The Outlaw & The Revolution

A little short story I did for my senior project. I don't really like it, but I procrastinated a lot this semester and just finished it (it was due today) after it sitting 75 complete on my desk untouched for months.

Eh, the first "long" work I ever had the patience to complete, (actually, if it wasn't for school, it would have been in a landfill by now).

Very mediocre in my opinion, but I figured I'd post it anyway for criticism.

When they locked William Raembough up in Detention Block C on the Worthington prison vessel, I was drifting out of Oklahoma. That was only months ago, but Raembough�??s followers make it seem like two eternities ago. The government was trying to get him for years, and finally caught him leaving a small opium farm outside of Somerset, Kentucky. Raembough was a revolutionary of some sort, like a Che Guevara except in the form of a poet journalist. He was a real radical, wanted the North American coalition to stop concentrating on themselves and to start assisting the poverty stricken nations of South America and Africa. He must have felt even more strongly about it after Mexico was annexed, instead of bringing Mexico up, anyone who was anyone left for the mile high cities of the US and the rest rotted away in crumbling villages. No problem with me. Less people means less law enforcement. They call me an outlaw, a gangster, a thug, whatever. You could say that I don�??t have the most honest profession. Murder, drug trafficking, burglary, slave trafficking, in short, if it�??s illegal, then I probably have done it.
When people starting building upwards instead of outwards, a lot of people left the Midwest and lived in cities on the coasts. It was easier there. Poverty struck must of those areas because nothing was really there. The water and electric grids around there were all shut off. The Midwest became mostly rural farmland albeit a few cities scattered. That poverty became the breeding ground for the revolution. A lot of revolutionists grew up on those farms. Raembough grew up on one of those farms.
A few months after Raembough was locked up, I ended up in Juarez. I just got out of a half-year hiatus in Mobile starting in August. Before Mobile, I was working in Memphis on a big bank job. It�??s very rare that I work in a city, and even rarer that I pull one with other people, but it seemed like an adventure, and it sure as hell was. I made a good deal of money on that job, so I figured I�??d just live off of that for the time being. Of course, I couldn�??t live large, since I was on the FBI�??s most wanted list, so I decided to migrate to a third world country away from Coalition. Live with some drug kings or something like that. Raembough noticed us as well. Called us heroes to the cause, sappy **** like that. He didn�??t know the facts at all. We didn�??t do anything we did for anything but the money we would get, not for some revolution, and sure as hell not to be immortalized in some madman�??s poem. But we were, �??The Memphis Seven.�?� Like we�??re some superheroes for chrissakes.
After Memphis I went down to Mobile to lay low for a little bit. It wasn�??t exactly the R&R I was hoping for. I came down with Blue Fever. Must have caught it up in Memphis and nearly died from it. I couldn�??t just walk into a hospital since I would just get slammed by the police, so I tried roughing it on my own. Terrible idea. I nearly died in some shitty motel room. Luckily I started to regain my health a few weeks later. I wasn�??t back to one hundred percent, but I was doing well enough to move around the city. I met up with some revolutionists and hid away with them for a while. The feds must have gotten a whiff of where I was, and after some questionable activities, we learned there was going to be a raid at our base operations. The revolutionists were pretty brainwashed, and they were all for dieing to allow my escape. A friend of Raembough�??s is a messiah in their eyes. We came up with a plan. The FBI wanted me alive so I would tell them the locations of the other members of the Memphis Seven. One of the revolutionists dressed up like me, and the others defended their positions. It was a modern-day Alamo. The raid hit and a battle ensured. All that was left was the grand finale, which was a makeshift hydrogen bomb under the warehouse. While on the train there were tremors and news reports on a terrorist attack in Mobile. A big hole in the city, billions of dollars in damage. The man to blame was none other than myself. I was pronounced dead and my name dropped off the FBI�??s Most Wanted. In reality I had been on the train the entire time, but I won�??t argue. Raembough wrote a poem for me. What a sweetheart.
I arrived in Juarez in April. Wet season. I don�??t remember why picked Juarez as my hiding place. Maybe because Mexico had little to no law enforcement, or maybe because I was tired of the scorching heat of Mobile. How or why I was there isn�??t important, what happened there was. I was a fugitive, a dead fugitive. One glimpse from a lawman would make my name rise back up to number 1, especially since I�??m the blame for a few million deaths. I could easily pay for facial reconstruction. Money wasn�??t an issue. I had around four billion scattered in various banks under various names. I guess I was just young and reckless. Maybe that�??s why I was in Juarez.
The people there seemed nice. Maybe because they were dirt poor and I was a well dressed American. After the Blitz of 2156, Juarez was left in rubble. Cities weren�??t miles in the sky back then, but anyone who lived there moved away, and then moved out of Mexico after the annexation. Central America had been left in pieces after that war. People either went to America or the South. It�??s surprising that people still live there. They could at least survive in the American slums, or work on small farms of the Midwest, but some people just wouldn�??t leave. Very stubborn. Unfortunately, Juarez was filled with revolutionists who were in love with Raembough. Catholics. Praised both Jesus and Raembough. A sick juxtaposition if you ask me.
My life in Juarez started normal. It rained a lot. I lived in a room atop of a small tavern. I was an outsider to them. They didn�??t treat me poorly or anything, but they knew I wasn�??t one of them. I didn�??t talk to them, and they didn�??t talk to me. They tried to when I first came, tired to mooch some money. But after a young gang attacked me. After I nearly killed them, the town was filled with fear and no one tired anything. I paid rent, ate lightly like the rest of them, and sat around and did nothing. Juarez is a very sleepy village. It was a very boring existence, but I didn�??t mind. I wasn�??t looking for excitement. Excitement leads to me nearly getting killed by a viral disease or a hydrogen bomb.
A stranger walked into the tavern around Easter, and I realized Juarez was about to get a little more exciting. He was stranger to them, but I knew who he was. Tom Wilkes. He was one of the Seven. Demolitions expert. I was very suspicious of seeing him. Not only had been he arrested months ago, the newspapers stated he was found dead from blue fever while in prison. Raembough wrote him a poem as well, about the injustices given to prisoners. I guess that poem is utter bullshit since he�??s alive. Unless he was dead. Maybe he was a cop in disguise. But how would a cop know I was alive? I was as dead as Tom was. Or his death was faked and it actually was Tom. Maybe he was working for the government now, a double agent All these possibilities made my head ache, and I walked out into the muddy street a yards away from the man who looked like Wilkes. He turned to look at me.
�??Well I�??ll be damned.�?�
�??Yeah.�?�
�??Aren�??t you dead?�?�
�??Aren�??t you?�?�
He smiled and lit a cigarette. He told me the tale of how he had gotten blue fever, faked his death, and somehow escaped prison. I don�??t know how much I believed him, getting blue fever and having the strength to escape a high security detention center. I didn�??t really care; the government would give him a better reason than that if he was looking for us. He must have been there for some reason. Maybe it was the same reason I was there.
Tom told me he was running from the law. His death didn�??t last long and every agent from here to the Gulf was on a manhunt for him. He asked what I had been doing since Memphis, and I just shrugged.
�??It must be destiny.�?�
�??What?�?�
�??That we would meet each other again in some Mexican slum.�?�
I shrugged again and looked away at the rain pattering in the mud. He was different, I could tell by the way he spoke. We walked into the tavern and sat down. He told me how his life changed after Memphis. He apparently became a follower of Raembough, wouldn�??t it be my luck? I had my share of revolutionists and then another comes knocking at the door. He was just as bad as the rest of them, completely under the indoctrination of Raembough. He told me his plans as well as preached his beliefs. I just politely nodded, not wanting to offend him. All I wanted was for him to leave; he was being hunted down, while I just had my bounties waived away. I don�??t need some all-talk kid looking to make some bread off trying to gun me down every time I try and take a ****. It�??s annoying, disruptive, and I hate wasting ammo on kids trying to play cowboy.
Tom said he was recruiting young Mexicans for a guerilla outfit. He asked me if I was interested. I�??m not sure what he expected me to say. He knew my opinions of Raembough, he knew I had money, why would I want to join a guerilla outfit? I politely declined; he didn�??t take it politely. He started yelling, screaming that I wasn�??t good enough to serve Raembough. I apologized, but he wasn�??t having any of it. He stormed out with his truckload of young recruits. He returned a week later and took another truckload. The third time around he didn�??t even look at me. He limped into the tavern and sat down.
�??Memphis Blues?�?� the barmaid asked.
Tom sat quietly. I walked over. It was blue fever. I backed off. Rumor was will be fatal the second time around. I backed off. Even if it wasn�??t fatal, there�??s no way I was going to go through that again. Tom turned his head.
�??Well�?� you see that I�??m�?��?�
�??Dying,�?� I finished.
�??Yeah,�?� he muttered. He got up. �??I ain�??t dyin�?? here�?� not�?� not like this.�?�
�??Then go,�?� I motioned my hand to the door.
�??Me an�?? you,�?� he whispered, as he drew his revolver. �??Duel me�?�
�??Tom�?��?�
�??Come on�?� he coughed, motioning me out the door with his gun.
I knew there was no real way to avoid it. Tom was very stubborn, if I resisted, he would have shot me. I knew that if we dueled, I would win. I was always the better gunman, plus I didn�??t have blue fever. It would almost be as hard as shooting a dead dog point blank range. I put on my hat and walked out, with Tom trailing behind. He was wheezing and panting. I was surprised that he didn�??t succumb from the blues right then and there. We parted in the road, ten paces, and turned around. He pulled his gun out of the holster and tired his mightiest to take me out. It was almost funny, how the revolver looked like it weighed a thousand pounds in his hands. It looked like his fingers were all broken as he attempted to aim. After I grew tired of watching him suffer, I casually pulled my revolver out of the holster and shot him directly in the chest. It was not exciting at all. He gasped and fell to his knees and stayed there for a few seconds until falling face first into the mud. I almost pitied him�?� �??This would make a good ballad,�?� I chuckled as I turned back into the tavern.
It was not a joyous Easter in Juarez. Many of the men who Tom recruited were slain in a military raid at there camp some miles away. The women all wept for there brave heroic children who died honorably. Well, most were actually killed in their sleep, but don�??t tell them that. If Tom stayed there he could have been killed in some great battle rather than the pathetic way he died. I didn�??t want to kill him. I didn�??t particularly like Tom, but he wasn�??t bad enough for me to try and kill him. The only thing I felt when he fell into the mud was what a waste he made his life into. Fighting for Raembough.
It was still raining, and the buildings were already flooding. I needed to get the hell out of there. I was sick of the rain everyday, and if there was a raid ten miles, it wasn�??t unlikely that they would do a little sweeping over here to look for any other revolutionists. I rode out the next morning in the light drizzle to Mexico City. I got there, and saw on the news that there was a rocket in New York going up to one of those Moon colonies. It was then I knew that I needed to go there. If I was in outer space, I would be fine. I was dead already, who would look for me on moon?
The train ride was a long one, but the doors finally opened and I stepped out into the New York overcast. The sun must have been avoiding me. The flight was leaving tomorrow afternoon, 3PM sharp. I booked a hotel room to lay low in the big apple for the rest of the day. It was a nice difference from Juarez. The food was good and it was warm in the hotel. It didn�??t rain this high up, and on a clear day you can see the clouds fly through the city below. It was getting late. I decided to catch up on some sleep before I went out the next morning.


�??Abraham Fare.�?�
�??Here?�?�
�??Building 7, west. Stralin Hotel, floor 4, Room 213.
�??Well why here? Why would one of the most wanted men on Earth come to the most populated places on Earth?�?�
�??Maybe that�??s exactly why he came here. It�??s not too hard to blend in when there�??s millions of people living in one place.�?�
�??If that was his plan, it didn�??t work out too well for him. DNA sensors picked him up and traced him from when he arrived to entry upon the Stralin. We need to move in fast, before he kills someone, or takes out all of Column 4�?�
�??Is that even possible?�?�
�??Are you kidding me? Didn�??t you hear about Mobile? He took out three districts!�?�
I was tired of hearing them bicker, and finally renounced my silence. �??Alright then boys, let�??s stop playing around and get him.�?�
Fares was a psychopath. In �??63, down in Berkeley, he put a bomb on a metro loaded with school kids, and threatened to detonate it unless Congressman Phillips got aboard with a case with government documents pertaining to the Harris-Ghani heist that took place twelve years earlier. No one knew why he wanted it, but Phillips knew if he didn�??t get on board, hundreds of kids would be killed and their blood would be on his hands, ruining his career indefinitely. Fares was already a well-established terrorist by then. Phillips went on with the documents, was brutally executed, and left with the rest of the children who died when the bomb went off. Everyone thought of it as a miscalculation, and that the bomb went off on accident, leading everyone on board to dead, including Fares. A letter to the press from Fares he collected a bounty for a hit on Phillips, sold the Harris-Ghani heist documents to a foreign agency, and the metro explosion was �??just for kicks�?� revealed that he was very much alive. Then it turns out he had a part in the Memphis Bank robbery seven years later. According to reports, he was the enforcer of the job, the added muscle. According to reports, he did not let the hostages go, and opened fire into a crowd full of police, medical personnel, and civilians on his way out. As if stealing trillions of dollars wasn�??t enough, he had to shoot dozens of people, �??just for kicks.�?� The *******.
�??Is he still there?�?� I asked.
�??Uhh...�?� Reynolds replied, while checking the computer screen. �??Yeah he�??s still there. Not sure what he�??s planning.�?�
�??Let�??s not give him the time to. Assemble a team, we�??re taking this ******* out.�?�



I didn�??t get much sleep last night. It wasn�??t that I was uncomfortable, or scared, or worried, the opposite actually. It was strange, leaving the planet. Going far away to a new place, to start a new life. 12:41. Time to leave. I was already late. I walked out of the Stralin and called for a cab. As it approached, I turned to see the military enter the hotel, as well as another team position themselves on the east face of the building. The cab stopped and the door opened. I got into the car, and didn�??t look back.


�??Gone.�?�
�??****.�?�
Looking around, it was obvious he didn�??t plan on staying long. The room was tidy and nothing was particularly striking about it. No mastermind plans on the walls. Reviewing camera footage showed he didn�??t bring much, and left minutes before we arrived with what he brought. That meant we still had time to grab him before he escaped. �??Call HQ and tell them to do another DNA scan of these sectors. We�??ll find him.�?�


It�??s very high up, where I�??m standing. Freezing cold, but beautiful. You could see for miles and miles up here. This place is really beautiful. I never noticed that. Now I�??m going far away, leaving forever. The moon is a desolate wasteland. Nothing there but gray dust and big living complexes. Behind me, I heard a commotion at the elevator. Looking back, I saw the SWAT team coming out, sprinting towards me. I ran.
I kept running, looking over my shoulder they were on my tail. I ran towards a warehouse building about thirty yards away. I whisked past a small group of people and grabbed a woman by the throat, throwing her over my back and carrying her into the building. The doors shut and we starting walking upstairs. She kept screaming. I took my gun out and shoved it in her mouth to shut her up. It worked, somewhat. She kept weeping and moaning, but it wasn�??t anything I couldn�??t handle. I heard this all through my last days in Juarez. We reached the roof, the cold air rushed past me as I opened the door. I heard SWAT running up the stairs. There was nowhere to go. We went to the edge. There was a crowd of people, confused civilians mixed with police. The roof was bare except for an old storage container that was left there. We walked to it. It was older than I thought it was. About ten feet tall, twenty feet long. It was probably filled with stuff that built this place. I shot the old padlock lock off, and opened the door. It was half full of old mechanical parts. I let go of her and threw her onto the floor. She had stopped to a whimper. I examined the parts, looking for something I could use. No real weapons, no explosives. It was all useless scrap metal. There was nothing I could do to weasel my way out of this. My feelings of hopelessness didn�??t last long, as they were interrupted by the door from the stairs being kicked down. I heard them get into position. There was no way out. This was it.


This was it. The team positioned themselves around the container, aiming their sights. I pulled my revolver out, pulled the plunger back, stepped forward, yelling �??Alright Fares! We have you surrounded! Come on out now!�?� He snaked out of the container with a hostage with a gun to her head. He was serious. I was tired of this hostage bullshit. Every time we have one of these big catches a civilian who gets taken hostage ruins it. I wasn�??t going to let one girl ruin this. This was going to make my career. Who is one woman to a train full of children that he�??ll kill after this? Not this time. I raised my gun and shot, the bullet sinking into her skull. Fares looked shocked as he pulled back into the container. The soldiers weren�??t fazed. This was a take no prisoners situation. Fares needed to be killed. The hostage was an unfortunate causality, but those things happen. It easily be blamed on Fares, it�??s something in his nature. He kills trainloads of children. What�??s one hostage to that? We waited a few minutes, and the door finally opened.


I stared at her face, blood pouring out of her forehead. I didn�??t understand, this isn�??t how it�??s supposed to happen. That guy wasn�??t playing by the rules. I knew there was nothing left that I could do. I was good as dead. I didn�??t have enough ammo to take everyone out, even though by the time I got three shots off I�??d be dead. I ran over to the scrap, desperately looking for something to use. There wasn�??t anything. I had no hostage to negotiate with. I didn�??t have any information. I�??m a terrorist. There�??s nothing I can do. This is it. My last stand. I pulled my pistol out, placed my hands on the door, sighed, and pushed open.



The door opened and three shots rang out. One hit the ground, the other smacked a trooper in the facemask, and the third hit me in chest, pushing me off my feet to the ground.



I fell to my knees. Gasping for breath. I only got one. All that and only one. Hit another in the mask. He�??s fine. I�??m not. Blood everywhere. I can�??t breathe. It�??s all over now. I can�??t count the holes. The blurry soldiers stare at me. I try to lift my arm. I fall backwards. The sun is blinding. I just lay there. A ship takes off. It flies away. Flies o the moon. It�??s getting dark. I hear yelling. I�??m dead. The girl is dead. Do I regret it? I killed so many. Children, women, everyone. Thousands. Why? What reason? It�??s white. It�??s cold. I�?� can�??t feel anything. It�??s all over now. Maybe Raembough will write me a poem. That *******. I couldn�??t see. That was it. It�??s over. This is the end. It�??s very beautiful up here, cold, but beautiful.

That's not bad actually. Not the best I've ever read, but certainly not terrible. It was a little confusing when the perspective changed at first, but after that I liked the way thet the descriptions of Fares' crimes make him seem less like the protagonist.

I would ask how on earth the revolutionaries managed to construct a makeshift hydrogen bomb, but I'm just going to let that slide. Besides, it's the future.

Yeah well it's one of those things that I just wrote down and overlooked. The dates, and the time elapsed also may have continuity errors, but I really just rushed through most of it because I really just lost interest in the story.

From what i've read it looks really good, haven't read it all yet, probably will when i get some time.