn’t tell if he was annoyed, gloating, or being sarcastic. Or none of the above. “Yessir,’ Jack answered without thought. The elevator seemed to be going painfully slow. Finally, after what seemed to be an immeasurable time, Jack saw the elevator reach floor nine. He was almost there. Jre reached out and hit the “STOP” button on the elevator key pad. Jack cursed aloud, then mentally chastised himself. “What are you doing?” Jack asked irritably. Something about Jre Iyn gave him the creeps, and he wanted to get out of the elevator as quick as possible. Jre turned towards him. “If you do not obey Mr. Octavian’s will perfectly and without question, it would upset me dearly. I don’t deal very well with getting let down,” the man said without a hint of emotion in his voice and nothing moving on his face but the opening and closing of his mouth and the blink of his eyelids. The man even seemed to blink less than an average man. Jack swallowed. He couldn’t seem to stop his hands from folding and unfolding themselves over and over again in an incoherent pattern. They were almost dripping sweat. He was suddenly more afraid of the man than before. “Yes, I understand, sir,” he managed to squeeze out in a squeaky and cracking voice. He was shaking violently. He almost fell over, but he steadied himself on the wall. He never knew he was such a coward. He had stared death in the eyes many times before, but now this man’s threat, a threat that was probably all bark and no bite, too, could get him so terrified. What was happening? Jack wouldn’t know it for a while, but Jre Iyn had that effect on most, if not all, people, and he planned it that way. “Good,” Jre said; the only relief of tension came from Jack himself. He started to regain himself as the macabre security guard restarted the elevator. “If worst comes to worst,” he told himself, “I can just report him to the police.” But something about Jre seemed to dismiss reality the same way childhood fears did. He felt that either, if Jre wanted, he wouldn’t have a chance, or that the cops would do no good much in the same way a child will believe that an intruder can be in their room when it is actually physically impossible for it to be so. Little did Jack know that all one had to do to silence a noisy room in most agencies meant to hold up the law in many countries, one would simply have to whisper Jre Iyn’s name under their breath. It would work every time. The elevator reached its destination and the doors opened with a ping. Jack stepped out, glad to be out of the enclosed space with the likes of Jre Iyn. He walked across the hall, grateful for the cool air. This part of the building looked like a normal seemingly endless corridor with countless labyrinthine branches. It reminded Jack of a cross between a doctor’s office, a normal office building, and an endless maze, but on steroids. There was a difference from the expected, Jack noticed, two actually. First, much of the decor was a great deal more expensive than what would be expected, and the walls were a well kept white with marble floors. Second, over half of the doors had no labels, and the ones that did were almost always very unhelpful. “Supervisor,” of what? “Security,” wasn’t that bad, but “Executive,” left one with questions. “Education,” made no sense for a business. “Human Resources,” was normal, but “Resources,” wasn’t. Every room was assigned a number beginning with 10 then a hyphen and followed by another number. The 10 obviously stood for the floor, and the second number stood for the room number. Jack stepped up to room 10-7. There was a small square of dark glass set in each of the doors that Jack thought might be one-way glass. This door was slightly different from the others. It was virtually impossible to tell, and Jack didn’t notice it, but the door was made of one of the strongest, if not the very strongest, alloys known to man. It was not available to the mainstream market, but with money and influence, especially the influence, of a man like Mr. Octavian, things like that weren’t a problem. Not a problem at all. Jack looked into the one-way glass and only then realized that Jre Iyn had followed him from the elevator and was now standing right behind him. He raised his hand to knock and got a nod of approval from Jre’s reflection. He knocked lightly on the door. It was disguised so well that it even felt exactly like the rest of the expensive wood doors. Literally soundlessly, a series of locks so complicated and original that the heads of every state of the art security system company and their best workers would be stumped in a conversation about their most simple mechanisms unlocked themselves. Mr. Octavian had designed this himself. He found all of the current options unsatisfactory, so he simply made his own. He was rather good at making things of his own. He was what the normal man in normal circumstances might call a bit of a genius. It was where he had gotten all of his money and influence. “Enter,” a voice said. At first Jack thought it had come from in the room, but he realized it was actually Jre. He found that more than a little odd. Jack opened the door and walked in, followed by Jre. Jre directed him to a chair to sit down in across a desk from a man sitting in a large office chair. Jack wouldn’t remember much of what went through his mind at a later date, but there was one thing he did remember. The fiery eyes of the being sitting across from him. They were the eyes of a being who thought it knew everything; the eyes of a being that knew much more than it gave itself credit for. What Jack Galyle saw were the eyes of Julius Octavian, the Great Revolutionary.
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Post by Ktsed Vereq on Sept 15, 2007 14:28:50 GMT -5
Dark Exposè
Robert Quincy stood there in the engulfing blackness listening to the unperceivable prayers of Celli and the tinkering of Octavian with the flashlight. He couldn’t hear the opening of the door barely ten feet away from him. He felt a chill go through him. Maybe it was coincidence. Maybe it was something more. All he knew was that suddenly there was a thud and he heard Celli’s voice make a slight grunt. Octavian got the flashlight working. Octavian pointed the flashlight in the direction of the grunt and saw Celli laying unconscious on the ground underneath a man holding a military issue rifle. The soldier was dressed in a filthy military uniform without a helmet and that looked like it had once been American. Now, where there had once been an American flag, was the gaping red O with a black background that the Infected used as a symbol. Stitched in large letters on the left breast was “Tresviri Rei Publicae Constituendae,” which, along with the O symbol, was the only way to tell that this soldier no longer fought for the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. His motives were different entirely. The man looked like he, under more normal circumstances, wouldn’t be able to purchase alcohol, but the expression on his face was one of the type of satisfaction that a hunter who had been searching for prey all day and had finally found it would wear. That is, after the shock wore off. He raised his rifle. “Who’re ya?” he questioned happily, as if he had just found a new kid attending his school who he thought he would get along well with. “I’m Julius Octavian, a man from the Infected Territories trying to immigrate to America,” Octavian stated cooly. The man’s eyes grew wide as Octavian stated his name. He seemed to hesitate a second, and his friendly demeanor turned cautious. The man simply pointed his rifle at Quincy, ending his thoughts to try to quickly draw his handgun. Of the things Quincy was, he was no gunslinger. “I’m Robert Quincy, and I was interrogating... this man,” he replied hurriedly. He cringed at the end of his statement; Octavian’s name had slipped his mind in the heat of the moment. The soldier returned his gun’s gaze to Octavian. Apparently his story checked out. “Okay. You two, follow me.”
Celli woke up an hour later tied down to a chair. His head hurt like it hadn’t within his memory. There was something off about the room, but Celli’s aching brain couldn’t seem to place it. He was able to turn his head a little, but the stiff wooden back of the chair had made sure it wasn’t too far. He could see the security guard, wasn’t his name Quincy something, or whatever he was tied to a chair to his left and beyond that another chair that he assumed held... the name seemed to slip him. The tall guy with a cocky attitude. That was him. He would remember his name later. Quincy was conscious, so Celli, in a very hoarse voice, said “Hey, what happened?” He remembered the flashlight dying out, and then it all went black until now. He remembered one more detail. He was praying. That was it. Nothing else until he woke up a few seconds ago. “We were captured. I guess you were the first one they got, because he made me carry you. At first I was afraid you were dead too, but, you’re probably not, I guess,” Quincy laughed here. He seemed to be hysterical. He looked like he had been crying recently, and Celli neither knew who “he” was nor what Quincy meant by “dead too.” Hadn’t somebody died recently? Yes, Celli remembered that much, but who was it? Was that why Quincy had been crying? Probably. He still couldn’t remember who had died. Quincy stopped laughing long enough to turn to Celli and add one more line that puzzled and troubled Celli more than anything else had in a while. “At least he didn’t make me carry him. At least he was kind enough to do that himself. I dunno if it’s Stockholm or some crap like that, but that soldier seemed to be not half bad.” Celli was visibly startled. What did it mean, “carry him”? Quincy had placed emphasis on the him as if to separate it from he, who was most likely the Stockholm soldier he was carrying on about. Was the him the person who had died? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe the tall man would be able to shed some light on this. If only he could remember his name. It was French. No. Older. Greek? Maybe. It didn’t sound right, but it was close. What was always paired with Greece? Turkey? No. Not modern Greece, but ancient Greece. Ancient Greece and... Rome! That was it. It was an ancient Roman name. Caesar? No. Octavos? No, but close. Octavian. That was it. His name was Octavian. He cringed and turned his head to the left the best that he could. Quincy was laughing again. His head tilted forward. Celli could see the chair past him, but there was one problem. It was empty. Maybe Octavian was being interrogated. There was something off about him. With his clean black clothes. Black. The word stuck in Celli’s head. He couldn’t help but think there was something significant about the word “black.” What was it? It seemed to be just beyond the reach of the grasping fingers of Celli’s mind. He couldn’t seem to concentrate properly. Synonyms. That would help. What were some synonyms of black? African-American? No. Dark haired? Not that, either. Grim? No. Darkness? Not tha- “Wait!” Celli said aloud. Darkness. That was it. The power had gone out. There shouldn’t be any light, and yet he could see clearly in this room. He looked around for a light source, but couldn’t spot any. The light fixtures in the ceiling were dead. For the first time he really looked around at the room he was in. He cursed aloud as he realized what it was. He didn’t know that an American bunker would have need for a room like this. He and Quincy were tied up alone in an execution room. There was no mistaking it. The blood stains approximately head height on the wall with red stains flowing down to the small red-stained trench below the wall. There was a revolver sitting in a transparent, locked case on a nearby table. There was a sealed chest-like chute covered in painted warnings. Celli got sick imagining its purpose. Even worse, there were three hatches surrounded by scorch marks on the wall beside it. Celli looked back to his left and saw that the chair he had imagined to contain Octavian was actually an electric chair. How could he have missed it before? Selective perception, maybe. He panicked. If the chair two to his left was an instrument of death, wouldn’t it be logical if his was too? He struggled to look to the back of his chair. It was just a normal wooden chair. He sighed with relief, but, as he turned back to face forward, something caught his eye. There was an odd contraption stuck to the back of Quincy’s chair. Quincy was strapped up to another electric chair. He wondered if he should tell him. He decided not to. It would just cause Quincy to panic needlessly and, if he was as foggy-minded as he looked, he hadn’t noticed yet. Yet. It was just a matter of time until he did. Celli calmed himself down enough to think. What was the purpose of this room? He had a feeling he knew. The guards claimed that the immigrants from the IT that didn’t pass inspection were locked up. Celli bet that if one examined the blueprints of this bunker closely, one would find a prison mysteriously not listed or, at least, that it would be one 40x30 room that couldn’t contain that many prisoners at all. A room with a mysterious chute leading nowhere of any importance. Celli was sure that the press would pay through the nose to learn half of the things he had found out during this short time. This room was the kind of secret to tear the nation asunder even further. It was the kind of secret that could win the war for the Infected. It was the kind of secret that, it would appear, the Infected had within their grasp and probably couldn’t wait to make public. They would probably be willing to give the press their world-changing scoop for free. The door opened. A soldier that Celli didn’t recognize walked in struggling with a bloodied corpse. He placed the corpse on a wooden table that was certainly used for lethal injections. Celli didn’t know it, but it was the same soldier that Quincy and Octavian had spotted about an hour ago. The soldier walked over to Quincy. “He went easily enough, how about you next?” he taunted. Quincy let loose a feral cry and struggled helplessly in his personal prison, calling the soldier every name he could think of. “Now, if you stop that nonsense and ask nicely, I’ll just turn on Ol’ Sparky here and save you the problem of standing up and me a bullet. It will be a lot less sloppy than the last guy. He tried to attack me in the end. Not a good sport at all. But it was useless against my superior armaments. But I know that you’re smarter than him and will go off like a good boy,” here the captor was interrupted by a small chuckle. Barely audible, but still there. “Hey you, shorty, was that you?” he asked Celli, because he could see that it hadn’t been Quincy. Celli shook his head no, for he hadn’t chuckled, he had barely even heard the conversation; he was too busy staring at the dead body to care much. The soldier shivered and muttered “Creepy,” under his breath, then decided to continue his monologue. “But before I turn this baby on and let you end your existence, I want you to know the outcome of this war. See this room here? I stumbled upon it accidentally and I rather like it. Kind of fits the whole American mentality, doesn’t it? If you’ve got an inconvenience, just eff’n kill it!” he screamed the last three words and, to accentuate his point, he squished a bug under one of his military boots. “Everyone lives by it, but they don’t like it when you point it out. Americans don’t like it when they look in the mirror and see their own ugliness, so they just kill the mirror along with their other inconveniences!” He was ranting now and pacing the room. “But, now, a hero has come along to force-feed them their own reflection by showing them this room. This will anger all of the Americans, and the government will fire some scape goat and call it an isolated event. Say it’s the only one, but it’s not. Every house in America is full of them. The Senate and White House have uncountable numbers of them. Some Americans will be smart enough to realize this. Not that many, but enough. They will join the hero and I, and we will take America and end this great evil. There is only one man capable of this great deed. Julius Octavian, the Great Revolutionary!” Quincy’s struggles and profanities ended here with a gasp. The soldier laughed aloud. “Oh, not him!” he said, pointing to the corpse over his shoulder with his thumb, “He wasn’t who he claimed to be, as I knew. When he claimed to be the Great Revolutionary, I knew I had to kill him, but not before I found out who he really was. But I guess you’ll never know, cause Sparky’s getting impatient. It really is too bad that you couldn’t stick around for the Dark Exposè, Robert Quincy. Have a nice life.” As Celli gazed at the dead body of the man he knew as Julius Octavian and heard the buzz of electricity as the soldier flipped the switch much to the vehement protest of Quincy, he felt that he really was in not just another Dark Exposè, but the Darkest Exposè the world would ever see, one that was never ending. Not the secrets of any government or business the Darkest Exposè was about, but the secrets of the patterns of human behavior. The sole subject of the endless Darkest Exposè was the only pure evil possible. Everything turned darker than Celli ever believed was possible. Celli wasn’t sure if light would ever come back to his world. He honestly hoped it wouldn’t.
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Post by Zorel on Nov 28, 2007 18:45:28 GMT -5
I got around to reading some. o.o pretty cool.
Also, 1,000 posts for this board.
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