oke, so, I posted this story during the Yellow competition, and I was just doing this to kick off the new miniseries. A set of 12. please do enjoy. I'll have the next one up in a few hours, to give you time to read this one.

Sanchez


Sanchez awoke, shivering, from a restless sleep on a damp, uncomfortable pallet. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and looked through the window at the gray morning outside. Window. What a joke, he thought. It was more like a gaping hole in the side of the condemned building in which he slept. He remembered the good times, when he didn’t have to worry about waking up cold and wet, and fight the rats for a few scraps of food. He had a family…and a home, up until the previous year.

It was 2008, and the United states was under martial law, a result of the constant stream of terrorist attacks. George Bush ruled the country like his own personal playground, and the US was on the verge of dropping into obscurity. Oppressive laws kept the people in constant fear of those in power, but Sanchez was different. He did his best to hide from the authorities, but when the sun went down, it was an entirely different story. They called him a revolutionary, a terrorist. His defiance was all that left hope in the hearts of the Americans.. During the day, he simply tried to avoid the ‘anti-terrorism’ cameras that were everywhere, with their searching eyes, and identification systems. This so-called ‘temporary solution’ had lasted three years already, and had shown no signs of being lifted anytime soon.

Sanchez walked over to the hole, and climbed out of the rickety, and abandoned building. He left the others who shared the building to sleep, and tried to escape the choking odor in the relatively fresh air outside. He checked his watch, more out of habit than anything else, as it had long since ceased to work. His eyes drifted to the horizon, where loomed his goal…The capital. He turned slowly, to look at what was behind him. Miles and miles of scarcely habitable land, dotted here and there with abandoned buildings, and the occasional fire, naught but a thin tendril of smoke disappearing into the sky.

Silently, another man joined Sanchez, and wordlessly nodded. He nodded in return, and the man silently disappeared back into the cluster of buildings, once a small town. Sanchez heard the brazen note of a long blast on a dented, and well worn trumpet. Behind him, he heard the sound of people rustling from their sleep, and gathering their things. The sound of fires being quenched, the curses of men trying to rouse those that had not made it through the night, and their hopeless cries when they realized what had happened. The silent man approached Sanchez, and handed him a chipped and dirty bullhorn. He began to address the crowd.

“My friends, the day has come!” He began. This statement was met with a half-hearted cry of approval. “Today, we, the people of this country will take it back! We will return freedom to our land, the way our forefathers wanted, and envisioned” More applause, and cheering. “Tonight, my friends, we unseat the tyrant!” A massive roar issued forth from the crowd. Sanchez watched his countrymen, and an overwhelming sense of pride swelled within him. When the shouts of approval, and roars of support died down, he shouted but two words into the bullhorn. “Let’s Move!”

At those words, the sizeable army jumped into various contraptions that vaguely resembled automobiles, in various states of wear. Some were hardly more than a chassis that was able to move troops. Others were more similar to large SUVs outfitted with various bits of metal strapped to them, and stolen weapons stacked to the ceilings in all.

As he made his way to the convoy, Sanchez couldn’t help but pray he had enough firepower to do some damage. He had no illusions about the extremely slim chances they faced. He was no fool. He knew that they, the oppressive force which he opposed, knew he was coming.

As they neared the city, he began to hear alarms sounding, much the same was as when he was a child, and the bomb drill claxons sounded while he was in school. He chuckled at this. These alarms had been made originally to keep the American people safe from the ‘Commies’, and now, it kept the tyrants that ruled the country safe from the people. Irony, it seemed, was in evidence here.

As they neared even closer, Sanchez began to hear the telltale thumping of low-flying helicopters coming near. He shouted something into the CB radio in the dashboard, and the caravan behind him roared into life, as 12mm chain guns began rotating, propelling hundreds of high-speed projectiles at the approaching threat. The metal tore into metal, and they dropped out of the sky like ducks shot in mid-flight. The caravan pressed on at high speeds, pressing ever closer to the beltway, all the while, the flatbeds with mounted weapons fired at the enemy as they closed in.

Sanchez issued an order into the CB, and a very large and heavily modified Range rover pulled in front. It lowered in front of itself a large metal plate that looked like a snowplow, and began to gain speed, nosing toward the upcoming roadblock. It bulled through it, and the rest of the caravan passed through it with ease. Once they were inside the borders, the various troop transports unloaded, and troops began to fan out, taking buildings by the score, while still other vehicles surged forward, passengers letting lose with various sorts of Molotov concoctions, setting flame to the city that had stood unmolested for nearly 200 years.

The guerilla-style raid continued through the night, and the revolutionaries, terrorists, in the eyes of those who they opposed, inched their way ever closer to the center of the city. Finally, at about an hour to dawn, Sanchez was at the gates of the White House. He issued the order to regroup, and there they stood, hundreds upon thousands of the people whom the man who sat a mere few hundred yards away had ground under his boot for the last 3 years…it was time to take revenge. In short order, the gate was torn down, and they began to march up to the doors. Snipers on the roof took their toll, but the single-mindedness of the mob prevailed.

Upon entering the opulence of the White House, they were greeted by a hail of gunfire from various places, but they attackers had the advantage of passion in the heat of battle, and they once again prevailed.

The attack nearly faltered at the doors of the presidential suite, but once again, the attackers were spurred on by passion, and they forced entry into the president’s chamber. There he sat. The man who had engineered their own suffering, sitting, smiling smugly, as they pressed their way in. Sanchez moved to the front, and drew his weapon.

“George W. Bush,” he began. “I relieve you of command, on the behalf of all present, and by proxy of the people of the United States, you are hereby dismissed.” He said in a brooding rage.

The president refused to move. It became apparent to Sanchez that he would have to take more drastic steps. He took a step forward, and raised his weapon threateningly. It felt oddly satisfying as he squeezed the trigger, and the bullet left the chamber. He watched, in slow motion, as it struck the president, slightly above his left eye, and ripped through his skull, to make a macabre splatter on the wall behind him. He holstered his 9mm Beretta, and silently waked to the window. What he saw would be forever burned into his memory. And it was satisfying. Against all odds…all odds, and all that opposed them, Washington burned before his eyes.


[Edited on 7-4-2004 by Loki]

K. I'm going to bed, so here's the second chapter.

Johnson



Suddenly awakened by a long brazen trumpet blast, Johnson rolled quickly to his feet, folded up the dog-eared blanket, and stuffed it in an equally beat-up haversack. His eyes betrayed the fitful sleep that he slept the night before; bloodshot and sore. He stepped out of the makeshift barracks, a half-destroyed apartment complex. The rest of his unit followed close behind him. He glanced at their faces. A half dozen young mugs that he knew well. They comprised a contingent of the 3rd peoples heavy auto cavalry, and he was their sergeant. The seven of them stood together, at a parade rest, as the general, a charismatic Mexican-American named Sanchez addressed the massed soldiers of what had become known as the People’s army.

As Sanchez’s words reached his ears, he could not help but be roused to action. He felt that hot sting of pride in his throat, and as the general concluded his speech, he could not hold back the prideful roar any longer. As he raised his voice to the sky, all those around him followed suit, until the entirety of the People’s army was cheering loudly.

“Let’s move!” Sanchez shouted into the beat-up bullhorn he used to address the crowd.

Johnson and the young men whom followed him made their way to the Ford Explorer that served as their assault vehicle. He vaulted into the driver’s seat, all the while issuing orders, as he fired the ignition, and the engine roared into life. The men took their places, and Johnson eased the truck onto the highway, speeding toward the nation’s capitol.

As he flew down the highway, he glanced once more over his shoulder at the young men huddled up on the bare metal of the floor. He imagined these young men-none of whom had yet seen their 20th birthday, embroiled in the battle to come. He highly doubted that even one of them would live through to the next morning. He moved his eyes briefly to the speedometer, and read the needle at somewhere between sixty and seventy.

He was immediately jarred into acute awareness by a voice, shouting into the radio. There, on the horizon were a dozen Apache helicopters. Several flatbed trucks with 12mm chain guns bolted onto them fanned out within the convoy. Within a few seconds, all of the guns had roared into life, and tear into the formation of helicopters. Simultaneously, the apaches let loose a salvo of low-ordinance stinger missiles that devastated the rag-tag convoy’s front end. Transports, gun-trucks, and various other vehicles were destroyed, and thrown aside from the road like toys by the explosions.

Johnson swerved to avoid a smoking crater, and nearly lost control of the vehicle. Again and again, he struggled to maintain control of the hulk, as he swerved around various obstacles; downed choppers, smoking ruins of vehicles, and craters left by stray missiles.

The next obstacle, however, Johnson was unable to avoid. A single tire rolled beneath the front left of the vehicle, and he hit it at full speed. The truck began to lift from the ground, and roll to the right.

Soldiers flew from open windows, and the roof that had been cut off, to be lost to certain death by the pavement that moved beneath them at a frightening rate.

Johnson, already light-headed from the loss of blood, which flowed like a river from the wide gash across his forehead, began to black out.

He thought back to the life he had, little more than a dim memory. The firm he worked for…the day the bank foreclosed on his house…the day that that damnable multi-billion dollar rocket left for mars, and with it the last of his hope for this country. He had but one regret when the darkness closed in upon him. And that was that he wouldn’t be able to see the end of it all.

Good to meet another Lokean.

I've always found Thurisaz to be a good rune, simply because of it's relation to the other runes being sort of paralleled to Loki's position with the Aesir. I'll definitely be studying up on Ansuz now. Thanks, man.

sanchez was really good
johnson nice follow up
looking forward to reading the rest.