crzywriter

Hehe...found this in my folder of stuff I wrote years ago. I was amused when I read it, so I decided to post it here. The subject title was (apparently), what I intended to call this story


The man walked down the street, his strides unhurried but purposeful. He was the kind of man who one glanced at and dismissed the next instant. In other words, he was not the type of man you were likely to remember, even after you had formally met him. That was exactly the sort of thing that the man wanted. He didn’t want to be noticed by anyone; he had had far too much of that in his life, though not in a way anyone here would suspect.

He lived alone, but he seemed rarely lonely. He never had any visitors, but he was the man that you went to when you had a problem. He seemed to have extensive knowledge in almost every subject under the sun, from gardening to astrology to history and more. Perhaps that was why he chose to be a teacher, some thought. That was not, in fact, the real reason, but it was close enough.

He was about medium height, with a narrow face and short, wavy black hair. He looked to be in his mid- to late- twenties or maybe early thirties, but, in fact, he was much older than that. He had hazel eyes, smiling eyes, but no one had seen him smile yet; the smile was perpetually in his eyes. He had a deep tan, giving him an exotic kind of look.

~~~

“Nicholas?” someone asked from behind him.

Nicholas Sloan turned and saw a young woman. “Yeah?”

She smiled shyly. “I’m new here and everyone told me to come see you if I had any questions.”

His eyes sparkled. “And do you?”

“Well, I’d like to know somewhere to buy furniture. And clothes. And food. You know, the basic essentials of life.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I’m rather busy right now. And, contrary to what everyone says, I don’t know everything.” He turned away from her and strode down the street to his house.

~~~

Rachel Daly, undercover agent, watched Nicholas disappear and frowned to herself. She had been chosen especially because she was beautiful. And he was definitely not married, unless he kept his wife locked up in a closet somewhere.

And she truly was new here. A break-up with a long-time boyfriend, almost-husband, had made her beg for reassignment. So that was why she was here, in this nowhere town in rural Colorado. But why the hell was Nicholas here?

He had appeared from nowhere about three years ago. No one could even guess who he really was. But that was what tipped off investigators. In this enlightened year of 2082, anyone who appeared was immediately investigated. Name changes were all but illegal, and so everyone who risked it certainly had something to hide. So, she had been moved here to find out who this guy was, why he changed his name, and then (probably) arrest him.

~~~

The next day, Nicholas got up and went to school, as he had done every day so far for the past three years.

The students, between fifteen and eighteen years old, knew him as the most interesting teacher in the school. Fights actually sometimes broke out in order to get him as a teacher. It was not that he was an easy teacher, but because he was the best. Nearly everyone did well in his class, because the way he taught, it was virtually impossible to fail.

But today, they noticed, he was noticeably more downcast. “What’s wrong?” asked Hal Campbell, a junior.

Nicholas looked up. “Nothing.” He rose to his feet as the bell rang and walked out in front of the class. He turned his back on the class and wrote “THIRD RUSSO-AMERICAN WAR”. He faced the class. “So, what do you know about the war?”

No one answered. Nicholas sighed. “Oh, come on. It was only five years ago. And it was a pretty big war.”

“Yeah,” said Rod, his eyes brightening. “Didn’t we drop a nuke on Moscow?”

“Yes, the Americans did.”

Almost everyone failed to notice the way he phrased his answer. “Anything else, like the reason it started?”

Hal called out, “The Russian space station was sabotaged by Americans, and nearly fifteen thousand people died.”

“Did they actually ever figure out that the Americans did it?”

“Yes,” said Hal. “They found the secret CIA documents near the end of the war.”

“So, why did the Russians attack the Americans in retaliation?”

Someone walked in, someone that no one recognized, and handed a slip of paper to Nicholas. Nicholas read it quickly: “Mr. Sloan, I would appreciate it if you came to my office immediately. –Pat Walsh.”

Nicholas sighed, then looked the class over. “The rest of the period is study hall,” he said, and walked out of the room.


~~~

“Nicholas,” said Pat Walsh, the principal, as Nicholas walked in. “Sit down.”

“I prefer to stand, thank you. Now, I was rather busy, so I hope that this is pretty damned important.”

“The district had a meeting last night. Our district is losing money, a lot of money, and we need to cut down on personnel.”

A horrible wave of fear flooded through Nicholas’ body. “What does this have to do with me?”

“We're sorry, Nicholas. We don’t really want to do this, but, we’ll have to let you go.”

“What?” asked Nicholas in outrage. “I’m the most popular teacher here!”

“I believe your ego is getting the better of you, Nicholas. And you are one of the most junior teachers here. Like I said, I'm sorry…” But he trailed off, because Nicholas had already stormed out of the room.

~~~

He didn’t bother going back to the class; what was the point? They obviously didn’t need him that much. As he walked into the parking lot, he saw a black car with a woman inside. He looked closer; it was the woman who had bothered him yesterday. What the hell was she doing here?

But he dismissed her, and walked to his car. He raced out of the parking lot and back to his house, where he got himself to work at something far more important to him.

~~~

“So, are we all in agreement?” asked Matteo Santo, leader of the government faction in Italy concerned with foreign affairs.

For some twenty years now, Italy had been a brutally harsh dictatorship, with Carlo Salomone as the dictator, but Matteo, in all truth, had the real power. As well as being head of one of the most forceful government divisions, Matteo was also Carlo’s cousin, and had been one of Carlo’s best friends.

“I suppose,” said Riccardo Santo, Matteo’s brother, and his second-in-command.

“Suppose isn’t good enough,” warned Matteo. “I need to hear that we are all in agreement. Because we aren’t invincible. And if this thing goes wrong, then we’ll need to be sure that what we did was for the best. And the only way we’ll know that will be if I can tell Carlo that we all agreed on this.”

“Okay!” said Riccardo in exasperation. He addressed everyone at the table. “Are we all in agreement?”

Everyone nodded, and Matteo said, “Okay. That’s what I’ll tell Carlo. And then we’ll have to select the team carefully.”

“I’ve got an idea already,” said Filippo Spalino.

“Good,” said Matteo. “I’m always open to suggestions.” He smiled ironically. Everyone at the table knew this was far from true. Matteo was one of the most closed-minded people any of them knew.

Filippo swallowed hard. “For the leader, can we bring use Lukas? He’s damn good.”

“Admittedly, yes he is,” said Matteo. “But you have just proven to me exactly why I needn’t bother listening to you.”

For an instant Filippo looked hurt. “Why?”

“Because Lukas has retired.”

“Oh. So, who are we going to use?” asked Riccardo.

“That is what I need you to do over the next week or so. I don’t need them all to be Italian, but it would be nice to have one or two. Other than that, feel free to take people from whoever is willing to give them to us.”

“So,” asked Filippo, trying to regain a little dignity. “How soon are we going to go for it?”

“I don’t know,” said Matteo irritably. “That is for Carlos to decide.” They all knew that to mean it would be entirely up to Matteo as to when they would go, no matter what he said.

~~~

“So, how are things going?” asked Sebastion Pollock, Rachel Daly’s boss.

“Well, we’ve started irking him. He was fired on Friday. Without money, he’ll be forced to do something, anything different, and that may give us something of a clue.”

“Listen to me, Rachel. This man has done a more than adequate job of hiding since he changed his name. I don’t think he’s got something little to hide. I need you to find out his name from before.”

“Some people are good at hiding that kind of thing,” said Rachel.

“But we are supposed to be better,” answered Sebastian. “So, get your job done. You said you wanted an interesting assignment, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, you’ve got yourself one. Can I give you one piece of advice?”

“Sure.”

“Don’t fall in love with the bastard. Because then you won’t have it in your heart to arrest him. Seduce him all you like, but don’t ever become attached to him. The man’s a criminal.”

“How do you know?”

“Do you know of any other reason as to why someone would pay millions of dollars to illegally change their name? It’s too expensive for all but the best criminals. And the most dangerous ones.”

“I’ve always liked danger.”

~~~

“You want me to do what!” shouted Feodor Buhkarov.

“You heard me,” said Matteo. “And you will go ahead with it, exactly as I planned it.”

Feodor cursed under his breath. This was far more risky than what he would have liked to do. Carlo and he had been friends, and Matteo as well, but they were a little too carefree for Feodor’s liking.

“Can’t this wait?”

“Feodor, my friend, soon it will be too late. You are high enough up in the Russian aristocracy to get this done, and you and I both know it.”

“Matteo, I need you to understand something. The chances of this working are about a hundred to one against us.”

“I’ve done things under much worse odds.”

Feodor knew the experience that Matteo was referring to. Matteo had, several years before, and three years before Carlo came into power, rescued several Italians from some Greek rebels. And he had done it, despite all the protests that he do any such thing. Feodor and Matteo had talked before Matteo did that, and Feodor had told him that the odds were at least a billion to one against him. But he had succeeded, and this, in Feodor’s opinion, gave Matteo the impression that he was invincible. “Still, Matteo, give us a little more time.”

“Time, Feodor? Time is not on our side. Everyone is growing too old to be able to do this much longer. I am almost forty, you are nearing fifty. Lukas retired five years ago, at the end of the last war. If we put it off any longer, then there will be none of the first generation left.”

“First generation?” asked Feodor. “You make it sound like we’re the mob.”

“Aren’t we?”

“No. We are…merely doing things for the right of humanity.”

Matteo laughed. “If it helps you sleep to think that Feodor, then I am glad to hear it. But we both know it is not true.”

“You are a disillusioned man.”

“No more so than you. Now, can I count on your support?”

“Promise me one thing, then. That when the Americans are writhing in their agony, I can burn down the White House in front of them and laugh.”

“Now who is disillusioned?”

valeca

Hi Crzy,
I'll come back and read this in a bit, but I noticed the 'that' thing happening again

Toss the second one. It reads much better without. I see that your love of the word that, and my unnatural love of the comma are much the same thing

Will be back to give a thorough read through later.

BTW, love the name Nicholas. So much that it's what I named my oldest boy

__________________
"...make your own nature, not the advice of others, your guide in life." --Pythia, Oracle of Apollo at Delphi

I'm here.

crzywriter

I know, Valeca.

I have such hideously large 'that' issues.

And I love the name Nicholas as well.

Thanks for looking it over.

~Crzy

cyberspecter

Hey there Crzy,

I gave this a quick readthrough. I did like it and not only because it's set in Colorado and has the name Nicholas (my nephew has the same name) but because it flows rather nicely.

I think your description is good, but that it needs to be given out in smaller doses.

Not the most gripping of beginnings, but not without some merit. I think it could be tightened up a touch.

I like this. Interesting how much your Nicholas has in common with my nephew... scarey really...



This has almost a noir feeling to it. You should explore that more I think



~~~
~~~

This actually lacks description of Rachel.



This is pretty good. I like dialoge that gives background without sounding forced.
~~~



I didn't really buy this as anything but a plot device. I guess from the information you've given me about Nicholas I just didn't think it rang true to what I know of him.

~~~



~~~

“So, are we all in agreement?” asked Matteo Santo, leader of the government faction in Italy concerned with foreign affairs.

For some twenty years now, Italy had been a brutally harsh dictatorship, with Carlo Salomone as the dictator, but Matteo, in all truth, had the real power. As well as being head of one of the most forceful government divisions, Matteo was also Carlo’s cousin, and had been one of Carlo’s best friends.

“I suppose,” said Riccardo Santo, Matteo’s brother, and his second-in-command.

“Suppose isn’t good enough,” warned Matteo. “I need to hear that we are all in agreement. Because we aren’t invincible. And if this thing goes wrong, then we’ll need to be sure that what we did was for the best. And the only way we’ll know that will be if I can tell Carlo that we all agreed on this.”

“Okay!” said Riccardo in exasperation. He addressed everyone at the table. “Are we all in agreement?”

Everyone nodded, and Matteo said, “Okay. That’s what I’ll tell Carlo. And then we’ll have to select the team carefully.”

“I’ve got an idea already,” said Filippo Spalino.

“Good,” said Matteo. “I’m always open to suggestions.” He smiled ironically. Everyone at the table knew this was far from true. Matteo was one of the most closed-minded people any of them knew.

Oops! These things are sure easy to miss when you are too close to your work. I do it too.


My writing instructor was fond of putting this in the margins: "Awk", when something was bulky or didn't sound right to the ear.




I think you have a good start on an intersting story. I think the characters could use a bit more dimension and this should be a much longer story. But, from small beginnings...

Good job.

CS

A.K.A. Paul

__________________
Cyberspecter
(Evil incarnate, devourer of souls....and pizza)
--------------------------------------------------------
Bad Spellers of the World, Untie! -Tee shirt slogan.

crzywriter

thanks cyberspecter AKA Paul.

Like i said, I wrote this more than a year ago, and it could definitely use some going-over. I was very into description (only it tended to be very bad description).

And ha, I didn't even realize that I didnt describe Rachel even a little. But she ain't important. Pshaw.

anyhow, thanks a lot.

~Crzy

crzywriter

meh, I'm bored, so i'm posting more.

It was Monday morning. Everyone had heard the news about Mr. Sloan, and every single student was outraged. An hour before school started, nearly everyone in school met in the cafeteria. The senior class president, who had had Mr. Sloan as a teacher in his sophomore and junior years, had written up an ultimatum. It demanded that the school bring back Mr. Sloan, or all the students would walk out of their classes until they brought him back. “Are we all in agreement?” shouted the president, Saul Wyatt, “Because if even one of us isn’t, then we can’t do this.”

But all of them had too much respect for both Saul and Mr. Sloan to think of doing anything else.


“This,” said Pat Walsh, “is absolutely unreasonable. Students can’t walk out of classes.”

“I think they intend to,” said the Vice-Principal, Marion Godwin. “And I don’t think there’s much we can do to stop them, save bringing back Nicholas.”

“Which we can’t do. The Feds told us to fire him. How long do we have?”

“Two days, and then they leave.”

Pat smiled. “Then, if it comes to it, we’ll all come to school and treat them as truants…”

“Three thousand of them? The jail isn’t big enough.”

“Or we can just start failing people. The ones that care about their grades will come back, and then the crisis will be on its way to resolution.”

“If you say so,” said Marion, walking out of the room. This was going to be a long week.

~~~

“This is an outrage!” shouted Gary Rockwell.

“Calm down,” said Guy Armand. “This has been going on for years.”

“Well, then it’s all the more proof that we need to get it done now.” By now, Gary was pacing the room. “I mean, it’s a complete infringement on privacy.”

“As we all know, this has been going on since before the last Russo-American war. Why didn’t we act then?” challenged Scott Devlin, a Scottish man with bright red bushy hair.

Gary really didn’t have an answer for that. Maybe a good answer would be that he was scared of being caught. The jail time for this kind of thing was…well, Gary didn’t like to think about it.

“In case you’re wondering,” said Guy. “I’ve got in touch with a couple men who can supply us if we decide to go through with this.”

“We are going to do this,” said Gary forcefully. “Who are these men?”

“There’s a German, Heinrich Bannan, and a Russian, Feodor Buhkarov. They’ll give us the guns, and everything we need, as soon as we give them the cash.”

“How much cash?”

“Fifty million.”

“Pounds or dollars?”

“Dollars.”

Gary winced. Fifty million dollars was equivalent to about seventy million pounds. He turned to Timmy Walton. “How much money do we have?”

“Maybe fifty million,” said the small, lightly built Irish man. “But we wouldn’t be able to do anything else for a long time.”

Gary turned back to Guy. “And how much would we be getting?”

“According to them, everything short of the men. They even offered that, but it would have cost another ten million.”

Gary chuckled. “So this is state-of-the-art?”

“Hell, yeah.”

“Then Timmy, get the money together. Guy, tell them we have a deal.
Scott, you get the men. Let’s get this show on the road.”

~~~

“I’m going to do it.”

“Rache, do you have any idea how dangerous this is?”

“Like I said to you before, I like danger. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen?”

“You don’t know this guy. He could kill you if he finds you snooping around in his house. And don’t count on your charm to get you out of it. Added to that, you don’t have a warrant. You could be arrested.”

“Thank you for being my worrywart, but I can take care of myself, Sebastian.”

“Just make sure that you do.”

~~~

Nicholas came downstairs, rubbing his eyes. He hadn’t got enough sleep last night, or the night before that, or the night before that, for at least a week. He was becoming dependent on coffee, vodka, and cigarettes to keep his mind alert.

He collapsed onto the couch and turned the TV on. What he saw made him sit up, and rub his eyes once more, to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.

What looked like a good deal of the student population was outside the school, with signs which read, “Will not learn without Mr. Sloan,” “If you lose Sloan, you lose us, too,” etc. In spite of himself, Nicholas smiled.

Then he rose to his feet. He felt like he had to go and visit them, if only to convince them that they should go back to class.


“Hey, look!” shouted Hal. “It’s Mr. Sloan!”

The crowd of people rushed over to Nicholas, who seemed to shy away from them. “Calm down,” he said. “No need to get excited over this.”

“We want you back, though,” said Saul.

“Ah, Saul, you seem to be forgetting something.”

Saul looked puzzled. “Like what, Mr. Sloan?”

“Like the fact that you, as American teenagers, have next to no rights.”

“What about the Constitution? The Bill of Rights?” demanded another student.

Mr. Sloan was famous for never forgetting a name after he heard it once. He scanned the face for a second and then said, “Rebecca, during the Second Russo-American War, back in the fifties, the Russians used high school kids, American ones, to promote an anti-American campaign. The funny thing is, it worked…”

“Teaching a history lesson?” asked Pat Walsh, walking over. “May I remind you that you are not employed here anymore?”

“Do you have objections to me being a tutor?” asked Nicholas with an ironical smile.

“None, if you can convince these kids to go back to class.”

“Exactly what, Pat, do you think I’m doing? Now, as I was saying, the Russians’ anti-American campaign worked. Shortly after the war ended, the Supreme Court took away teenagers’ rights.”

“That’s not fair. Or constitutional,” said Hal.

Another ironical smile. “Well, it’s what you’ve grown up in. I imagine you should have known about it. And I agree with you, it’s not constitutional. But they can arrest all of you, and I have no doubt that they will.”

“But there’s no war going on!”

“Are you sure, Dave?” He snapped his fingers. “Do you think the government cares? They will simply treat it as a precursor to war.”

“This is not a democracy,” said Saul.

“As I taught you, yes, I know it isn’t. But you are teenagers without rights.”

“What about you, Mr. Sloan?”

“Me? I’m not a native-born American, and it’s just me. They’d do nothing except maybe arrest me.”

“So what can we do?” demanded Hal.

“Go back to class. Study hard, become lawyers, and protest.” A final smile, before Sloan walked off.

Slowly and disheartened, the students conferred, and then walked back into the school. Pat smiled to himself. He had never imagined that Nicholas himself would be able to break this walkout.

~~~

Nicholas walked into his house and frowned. Things were strewn all over the floor. He was a naturally tidy man, and disorder bothered him. He began to pick things up when he heard a noise from upstairs. Now he smiled to himself. A burglar would be foolish to try and rob this house. He walked into the living room, reached behind the bookcase, and removed a small, automatic pistol, the only reminder of his past life. Opening a hollow book, he pulled out a clip of ammunition. He loaded the gun, the first time he had done so in three or four years (but, for him, anything to do with guns had come easily to him and was something he would never forget.)

Slowly, he advanced towards the stairs, the gun at his side. He wouldn’t use it unless he had to, for it would make a mess that he would (probably) have to cover up. In a low voice, he said, “Whoever you are and whatever you’re here for, you made the biggest mistake of your life by coming here. Now, please don’t try anything stupid, like jumping out a window. That would just piss both of us off. So, just stay where you are, and then we can talk this out like rational people.”

He walked up the stairs, flicking off the safety catch on the gun as he did so. The noise was coming from…Nicholas listened intently, his head cocked slightly to one side. Definitely his study. He sighed loudly. There were some very valuable papers and things in his study.

He pulled open the door, raising his gun. He was shocked to see that new woman staring at him, also with a raised gun. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked. “Put the gun down.”

“You first.”

“I don’t work that way. You put the gun down, tell me why you’re here, and then maybe I’ll put the gun down. You don’t strike me as the type to rob a house, so I suspect you have a much better reason.”

She smiled maliciously. “Of course I do.”

Nicholas’ eyes narrowed as he thought about that. “You a cop?”

“Something like that.”

“Then let me see a warrant.”

“I don’t have to. I got an idea from the speech you made at the walkout. Shortly after those acts were passed, non-citizens also had their rights revoked.”

“I’m a citizen.”

“I wasn’t finished yet. I thought you were a history teacher. Six months after those acts were passed, only native-born citizens have rights.”

A whimsical smile crossed Nicholas’ face. “Land of the free, huh? This is not a democracy, as one of my students pointed out. This is practically a dictatorship. Only the “chosen ones” have any rights, while the rest of us are just dogs, left out in the rain, is that right?” He turned from her and walked to his computer. He typed at it for a few seconds, a smile broadening on his face. “There’s a little problem, Rachel.”

“What’s that?”

“You aren’t a native-born citizen, either.”

“How did you know that?”

He grinned. “You just told me.” He shrugged. “I had a fifty-fifty chance of being right.”

“Added to the fact that you have no rights, you have also just ‘appeared’.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Before three years ago, there was no such man as Nicholas Sloan.”

“Apart from that obvious falsehood, why does that matter?”

“It’s illegal.”

“What the hell isn’t illegal? Everything from smoking to name changes to abortion to god knows what else. It’s impossible to keep up with.”

“By the way, I could arrest you on the smoking thing.” She gestured at the ashtray beside her, filled with cigarette butts.

“But you won’t.”

“Tell me why.”

“You aren’t a police officer.” He glanced down at the screen.

Not knowing if he was just bluffing again, she walked behind him to look at the computer screen. It showed a colorful screensaver. “That isn’t going to work. Now, put your hands behind your back.”

“I have made it a policy of mine to never strike a woman. I don’t think I ever have, at least not intentionally. And I have no desire to start now, but I will if I have to.”

Rachel wasn't sure what to do. This was one of those bad situations that Sebastian had told her to stay out of. “Okay, what do you want?”

“For one, I want you to leave.”

“Anything else?”

His eyes narrowed. “I have the feeling you know something about me that you think I wouldn’t like to know.”

“So, are you admitting to a name change?”

“Of course not.” He raised his gun to point at her forehead. “Now get the hell out of my house, or I will shoot you. It’s as simple as that. And if you call the cops, well, what you did was breaking and entering. They won’t look too kindly on that.” One more brief smile. “And I advise you don’t go around telling strangers that you aren’t native-born. It could get you into trouble.” A part of him wanted to hit her around the head with the gun, which would leave a nasty bruise, but little else. But the other part of him had to acknowledge the fact that she was a woman. “But next time you come snooping around here, I will shoot you, no questions asked.”

Aevin

Hey, Crzy.

Your story was easy to read. You have a smooth, easy style that quickly puts the reader at ease. I liked the first section--the man you described definitely intrigued me. However, in the third paragraph, you destroyed your own tone by lapsing into an unnecessary physical description. Is this man Nicholas? If he is, you should wait to describe him in one of the later sections, when you can work in the description more smoothly.

The biggest problem I had with this section was its lack of focus. You have a lot of scenes with Nicholas, the Italians and Rachel, but bouncing between them as you do makes me wonder which one I should really be focusing on. The scenes with Rachel seemed sort of unnecessary; you might try revealing her role exclusively through Nicholas's sections. Because of the way you skip between these points of views, it's taking you too long to develop the plot and interest the reader.

But I did enjoy the piece, and read all of it in spite of the length. You should continue working on this, paying special attention to ways of making it shorter and more intense, and I'm sure you can improve it drastically. Looks good so far! Good luck with revision!

EDIT: Hee hee. I didn't realize you'd posted a second section. Maybe I'll come back and read that later, but I'm all critique-ified out for now.

--Aevin

__________________
"Go to, like, greater adventures!"
--Din from Namco's Tales of the Abyss

crzywriter

Yeah, i know. As I said earlier, at this point in my writing, I wanted to focus on description. Little did I know how bad it was, so convinced of my own superiority. HA!

Anyhow, the more I read this, the more I think it stands a chance. So when (read 'if') I ever have the time, I'll try and make something of it.

~Crzy

crzywriter

no one's posting, so i wil. this is the end of the first chapter, by the way.

“You did what!” shouted Matteo.

Feodor, who had flown in earlier that morning, sat, with his head bowed before Matteo. “It seemed like a good idea.”

“That was most of our supplies, and you know it. What immense stupidity could have possibly led you to do that?”

“It was Bannan’s idea,” said Feodor.

“That explains nothing. You should have both known better.”

Feodor chuckled. “We made them pay fifty million American dollars for it.”

Only now did Matteo smile. “God, we could buy it all three times over with that amount of money!” His expression hardened somewhat. “Who did you give it to? Can they be trusted not to rat us out?”

“They’re an amateur group of Brits…”

“Feodor, what have I told you about supplying amateurs?”

“We all start out as amateurs.”

“Who’s leading it? I’d like to check him out myself.”

“A man called Gary Rockwell. Lives in Liverpool.”
“Okay. One more thing. What exactly did they want these weapons for?”

Feodor grinned. “They are on a personal vendetta. They want…”

“Personal vendetta? Come on, Feodor, I know you better than that. Why would you give men you didn’t know weapons for something personal?”

“Because it’s not really personal. It’s of immediate interest to us as well. They are objecting the Americans’ government policy of name-changing.”

Matteo sighed and grimaced. “Come on, I want something better than that.”

“Chances are, Matt,” said Feodor, deliberately using the name that irked Matteo the most, “that this would be enough to push things favorably in our direction.”

Slowly, Matteo nodded. “So, exactly what are they going to be doing?”

Feodor nodded and proceeded to lay out the elaborate plan.

~~~

Captain Herman Witter rested on his bunk, his hands covering his eyes. His gun lay beside him, and his dirty hands were coating his face with mud. But he didn’t care. What he had just had to do would have been, fifty years ago, absolutely illegal. Today, though, it was just common practice.

Firing squads had been outlawed in the early twenty-first century, but America had brought them back. Herman thought it morally wrong that some drunken soldiers should shoot a group of women just because they refused to reveal their faces on demand. They were Muslims, and it was completely against their religion.

Now, it wouldn’t have been so bad if Herman and some men had just executed the soldiers. But no, they executed the husbands of the women! They were to be executed because, according to the President, “they had led their wives into disobeying the commands of men of the military”. Ignoring the fact that the soldiers were drunk, and had even admitted to wanting to rape these women, and the fact that there was supposedly freedom of religion in America, it was all fair. Yeah, right.

When he was a kid, he had grown up with the high ideals of democracy, though they were already becoming tainted, ever since the wars in the Middle East in 2035. That was when the restrictions started cutting in. But he was a citizen, through and through, and so had never thought much of it.

He had joined the army at eighteen, as was “recommended for all loyal, patriotic American boys”, which, in other words, meant you did at least your eighteen months in the service, or you could count on persecution for pretty much the rest of your life.

But that wasn’t the reason that Herman had joined. he had joined because he had (naïvely) believed that he could make the world a better place.

All through basic training and his time serving in some long-forgotten border skirmish in Africa (which actually caused all of the men to do an extra five months in the service), he had kept his opinions to himself.

He had kept his opinions to himself all through most of his military career, but now he was starting to get sick and tired of it. By now, he would have spread the word to all his men, but that would get him executed. So much for freedom of speech.

So, for now, he just fumed, waiting for another assignment to another war that no one would remember just to get away from this living hell that had once been called the United States of America.

~~~

Gary Rockwell was sitting in his living room, drinking a beer, when the knock came at the door. He set the beer down, muted the television, and walked to the door. When he opened it, he found a gun at his forehead. “Wait,” he managed to say. “Calm down.”

“You Gary Rockwell?”

“Yeah.”

The gun was lowered. Now Gary could see the man that had been holding the gun. He was around six feet tall, with an olive complexion and dark greased-back hair. His eyes were the color of steel, and looked to be just as hard. “My advice to you, Gary, is that you carry a gun.”

“What’s your name?”

“None of your damn business. Now, can I come in?”

“Do you promise you won’t shoot me?”

“No.”

“Why are you here?”

“Call me a representative of the Feodor Buhkarov and Hermann Bannan. I'm here to check you out before they sell you anything.”

“Fine.”

“Can you…call together all the men you’re working with?”

“Sure. But it’ll take a while for them to get here. Some of them live kinda far away.”

“Doesn’t matter. All the more time for you and I to get acquainted.”

~~~

All the men were there by three in the afternoon, and were, for the most part, annoyed at being pulled away from whatever they were doing. “Why the fuck did you have to call now?” demanded Guy, the most irate. “I was busy.”

Gary forced a weak smile. “There’s a man who’d like to meet with all of us.”

“Who?”

“Matteo Santo. I take it all of you have heard of him. He’s here representing Buhkarov and Bannan.”

At that moment, Matteo appeared behind Gary. “Nice to meet you, gentleman. Now, if we could, let’s get down to business.”

~~~

Nicholas sighed as he sat down and lit a cigarette. He had only just finished clearing up. Fortunately, nothing was missing, but he didn’t know if Rachel had had a camera on her. Some of his most valuable papers were in plain sight when he found them. And if she was really who she said she was, then chances were that those were the type of things she was looking for.

He rubbed his unshaven chin and fingered the gun at his waist. He couldn’t deny the fact that it felt so damn good to be wearing a gun again. But, he kept telling himself, he had given that way of life up, and he had no desire to go back to doing it.

Come to think of it, though, did he really have any choice? He didn’t have enough money to change his name again; hell he’d barely had enough for the first time. And if he stayed here, sooner or later they would come for him. After all this time, he was not at all confident in his ability to take down the number of men that they would be sure to send. So, really, his decision was already made for him. He sighed; he hated it when he waited so long that a choice no longer became a choice.

He stood up and stubbed out the cigarette. He had work to do.