The Mighy Pen

Jacob Bencker 9/6/12
Special thanks to Martha Engwall for creating the idea of Mall of America being a refugee city and the main park being a greenhouse for crops.



The Mighty Pen
A tyrannical and positively, diabolical short story


We’d been searching for him for almost five years now. Every time that we’d thought we had him; he’d slip out our hands, always one-step ahead of us. Our last attempt to bag him cost us 62 men and a Rigger Tank. Our information network had reason to believe that he was hiding out in this old house in the ruins of Brooklyn Park, which is about a ten-hour hike from the city of Moa, or former Bloomington.
I lead a team of 120 men and two Rigger tanks over to BP, to nab him. But when we got there, he had men lying in wait. It turned out as a wild goose chase planned by him. I lost more than half my men in that ambush and would've been more if it weren't for our tanks providing cover and absorbing most of their fire; that coupled with Depp’s charismatic leadership.
After that, we retreated as fast as we could back to Moa. Now, we were out of leads with no idea where to look for him next. My name is Jim Harrison, and I’m the leader of a militia-turned-freedom- fighter group, the Semper Scrittura Resistance Alliance, or SSRA for short. Under me is Captain Jack Sparrow, my second in command.
I suppose I should fill you in on how Jonny joined our group before I lose you. He joined us about seven years ago, back when we were still establishing Moa as a city. The people immediately recognized him as Johnny Depp, some guy who played this Pirate captain in a movie a years ago, back when they still had those things. Pretty soon, we notice his…persuasive, leadership qualities and decide to put him in command of a few men. Apparently, he suffered from some delirium due to wandering the Desert of America for so many years prior, (don’t know how the %&# he survived) because he sincerely thought himself to be his character, Captain Jack Sparrow. In fact, he even insisted that we addressed as such, (especially the Capitan part). Eventually, people got so used to calling him that the name just stuck. It’s odd to be calling him by his real name these days. Besides, he climbed through the Moain Militia ranks to reach captain anyway, it’s now totally official to call him that anyway.
The SSRA used to be the Moain Militia, the protectors of Moa; a city built into and from the ruins of the Mall of America and surrounding buildings. The stores inside Moa once filled with busy shoppers and employees attending customers are now filled with refugees living in tents and sleeping bags. The misty fountains of the place, once used for recreation, now deliver rainwater collected on the roof to the thousands of thirsty residents living inside; the walls of the building continuously carry the voices of the citizens dwelling under her roof. The main park, once called Nickelodeon Universe, has been converted into a massive greenhouse that houses rows of plants and crops for our food. The remains of the famous children’s rides, most of them gutted for parts long ago, stand as great reminders of a lost time long since passed.
As of current events, a few Blood Clans have made camp on the outskirts of Moa and seem to be inching closer and closer every day. We'll need every man available if we're going to drive them away, but if those crazies somehow get ahold of some serious firepower, like an old Howitzer cannon or something then we'll really be in a big fight. The recent drought is a huge problem and I don't know where we'll find more water if we don't get rain soon. Then there’s some brigands breaking into the city late at night, and of course the cold front killing the crops we plant around the buildings on the limited fertile soil we have.
Heh, I find myself laughing once in awhile about the Old World. The planet hasn't always been like this. That is until that man I mentioned earlier showed up. We call him The Author, a real mysterious guy with a taste for the theatrical and an ego as big as Gulf of Mexico. See he’s got, well, we think he’s got, this pen see? But it’s no ordinary pen. No, it’s a “magic” Pen, for lack of a better term. And whatever this guy writes with it comes true. If he wants to bring back several extinct species of bird, so be it, that’s all right in my book. But when he wants to turn the whole world into an apocalyptic nightmare, with mutant freaks and cannibals running around trying to kill us few survivors that fight for what few resources are left. Well, that’s gonna make a guy real mad real fast. From where I'm standing right now, the whole world looks like a big ol’ ruin in a big ol’ desert under a big grey sky. It’s #$*&#* bleak!
Yeah and this $%#&** a real tyrant too; and only recently did we even figure out what exactly happened to the world too. One day, back in 2004, everything’s fine in the world. Then the next day, before anyone knows it, an experimental bioweapon escapes from a research lab and killing millions of people within a few hours. Then the nations of the world panic, assuming the virus is an attack from enemy countries and start fire nukes at each other. Soon, people lock themselves in fallout shelters to try to wait out the chaos outside. Five years later, we survivors emerge from our shelters to try and make a living out of the scraps still left over on this living nightmare of a world.
You’re probably thinking to yourself, How do I know that The Author and his little pen is responsible for what happened? Blaming the scarring of the entire Earth on one man seems a little convenient, right?
It all happened around March 13th, 20__ I’d sent out a squad to patrol the eastern outskirts of Moa. When they gets back, one of the men hands me this journal that he found lying in the middle of an old road.
“What’s this?” I ask,
“Just read it.” he says. So I do. And the first thing I notice is the flipping glowing ink on the pages! Seriously! I’ve seen alotta strange stuff before, but nothing like this. The ink shined like a dark blue glow stick on a strip of velvet. So I call over Captain Sparrow to take a gander at it and I tell you what he’s as surprised as I was. We both had never seen anything like it before.
We start reading it, noticing most of the pages were filled with stories depicting the war. Accounts on how the war started, the war itself, the aftermath, and how people learned to survive years later. They even went so far as to depict Moa’s recent troubles.
It was then we got ourselves to thinkin’, whoever wrote in this journal had decided to document everything that happened to the world since the war, in addition to the history of Moa and local events. But for someone to write about Moa specifically, meant that they had to be living somewhere nearby, perhaps even within Moa itself. We brought the book to the Moain High Council, who was as intrigued about it as we are.
When we noticed that the dates stamped into the journal entries were a few days before each particular event actually happened, one of the council members offered, “Maybe dis man who ‘rote dis is a fortune teller, a prophet”. But her comments were disregarded with skepticism.
After they talked ‘bout that dang book for at least three hours, I finally had enough with their discussion. I offered to keep it in my possession until more information could be acquired about it, considering almost everyone there was ready to write it off as a “improperly dated history book”.
Later that night, when I get snugged up into my tent on the second floor of Moa, I decide to take out that book from my pack. Something about it kept bugging me. I lit a candle and start skimming over the stories. They weren’t particularly well written, but they kept my attention long enough. Eventually, I got to the parts regarding Moa’s afflictions, (Everything from the bloodclans camping nearby to the cold front killing the crops. I was thinking to myself, this guy tells it like everything that happened to us was as if it was a part his own story. What really made my skin crawl though was the note he put in the back of the last entry. It read:
‘Harrison sent out a patrol to the east where one of his men discovered this book. The Author had been careless and left it in a place where someone could easily find it. When the book was read, everyone passed it off as a well-written, useless little book on history praising the author’s mastery of the English Language. Harrison decided to keep the book in his possession until they could learn more about it. Later that night our hero, had decided to give the book a read where he was to discover The Author’s message for him…’
“Holy %#@*!” I yelled.
Then I was thinking: That crazy speculating earlier at the council wasn’t as crazy as we thought it was. This guy didn’t just predict what was going to happen; he knew what was going to happen! Just like he knew I was going to find this book and pick up and read it tonight. But how?
That thought bugged the ^$*# out of me for two weeks straight after reading that. I devoted a lot of time, as much as I could, to thinking about that book and the guy who wrote it. How the heck does this guy know what he knows? I’d get my answer soon enough though, because we found another book. This one was one in pretty good condition, bound in worn leather. But when I pick the thing up and opened it I noticed that all the pages were empty. Save for one. It read:
‘Hello Mr. Harrison.
Why don’t I spare you the trouble of having to waste anymore of your time thinking about how I can predict the future and tell you plainly?
I know because I write it. I write the future. I’m the author of the story you’re in right now. And you are my main character, the one who will die a- well, let’s not spoil the ending for my readers shall we?
Don’t believe me? You really think that it’s a fluke that you acquired that last book by accident? The one that predicted its own finding and the exact person to read? I don’t believe in coincidences Mr. Harrison and neither do you. Wouldn’t this give you enough reason to try and find me? To have me tried and hanged for the murder of billions? Yes do that, find me. Search for me. I’ll love the exhilaration, the excitement of the chase. Oh, how the heroes will try desperately to locate a charismatic, handsomely dashing, and cunning villain that continuously eludes capture their capture. But soon, the villain makes a mistake in covering his tracks and the heroes finally manage to track him down.
While a climactic battle ensures between the good and evil forces outside the villain‘s lair, one of the heroes will stay to lead the battle while another will enter inside the lair to confront their cunning foe. And, oh why not, let’s say something unexpected happens during the climatic confrontation, I’ll say, just to make things interesting. No, I won’t write the ending to this story though. You know, to give you a fair chance to win. I’ll leave that to the victor to decide how my masterpiece ends. The winner of the story can have my Pen of Aegis to conclude this tale how he sees fit. Leave the ending ambiguous! Keep the readers guessing!
But how exactly will this story end? You think about that. Will I kill you myself with my handgun or will you get the drop on me and wretch the Pen from my cold dead clasp? You choose!’
Everything happened exactly as he wrote it. I give the book to the council, who had a surprisingly easy time believing the book now. I get a troop together from the Militia forces to start searching for him. The Militia would stay and protect Moa while my group, the SSRA as we called ourselves now would scour the wastelands for The Author.
Fast-forward to today. After five long years of vain searching and that ambush he laid for us that I mentioned earlier, I confessed my doubts to Sparrow.
“Jack, I’m beginning to think we’ll never find this guy.”
“Why do you say that mate?”
“Let’s face it; we’ve not a clue to this guy’s whereabouts since reading that book. The trail has gone cold.”
“So what?”
“How do you know that this whole thing wasn’t some elaborate joke by someone? Or a ruse to distract us from protecting Moa? Ever since we’ve started looking for him, Moa has attack numerous times.”
“Mate, listen to me. Sometimes when it seems like the whole bloody world is against you, ya need to just batten down the hatches and ride out the storm. You never know, maybe we’ve just been missing something all these years? Maybe a clue has been sitting right in front of us the whole time?”
“Who’s that?” I whispered.
“Who’s who?”
“Shh, quiet! That boy, sitting at table in front of us.”
“What? Em over there?”
“Yeah, have you seen him before?”
“Hmm. Can’t say I have. Have I threatened him before?”
“Probably not. Jack,
“Captain, mate.”
“Whatever! Look, I’ve been living here for most of my life. I know almost every person’s face by heart and I’ve never seen that guy before.”
“I never seen such a bloke his age writing at all. Most don’t write these days.”
“Yeah I know…You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“If what you’re thinking about is rum, then yes.”
“I’m thinking we should keep an eye on ‘dis guy.”
So Sparrow and I start watching him. Eventually we get his daily routine down. Every morning he comes into the City’s former food court area and sits down against a wall. He comes in around 12 noon, starts writing and doesn’t stop until 6:00 at night when he leaves.
Then I have one of my men track him home one night. The next morning, my soldier reports to me that he found The Author’s lair; an abandoned bunker hidden in a small mountainside and it is, in fact, heavily guarded. Well, once I hear the news and the details of the place, I send Jack to rally the men for the fight of their lives. We assembled our group of 500 men and five Rigger tanks for battle. At dawn we marched of The Author’s lair.

It can be so exiting being the author of a story. I hear the roar of battle outside. That must be Mr. Harrison and his silly goons. It’s about time I climax my story. After five long years of running from the Characters, building the suspense, getting the reader’s committed to the story and whatnot. I leave a trail of crumbs for Harrison to follow. And what de-ya-know, he brought a small army in tow to face me and my men. Gosh what a surprise. It’s like I saw that one coming a mile away. But whatever. Pretty soon, that unexpected thing that I wrote in will happen. Fortunately for me and unfortunately for Harrison and his friends, I’m already prepared for what’s going to happen next. As soon as he finds me, I’ll write in myself a pistol or Minigun or something and kill the poor sap before he knew what-
*The Villain was flabbergasted to find a man standing in the office doorway pointing a Flintlock Pistol only inches away from his face*
“…Why don’t you put that Pen down there, mate?”
“Why…Mr. Depp this is a surprise, I didn’t-”
“It’s Captain actually,”
“I’m sorry?”
“Captain…Captain Jack Sparrow.” the Pirate corrected.
“Sorry…Captain Jack Sparrow…I didn’t expect you to be here. I was waiting for Mr. Harrison-
“Oh he’s here alright, fighting your men outside this very office room in fact.”
I replied, “…Yes, I can hear that. But, that’s not exactly what I meant. See-”
“You were expecting me to be the one fighting your men outside while Jim heroically confronted you, weren’t you?”
“Well…yes….actually.”
“And then he’d probably yell something heroic and attack you, while you did something particularly un-heroic right when he thought he was about to kill you. And then you’d kill him, win the day, finish the story, exaggerate your non-existent good looks, social life, and ability to pick up attractive women in hopes that your readers will somehow fall for your ruse and think you to be something of a great person, savvy?”
“…”
“ Savvy mate?”
“Yes, Captain, indeed, You somehow managed to…reveal, my thoughts to the… exact letter.”
“It helps to look in between the lines…and read your private journal…and be Captain Jack Sparrow.”
“What?! I never gave you fools- where the #$*% did you get this?”
“You said something ‘unexpected’ would happen at your climax ‘…to make things interesting’. Guess you didn’t think that that event would be you carelessly leaving your ongoing journal on the ground as you left for home last evening.”
“I never figured you to be an avid reader.”
“Only the good ones, especially one about me.”
“I should have known.” I replied
“Yes you should have.”
“So how is this going to end? I don’t want to leave things up in the air for my readers.”
“Well my idear was that ya write in a rum cache and then put that pen down. Then I’ll drop my sword and then Jim, you and me can forget about this whole thing over a drink.”
“What about port?”
“I prefer rum…rum’s good.”
“ ‘And they all live happily ever after?’ ”
“eh, pretty much.”
“Yeah, sounds good. But you’re forgetting one thing.” I said. All I’d have to do is write a .44 Magnum into my left hand, say a witty remark, jump out of my chair and shoot the stupid git in the head before he knew what hit him.
“The Pen is Mightier than the s-”

Hello there. This is your favorite Pirate, Captain Jack Sparrow here to fill you in on what just happened. My little writer friend, well now dead writer friend, tried to pull a fast one on ol’ Jack here. But since I’ve got the reflexes of a cat and the intuition of a scoundrel, I shot ‘em before he could finish what I’m sure he thought to be a witty remark. I’d thought it only be appropriate to end this story on a ship sailing off into the sunset, instead of on a cliff: I’m gonna walk out of this room with this pen in my pocket and a bottle of rum in my hand and pretend that the Pen, “exploded in an brilliant burst of fire that nearly got one of me eyes!”, sneak back to my room back in the city and set about making the world as it once was. With a few… minor changes of course. The kind that suit the likes of a detestable scoundrel such as meslef.
Drink up me hardies, yo-ho!”