The Statutes

It was the same night as always when I stepped out into the night, it was about ten thirty and it a briskly winter night. The little town of Banai was out in the distance. I have always grown up on the outskirts of Banai. I did not have many friends but one. Courtney Wallace the girl I have known since I have been alive, my only friend. My mother was waiting for me at the house; she had the normal dinner waiting for me, beans and a small sliver of meat. My mother looks fatigued like she hasn’t slept in three days, but she still greeted me with a smile. After dinner I washed up and went to bed. As I laid in bed I thought of how my life has turned like this. A timid boy stuck in a small home town miles from any other inhabitants. Two weeks back I kicked my step dad out of the house after he hit my mother. My mother was relieved but that did not last long as we were now in serious trouble. We were violating one of the statutes saying that every family consists of a father, a mother, and one child.
I woke up the next morning to my mother calling to me as I threw on a t-shirt and a pair of cargo pants. I was surprised to see two USPF officers standing at my front door and my step father standing behind him also in custody. I could tell by the look on mother’s face that this was a huge problem. The officers said that I was under arrest for the breaking of the seventh statute of the United States of America. I tried to run out the back door but there was already another officer waiting there. They forced me into a squad car where from inside I could see Courtney. She ran up and argued with the officer reading the rights to my mother. She was quickly detained and threw into the cop car with me. I was still in shock at what just happened, and I just glared at her. Why did she just stand up for me? Yeah, she was my only friend, but there was nothing between us. The officers pushed my mother and father into another car. Then we were carted away.
As I woke up all I could feel was an intense pain in the back of my head from where I was shoved into the car. Beside me was Courtney still asleep. As I got up, bright lights turned on and a siren came on awakening Courtney. The room was massive and completely white except from an observation deck that was way out of reach and a metal door that looked like a bank vault door.
From somewhere a voice rang out, “Wake up.”
Courtney and I jumped to our feet. I yelled, “Who are you?”
The only answer that I got was, “The Decider.”
I replied, “The decider of what.”
“Your fate,” it replied.
As Courtney and I stared at each other we both realized quickly that this had just escalated really quickly. I say, “Whatever you do don’t answer any questions they ask you.”
With that the voice came over again. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. We will kill your family if you do not cooperate.”
So as we stood there blankly, not believing that they were able to pick up what I just said, a sudden dark feeling arose in my gut. “Okay, we will answer your questions,” I said aloud.
The voice just said, “Satisfactory”. After that more officers came in and took us away.
I was woken up by a shocking pain in my side. As I gained consciousness a vague figure was staring right at me. As I looked closer I could see a little prong in his hand. I then looked at my side where I felt the pain, and sure enough there was a little pricked spot like where a shot went in. The room was dark except for a single old light bulb hanging from a metal chain. The walls were black and the torturer looked like a military general in the way that he dressed.
I calmly stated, “Well hello there mother. Sorry that I slept in.”
A smirk came across his face as he stated, “Welcome home darling,” before he jammed the prong into my side once again and a surge went through my body as I blacked out again.
As I dove deep into a dream, a calmness came over me like the calm before the storm. I then realized that beforehand the torturers never bound my hands. Why I hadn’t defended myself I did not know. Then a rush of sickness came over me as I realized something. Where was Courtney at? Had they tortured her too? I quickly awoke from my dream to the sound of the torturer. He had his back turned to me and was talking to another man. I silently got up and took him from behind. He struggled, but I was able make him blackout in a manner that a teacher used to teach us in class on how to defend ourselves. The guard ran off to the right. I grabbed his keys, gun, and nightstick. Since I have never used a gun in my life, I ran with the nightstick present. Since the guard the torturer was talking to went to the right I went to the left. As I approached the corner I could hear two guards coming. I hid in the shadows of a doorway. Then as they went by I whistled. They turned around and I struck them both with the nightstick. I quickly searched the two bodies and found that one of the guards had an access card. I thought to myself, “Now that I have an access card I need to go to the guard quarters.” But I knew I would be found beforehand. I looked at the guards of which I just attacked and quickly took one of their clothes. I used the access card to shove the bodies into a closet, and then I then continued running the down the hall.
As I neared the guard station I fixed my uniform and straightened my posture. I walked in and saw one guard sitting at a desk. He didn’t notice me come in, so I walked over, pulled the gun out, and pressed it into the back of his head. As he turned around he startled me in the fact that it was Courtney. She turned around and gave me hug. I then said, “What were you doing at the desk?”
She then replied, “Looking for you and then the closest exit. “
I walked over to the desk and stared down looking at the map of the compound. The place was massive. It was easily capable of storing an army or two. I said, “Follow me.” Then we took off down the hallway and into an elevator. As we got down the elevator I realized she had no weapons on her. I asked her, “There is no way that the guard room was empty. Where are your weapons at?”
She said, “Thomas, there is a lot that you do know about me, let’s just say that.”
“What? Are you some type of spy, or military agent?” I asked.
All she said was, “This is not the time.” We then exited the elevator, making a quick left making sure to stick to the shadows. As we were sure that if someone saw our faces we would be discovered. On the way to the doors to leave the building we saw a window to the left. As we approached the window a similar sight was being brought upon us. It was the room where we first woke up, and in there was another boy and girl. They were looking just as scared, and they both were lying on the ground. As the room was soundproof you could tell that a voice over an intercom was talking. Around the corner two guards stood watch over the vault door. We waited until the guards were signaled to come in and retrieve the children. Then we incapacitated the guards and went in and received the children and nobody realized a thing. We then took the kids over to the guard room we were previously at.
While we talked to them they had a similar story, though they were brother and sister and their mother was also taken from them due to the violation of the statutes. We got them dressed up in guard uniforms from the guards Courtney took out that were in the guard room. The two kid’s names were Carter and Julia. We then walked down the halls and into the elevator. We all checked our equipment and ammo. We casually walked down the hall to where the doors were and out of the building. As we moved into the parking lot, we moved over to a pair of motorcycles. I drove one with Julia, and Courtney took the other with Carter. We drove off into the distance. By nightfall we were at a landing bay with a helo helicopter at it.
We snuck past the old barracks with ease. We crossed a field and a guard station with a sleeping guard in it and took the keys to the helo. We walked over to the helo and looked while Courtney opened the door and we all snuck in and took off without a single person noticing.
As we flew, I talked to Carter and Julia. There was not much room in the helo and Courtney is the only one that actually knows how to fly. They told me all about their story, and how they lived in the remnants of Boston with their mother. USPF officers took their mother and threw them in that room. They kept them in there for hours as the man over the intercom talked to them.”
Turns out the base that they took us to be in was in western Pennsylvania. This is a long way from Banai, Maine where we were from. All of a sudden a form of turbulence swept over the helicopter. Then a missile came out of the clouds and smashed into the tail rotor, and the helicopter went towards the ground. I lost consciousness as the helo hit the ground.
As I gained consciousness I could tell we were in a forest.Suddenly a group of gunman surrounded me and stated, “Stay on the ground. Where are you from USPF officer?” Putting emphasis on USPF officer. A man came over in sunglasses and told them to bring me to a camp. They picked me up and moved me over to a tent in the camp. A strange man came in.
He asked me, “Where are you from”
I quickly answered, “Banai, Maine”
“Banai is a weird place for an USPF officer to come from,” he said.
“Well, that is true because I am not a USPF officer,” I stated.
“Well, what are you then,” he said.
“A simple boy and a friend that got prosecuted by the USPF and then broke out of an army complex, stole a helo, and stole these uniforms. Then we escaped into the clouds,” I said. They then threw me into a cell with Courtney for the night and said, “Their leader will decide about us in the morning.”
During the night Courtney woke me saying she was breaking us out. She pulled a file from her boot and then went at the bars. After a few hours of taking turns cutting the bars, we finally cut a hole just small enough for both of us to fit through. As we snuck off into the night we made for the south. As we did, we came upon some ruins and then stayed there. The ruins seemed to be from an old temple, but at least we had a roof over our head. Courtney then said to me, “I am sorry I did not say this earlier, but I know where your mother is being held. We are on our way there as we speak, but we must be with haste as she is awaiting execution. I am saying this now because I feared that you would have ran off on your own and then gotten captured and executed yourself, which is defiantly not going to help your mother at the time.”
I just sat there then stated that she was right; I probably would have done something stupid and gotten myself captured with my luck. I then said that I had full confidence that she knew what she was doing enough to save my mother. She nodded.
“In the morning we will set out south and then came upon a base camp,” she stated while drawing a picture in the dirt. “We then head in and sabotage the car and helo poll. So there is no one to chase us as we make our escape. After that we hide under the execution platform for the right time and then blow the trap. Then we head back here, and by the way, did I mention that we save Julia’s and Carter’s mother too while we are down there?”
‘No,” I said, “but I agree with it.”
“After they see that we went after the camp they will realize that they were wrong about us, and then we group up with the rebels and head towards the capital,” she said .
“Well it sounds like we have plan,” I said. Then we both fell asleep.
In the morning we set out into the frigid damp air, the sense of rain over the night left a dampened ground. As we came across the army camp, speakers were blaring and the sun was just coming up over the hill. We snuck underneath a hole in the bottom of the fence. We crawled under a few trucks and planted charges that were stolen from the rebel camp and then moved to the helicopter. As we arrived there were guards surrounding it. I asked Courtney what to do. She said, “You will have to take the guard out as I plant the bomb.” I quietly snuck up behind the guard and held him around the neck. As I held the guard he struggled then quickly fell out of consciousness. I then watched as Courtney planted the bomb. We then moved under the execution platform and waited.
We waited for hours for the execution to begin. It was soggy and wet as the water had saturated the ground from the night before. A voice came over the loud speaker. It said, “Brothers, it is time. If all men would come to the center of camp so we can get on with the executions that would be great.”
As the process finally started a man read the rights to the two mothers. He said, “Women as you are hereby put to death for the breaking of the seventh statute of the United States of America under the leadership of Rodriguez Alfpapar. Is there anything that you would like to say on your behalf?” Neither mother spoke. Then a timer started to go down three… two… one… and then boom. Chaos broke out. We rose out of the platform through a hatch and shot the man on the podium, and we then grabbed the mothers. As we slipped out of the camp amiss the chaos I unbounded both women and they thanked me. We again stayed in the ruins and then went back to the camp the next day. It was quite a surprise the next day when we showed up. The same man that interviewed me in the camp smiled and offered us food. They must have heard the news of the attack on the camp. They also released Carter and Julia. They were then reunited with their mother.
The next day I was invited by the leader of the camp to have lunch with him. As I walked into the tent he greeted me saying, “Hello amigo, I understand that you and your friend took down a military camp to save your mother and the mother of the other boy and girl yes?”
I nodded and said, “Yes sir we did do that.”
He glared at me and I pretended not to notice. I looked and the raggedy holes in the tent and then he spoke, “That is very noble of you amigo, how about I offer you something.”
“What is that?” I said.
“Many of my men have been inspired by your feats. What if I asked you to become the figurehead of the resistance,” he said.
I thought about it for a moment and then answered, “Will you protect my mother, the other family we reunited, and Courtney if I agree?” I asked.
He laughed then stated, “From the looks of it you will not need me to protect Courtney, but I can agree to that.”
In the following months I went to different camps and talked to the soldiers of the resistance, always with Courtney by my side. The camps ranged from the original camp in Richman, Virginia all the ways to South Carolina. Finally we made it to the closest camp outside the capital in South Carolina. We were going to overthrow the president called Rodriguez Alfpapar. The next day an army of troops came into the camp as preparations were made for the following day’s attack on the capital.
Courtney was in charge of the battle strategy. She called a meeting of all the squad leaders and went over the plan. She said, “We will take a covert team in to get the president. Me, Thomas, and a few other captains.”
“Me?” I said.
“Yes, I would trust no one else,” she said.
Then she sent me out and went through the rest of the plan with the remaining captains. The next morning me, Courtney, a man named Commander Collins went in through the sewers. As we snuck through the dark and cramped sewers you could sense the fear running through all of us. We finally reached a position under the Capital building when Courtney ordered the main strike to begin.
As we snuck through the palace it was apparent that the tough times had not impacted Rodriguez’s fortune. We cleared room by room until we found the only room left was the bedroom.
This was it! This could end all the fighting and the tension in the United States. Courtney went over whose section was whose. Then we entered in a stacked formation behind Courtney.
“Clear!” Courtney said.
“Clear!” I said in charge of the left side of the room.
“Clear!” yelled Commander Collins.
Then all of a sudden from around a corner Rodriguez stepped out with a gun loaded and pointed it right at me. Courtney stepped up but he said, “Stay back or your precious figurehead gets I,” as he nodded to me. Commander Collins tried to take him out but Rodriguez immediately took him out. He looked and smiled. “Anyone else?” he said. He must have underestimated me as he turned to shoot Courtney. Then, for the first time in my life, I stood up for someone and not just stood back. I ran and dove as he shot. I felt the bullet pass into me and then nothing. I saw but could not feel as Courtney shot Rodriguez over and over again until the clip ran out. She fell to her knees at my body and cried, my only true friend. The following day after my death, a new nation was born. The statutes were taken away and order was renewed in the United States. Courtney took over as president. The United States took on a new time of peace and prosperity.