Thursday, October 27th, 7:04 P.M. (Part 1)
When my parents first started giving me journals for
my birthday, they did so because they wanted me to document my life. They wanted me to document what happened in
my life, how it happened, where it happened, and when it happened. They also wanted me to document what I
thought about what was happening. I have
attempted to do this throughout my life with varying levels of success. Recently more significant things have been
happening, so I've been documenting more of my life. This documentation is especially important
today.
Let's begin where I left off. Not long after I finished my curse filled
rage entry about him, Commander Lider finally showed up and met with me. After offering me a seat and a cup of coffee,
Commander Lider started to lay out a role I could take in the Vierdestad Opfer
Military on a temporary basis. Lider was
talking about how I could work for the Intelligence Department, study the
verbrechers blockade, find weaknesses in that blockade, them exploit those
weaknesses so that the blockade would be broken and Rinoa and I could be free
to leave. I remember the bulletpoints of
what Commander Lider said and not specifics because I wasn't really listening
to him. Instead of listening to Lider, I
was staring at the random crap on the walls of his office.
After glancing at pictures of Commander Lider
standing next to someone in graduation attire and Commander Lider with a group
of people and a moderately sized fish, I glanced out the window of Commander
Lider's office. That is when I saw
it. I saw the opening shot coming
directly for Commander Lider's office.
In the middle of being told about the kind of binoculars I'd be using to
study the blockade, I yelled, "Get down!"
I was able to hit the floor and use a desk as cover
before the round went through the glass.
Commander Lider did not.
Commander Lider took the full brunt of the explosive round shot into his
office. The explosive round had, I
assume, it's desired effect. The objects
in the office were turned into a million different slightly charred bits of
barely recognizable material. The people
in the office were also affected.
The explosion caused the cut in my head to
reopen. Blood began to trickle down my
face as I crawled over to check on Commander Lider. If my bloodflow was a trickle, Commander
Lider's bloodflow was a large river.
Commander Lider was dead.
When I confirmed that fact for myself, I looked out
the window at where the explosive round came from. I wiped the blood from my eyes and scanned
the horizon at the place where I had seen the blockade before. The stationary blockade was no longer there. Instead, the blockade was traveling toward
Vierdestad. The vehicles that made the
blockade were speeding toward the city, firing bullets and explosive rounds as
they did so. The verbrechers were coming
for us. The verbrechers were coming to
attack Vierdestad and, if this attack was anything like before, their intent
was to wipe us out.
In moments such as this, the best people among us
think, or at least claim to think, wider than of themselves and their loves
ones. The best among us think of their
country, the people in general, the general future of things. I am not one of these people. In the moment when I saw verbrechers speeding
toward Vierdestad, my only thoughts were of Rinoa. My thoughts were of getting to Rinoa, making
sure she was okay, then getting us both out of the city.
When I stepped out of Commander Lider's office into
the open area of the military base, what I saw was chaos. People running around, vehicles nearly
hitting each other, nearly no one showing they had any plans as to what to do,
all the while explosions were causing every part of the military base to be
ripped to shreds. There was one man who
looked like he knew what he was doing. A
solitary man who looked to have some sense of what to do. As I approached this man I knew now would not
be a time this leader would be obsessing about trains.
I slid right next to Ushtar, defending himself near
a concrete barrier. Over the sounds of
the firefight, I said to the Captain, "Ushtar, what's the plan?"
"We repel the attack as we wait for orders from
Commander Lider."
"Commander Lider is dead."
"What?"
"Commander Lider is dead. An explosive round took out his office."
"Are you sure?"
"I was there when the explosion happened."
"Are you injured?"
"The cut I got from the plane crash reopened,
but other than that I'm fine."
There was a short pause as the fighting continued raging on. "Ushtar, what's the plan?"
"What?"
"What's the plan? How are we going to move forward? Who is the commanding officer now that Lider
is dead?"
Captain Ushtar thought for a moment about that
question. "I don't know who the commanding
officer is. I reported directly to
Commander Lider, all the Captains did. I
can't think of a senior official who takes charge in this situation."
That statement, coupled with an explosion that
caused dirt to fly into my headwound, caused me to take action. "Ushtar, we have to get out of
here. Those verbrechers aren't going to
stop untill we're dead. All of us,
dead."
"We can't leave the city to be conquered."
"They already are conquering the city. They've conquered all the cities. The tactics used by these armed verbrechers
groups are getting more ferocious by the day.
We need help."
"Help from who?"
“The Velasians.
If we get to Amcan, we can get the Velas Army to help stop these
verbrecher assaults."
"How do we get there?"
I'm not pretty thankful that Ushtar is obsessed with
trains. "Do you have your phone on
you?" Ushtar reached inside his flak
jacket and handed me his phone. I got
into his Train Tracker program, dug around a bit, then found what I was looking
for. "Look, there’s an operating
locomotive at this train station.
There's a rail line that leads from this station, out of Vierdestad, and
straight to Amcan. This is our ticket
out.
Ushtar looked over the rout that I laid out them
spoke. "I'm not going anywhere
without Grace."
"I'm not going anywhere without Rinoa."
"Do you know where she is?"
"Who?"
"Rinoa."
"No."
"Well, I know where Grace is. The problem is I don't know how to get there
without taking a road that will surely have an armed group of verbrechers on
it."
Had I known that Ushtar's phone had a maps program
on it at the time, I would have used it.
Instead I took out my Hipster and looked up possible routes between the
base and Stilen's Silkenries. Given my
change of devices and my inability to spell "Silkenries", this took
much longer than it should have, resulting in much more dirt flying into my
headwound. After several seconds,
"I found it. I found a route we can
take. If we take back alleys, we can get
to Grace's boutique while avoiding places where people looking to slaughter
large groups of people would go."
Again, Ushtar looked over the route that I laid out
them spoke. "Okay." Ushtar took a grenade off his vest, pulled
the pin, and threw it over the barricade.
Once it exploded, Ushtar said, "Let's go."
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