The Randoms

For about 4 months I fell into a doozy of a writer's drought. It wasn't necessarily that I had no ideas during that time, it's simply that I had no time to translate my ideas. My head was so focused on other things during that time that even when time was given to me in abundance, I couldn't properly write like I had in the fall and winter. Near the end of my drought, however, I did begin to write some things and the ideas I had held in my mind began to take shape. The words spilled forth, the images splashed around in my head again. I could see my characters and settings once more, and finally I was heading toward a path to recovery. I wrote two short writings (Protocol and Oilists) right before I wrote At A Standstill and I decided to post them here. Look at these not as my best efforts, please. These two writings were merely creative methods for me to try and break free of my slump. These are almost like warm-ups, with At A Standstill being the primetime performance. So, if you find these to be weak, I probably agree with you, they're uneven and not fully thought out, but they are also glimpses into what a struggling writer is thinking.

Enjoy.

Protocol

I had been told by a nameless man in a well-tailored suit to "expect anything" and to "Shoot first. Ask never." The man made it clear that certain things happened here that no one could know of. It was bound to be exciting work. I had been working for three years now and knew the ins and outs of the entire 3,000 acres. I knew the building's layout like the back of my hand and the open fields surrounding it were like my backyard. The road that led to the place was not on any map that could be bought and no satellite in the sky could spot it. The property was owned by blacked-out names on pieces of paper that could not be traced. Everything that went on here was paid in money that came from nowhere and yet came in endless amounts. I received a paycheck every two weeks, but even after three years, I wasn't exactly sure who paid me, and I never asked. I knew scientists worked here, but I also knew they didn't work on behalf of any corporations. I was a soldier like the other guards here, but none of us wore medals, pins, or badges, and we were surely never awarded any. Nametags were not needed. Clearances were issued through barcodes tattooed on our forearms and through biometric scans. We had full permission to shoot intruders without fear of repercussions. My existence here was a trick of the mind, the fields did not exist, and the buildings were mere illusions. Even the air that we breathed here was just a figment of our imagination.

I got the call just as the moon reappeared from behind the clouds. The illuminated crescent lit up the grounds of the compound and distracted me from answering my walkie-talkie. I finally broke free of the hypnotizing beauty of the landscape and took the call.

"Lieutenant," it was the voice of my Captain, "We have a Red Alert."

I immediately took the safety off my gun.

A Red Alert could mean one of three things. It could be that a toxin had been released and evacuation measures were being taken. This seemed unlikely, seeing as none of the soldier's had gas masks on. Two, an animal test subject had broken free of the scientist's control. This was not the case as the building is constructed to resemble a maze and would take the most brilliant chimp hours to escape. Therefore, the soldiers would still be inside, checking the corridors and air vents. Process of elimination meant only one thing, there was a test subject on the loose, but this one was more like us.

The floodlights from the building shone down on the grass and did away with the stranglehold the moonlight had on the field. The spotlights from the watchtowers clicked on and swept across the ground like a painter's brush. Men with automatic rifles charged out of the many exits of the building and formed strategic patterns to move around in. I stayed a lone wolf, my rank giving me the choice to do so. If I chose, I could have taken control of one of the small groups now making a diamond-shape and giving each other hand signals.

A shot rang out from over my left shoulder, slightly startling me. A second shot came soon after, and then my walkie-talkie came to life.

"This is Tower 7. Target sighted heading to the Northeast corner. Repeat. Northeast corner."

Without hesitation I made a break for that direction, running as fast as I could while being weighed down by my boots and gear. Up ahead of me was a two-man team. One was crouched while the guy behind him was looking all around, walking upright with his weapon clenched close to him. I had never seen these two before in my life, but for all I knew they could have been working here longer than I had.

I went down on one knee for a moment, gathering my strength and catching my breath. I was about to radio the tower that had spotted the target when suddenly the two-man team came under attack. I fell to my stomach and aimed my gun, ready to shoot at their attacker. But peering down my gun's sights at the men some fifty yards away, I couldn't see what had ambushed them. All I could hear was the sound of punching and kicking, and the resulting painful cries from the soldiers as they continued to be violently beaten. I decided to flip open the LCD-screen attachment on my rifle, a special accessory that allowed be to see heat sources. Through my infrared view of the scene, there was definitely a third person there, thrashing away at the men with its own fists and soon with the men’s' own guns. By now they were surely dead, but the figure continued crashing down blow after blow upon the soldiers with the butt of the stolen gun. I looked away for a split-second in an attempt to contact the watchtowers as to the thing's position, but by the time I looked back, it had fled the scene. All that remained were two immobile lumps on the ground, slowly growing from red to yellow on my heat-sensing screen.

A rush of questions came to my mind about this thing, but I needed to focus on killing it first.

I stood up quickly and scanned the grounds through my infrared screen when I caught the figure heading for the forest surrounding the property. It was unimaginably fast and becoming a smaller and smaller target for me to hit. Finger on the trigger, I popped off two shots, both of them hitting the thing in the back. A guttural scream was unleashed from its direction, leaving me temporarily paralyzed, and staring off into the darkness. On the screen this thing lit up a glowing bright red, but with my God-given vision I just couldn't spot it. And that noise it made, that noise was animalistic.

I couldn't tell if the shots had stopped the figure or not, as there was no sign of it left on the infrared. I unclipped my walkie-talkie and radioed in backup to my location. It wasn't more than a second after my call ended that I was struck in the chest with the force of a full-speed truck.

My mind yelled out in pain, but with the wind knocked out of me, my mouth couldn't relay the message. My senses were assaulted from all directions. My ears heard nothing but a high-pitched ringing, my eyes seeing stars and blurred images of the moon above me, and the taste of blood flooded my mouth. The jarring impact had to have come from the thing I had shot. Within seconds the figure had raced over to me and drilled me. I managed to get up one one knee and noticed my left arm was a little limp. It had been knocked straight out of its socket, dislocated and useless to me now. I spit a mouthful of blood out and tried to regain my vision, intensely looking all around me for this thing. I clutched my rifle in my one working hand and hoisted it up high enough so that I could see through the screen. I jerked about in every direction with the gun shaking in my weakened arm. It didn't matter; I could see the figure now with my own eyes. It was on its hands and knees no more that 20 feet away, gasping for breath.

I finally dropped my rifle, both because I had become too weak to hold it any longer and because what I saw. It was a man, no doubt, but only pieces of him. I could see in the bright moonlight a part of his right arm, his upper thigh, his feet, and half his face, but no more. This was a man as disconnected to himself as my arm was to my shoulder. Protocol told me that the instant I had the opportunity to complete my objective, I had to take it. In this case, it meant killing this thing before me. I unlatched the sidearm from my hip holster and took aim, but I hesitated. I never hesitated, but this man kept me from doing my job. He looked at me with his half face, full of anger and pain. He was an experiment, obviously. He could have easily been a soldier from here who happened to draw a short straw as much as a captured enemy. Of the few things I knew, I knew the scientists here didn't discriminate on whom they tested on.

What was I supposed to do?

That was a question I hadn’t asked myself in years. I was expected to know answers. This was unacceptable of me and I knew it, and yet I stood still. I wanted to know more about this man. What had happened to him? Was he a part of some research into invisibility? Clearly they had partly succeeded.

"What are you?" I asked, still aimed right at where this man's chest would be.
He looked at me, unblinking, with a steely glare. He strained to speak, but he managed to deliver a haunting reality to me.

"I was just like you."

I heard approaching men on their way. To be found next to this man with him still breathing would have meant my immediate dismissal or worse. So I shot him. I killed him right there, without remorse, just as I was supposed to. No bullets remained in my pistol when I was done.

The soldiers arrived and questioned what had happened. I calmly explained what had gone on, and told them I would have a full report on the situation in the morning if they had any more questions. I walked away, leaving them to clean up the mess.
Just another day at work.

Oilists

I'm going to be honest with you; I don't like the titles and cutesy names thrown at me. I'm not a propagandist, I'm not a spin doctor, and I'm sure as hell not a liar. If I could choose a name for what I do, I would call myself an Executive Truth Argumentarian. But seeing as how that doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, the press tends to label me with those other words. My job is vital, like a spinal cord or a carotid artery. In the past they used the title Press Secretary, but today it is officially designated by The Government as “Press Liaison,” which, as fancy and fabulous as it sounds, isn't for the faint of heart.

Lucky for me, I'm living in a world at peace with itself. Neighbors love thy neighbors and everyone's got a chicken in their coop and a car in their garage. The poor saps before me in this role have dealt with famines, holocausts (nuclear, racial, and environmental), and political corruption. They've been turned into human dartboards by reporters, throwing pointed question after question at them, demanding to know how Situation A is going to be solved while Situation B is still going on, and little do they know Situation C is about to rear its ugly head. But me, well, I have not had to deal with any of that.

Like I said, we are living in the closest thing to perfection that this planet has ever seen. We haven't had a war in 30 years, unemployment is something from the previous generation, and money is plentiful. We've transcended capitalism, democracy, and equality in the process. You can ask me how the hell we got to this point, but I won't have an answer for you, and I promise, it'll be the only time you'll catch me without an answer to something.

We live in peace, harmony, and tranquility. Marked only by the occasional terrorist bombing.

It's nothing, really. It's like the hiccups, it pops up out of nowhere, annoys you for a short while, but then it goes away and you get on with your visit to the mall. I've managed to live with it, and as is my job, I've made the public live with it. It's an inconvenience at worst. This being the only "danger" in our world, I can focus my full attention on it, and make it seem as if it about as big a deal as a car crash. It happens, a loved one dies, and we move on with our lives. This is my job; I see the bad shit going on and make it palatable for the people at home watching the nightly news.

If it weren't for me, my countrymen would be living in a state of constant fear. But thanks to my careful wording and comforting attitude, I've allowed Mom and Pop to take their kids to the playground and worry as much about a terrorist strike as they would a lightning strike on a sunny afternoon.

However, some have claimed I'm a liar. That I look at an occurrence like last week's train station bombing and say, "shit happens." These people don't know that I anguish over every life lost in these incidents; I just manage to get myself together during the press conferences and deliver my briefing. They say I'm disregarding the threats around every corner, but you know, it's almost as if my critics want to be in fear around the clock. They want their kids to be afraid. They want little Johnny and Susie to know that the train station bombing killed 45 people. But real numbers scare people. I can tell the truth to the public just as easily by saying, "a number of our countrymen and women were struck today in an unfortunate event." Where's the lie in my words? Is that event not unfortunate? My critics wish us to live in fear while I try to lead the people to realize that life is good. We are safe.

These terrorists though, I'll admit, are craftier and more dangerous than in the past. These aren't Russian Separatists, or Islamic Jihadists, or any kind of Neo Nazi. Laugh as you might, these are people dedicated to a dying resource. They're fighting for survival in a match that's already declared them the loser. They will die out eventually, but until then we have to endure the chaos they cause.

These men and women are labeled as "Oilists," dedicated to the near-dead resource until they die. As the rest of the world developed, and breakthroughs in technology led us into a world of solar-powered transport and various other "near-to-naught" emissions machines, these people stuck to their guns. There's not much nuance to them, in the beginning they'd strike wind turbines, "green" factories and buildings, and anything else they considered anti-oil. Soon they moved smaller. Striking the cars of average countrymen, and it was then that panic spread. Anyone with a carbon-conscious possession could be struck. Their history is really as pointless as their existence, so I'd prefer not to discuss them much more.

All that needs to be said is that they are striking still, striking often, and striking hard. But thanks to my work and the work of The Agency, we've calmed the public down and are working on tearing down this fledgling organization. Scientists have told me that they've pegged the last drops of oil to be consumed within three years. In my relaying words to the public, I've assured them that, "The end is on the horizon and coming fast. In a world free of Oilists, true peace on earth can finally be achieved." They gobbled it up. Fear had been quelled for another day and millions of lives were able to continue uninterrupted. They didn't need to know Oilists had blown up an ethanol plant and killed 103 that day, what good would it do? My job had been done.
________________________________________________________________________

He had written his last will and testament the night before. He knew what his mission was. He knew it was more important than any before and that his one act would change the direction of the way people perceived him and those like him.
Today, he would change the world.

He walked through the terminal with stoic confidence. He had mastered an emotionless face over the past months and it was all being put to the test at the moment. He wanted to sweat, and they knew he wanted to sweat, so they developed an intricate cooling system around his body. Small tubes of chilled water ran all around him under his clothes, ensuring his body temperature remained at 98.6 degrees. They knew he was afraid, but there was nothing they could do about that but promise him that what he would do was for the greater good. His monumental feat would open the eyes of everyone, and that this is what they had all been working for.

He got through security easier than expected. Screenings were minimal in this day and age, and this proved to be incremental in the mission. He smiled as he past the attractive security guard. He didn't look like what she was looking for. Which was exactly why he was chosen.

For too long they had been stereotyped, but now they would use that preconceived perception against them. Their cause was as strong as ever, and as distorted as ever. He could remember the beginning, he was there, the historical moment it began, and it amazed him how far they had come. That warehouse where he stood along with hundreds of others, cheering, chanting, and yelling. Calls to "Never Fall" nearly blew the roof off the place. He had sworn an oath to himself to follow this noble effort wherever it took him, and after 10 years it landed him in the largest airport in the world, carrying a backpack full of ammonium-nitrate fertilizer and diesel fuel canisters.

He and his fellow activists had been in a long battle that had led to the death of many friends of his. He shook each one off and carried on, knowing that the cause was bigger than one man. Except in this case. His enemies reigned supreme, they created laws and enforced them, they made executive decisions, and they ruled over him and all his countrymen. He and his like-minded thinkers fought The Government with every breath they took. He hated them because he knew what they did, what they were doing now, and the unimaginable things they would do if he were to fail. They had waged deception upon his fellow citizens constantly and had been for years. They gave them freedom in exchange for ignorance. Peace for obedience. What was worst, in his mind, was that all the others knew it, but they just kept their mouths shut and lived. The press had never backed down, but knowing they were harmless against them, The Government continued to humor them.

He wanted to change that. He fought the increasing propaganda to "Buy Green, Buy Wind, Buy Solar." He saw irony in the fact that these were all things that were free to all, but that The Government had seemingly gained a monopoly on the environment. Other countries followed suit. The remaining oil empires eventually lit their reserves aflame and watched an end of an era go up in a thick black cloud.

He couldn't let this happen. Governments around the globe were gaining money in unthinkable quantities, establishing laws that ruled out any chance of competition. They controlled the land in a new way now. They called themselves democracies, but were slowly trying to eek out competitors everywhere, aiming to become a company running a country. The one chance to set things back to normal was to get oil back in the picture. While everyone had wind and sun, oil existed in finite amounts. When some have and others have-not, competition ensues.

This is how the Oilists began.

He could never explain it well enough in words. The concepts involved were complex, and this issue was very difficult to understand. When discussing it, he boiled it down to this, that the governments had become monopolies thanks to alternative fuel profits and were cracking down on any sort of competition whatsoever when it came to the business. His organization fought for capitalism, and believed that the resource of oil would reignite the lost economic approach. To do so, alt-fuel sources all over the world would need to be struck. Air travel, factories, fill-up stations, and even the cars of average countrymen. There would be massive casualties, innocent people would die, as they had in the past, but they would get over it when they realized they had been freed from such an oppressive system.

He was the catalyst.

He would set the world on fire.

The plan was set up so that everyone involved would know when each bomb went off. When he started it all, the next guy would set his off at his location, and then the next and on and on until the fuse burnt out. It would be a chain reaction of terror. He hated to use or even think of that word when he considered the plan, but he knew fear would beget results. The result would be change.

He saw the departure gate thirty yards ahead and knew he was at the threshold, the point where nothing could stop him. This fact brought a smile to his face, especially when he heard men far behind him begin to yell. They screamed in panic and with a strain to their voice. They knew who was and what he was going to do, but it was too late. He turned around to look at the men as he continued to walk to the gate, the smile still prominent on his face. He walked on, past the woman asking for his ticket, and onto the plane. The plane, clean burning and environmentally friendly, was a prime symbol of The Government's stranglehold on energy and power.

This symbol was now at his mercy.
_______________________________________________________________________

The news came on at 6 o'clock on the dot. The screen clicked to life and the blurry image of the anchor and his desk slowly faded into a crystal clear picture. The newsman, usually composed and objective, was in obvious disbelief. His hand on his sweating brow, he couldn't bear to look at the camera right away. He shook his head, barely able to comprehend what he was being TelePrompTed to say. The news had come so sudden, with such shock to him, that it forced away any ability to keep himself together. He finally moved his hand over his mouth and stared at the camera. He was trying hard to get to the point. He knew his audience was waiting with bated breath and tears in their eyes for him to say it. They needed official word. They needed to hear it from someone they still trusted. The newsman had to tell them. Moving his hand away so he could speak, he brought himself to announce the news.

"Ladies and Gentlemen at home and around the world, good evening. I'm here tonight to bring you news that I myself have trouble believing could ever happen. At exactly 5 this afternoon, a plane in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia was blown up in what is almost unanimously believed to be a bombing by the terrorist group The Oilists. 130 are believed to be dead. Reports coming in have not given us any hope for survivors. This started a chain reaction of epic proportions. Around the world, locations were struck, places seen as symbols of hope and the future for us as a human race. Massive truck bombs and various other devices leveled alternative fuel plants in the United States. Wind farms were systematically destroyed in Australia's Outback. The solar fields of Egypt were blown to bits, beyond repair. Worst of all, in mine and many others' eyes, were the attacks today on the things that help transport us, the things that we take for granted. Aside from the plane bombing in Riyadh, 46 other planes were bombed in countries all across the globe. Freeways from Los Angeles to Hong Kong were reduced to ash as either planted explosives or car bombs mixed in with traffic blew up thousands of cars. Planes fell out of the sky today as mid-flight detonations turned them into freefalling firebombs. No estimations have been made yet since the worldwide chaos ended, or hopefully ended, approximately half an hour ago. Deaths could range from 50,000 to 100,000 killed in total. Staggering figures that just buckle your knees and makes you wonder 'why?'"

"The Oilists website has been all but wiped clean for the time being. A simple banner remains, reading, 'Today We Changed The World.'"