War

2009 A.D.

5:32pm

Thermine City, Houd capital

The continent of Houd, and the majority of the rest of the world, was slowly adapting to uniformity. Uniformity between everyone. Except for a small group of four renegades, or rebels,w hichever you like.

Trav stood outside the door, listening intently. On the other side of the door was believed to be Ambassador Uniden, one of the men in charge of this revolution. Uniden's death would slow the revolution to uniformity, perhaps halt it, but only for a few hours, a day at the most.

Trav sighed and loosened his grip on his gatling gun. He shook his shabby red hair out of his eyes. Trav really wasn't how you'd expect a heavy weapons man to look. He was skinny, built like a rod. Tall. Wearing blue jeans and a button up polo shirt. He had a mid-sized backpack on his back, where he kept spare shells, an M9 with two extra clips. On the straps he had a programmed by Jeni to be able to recieve any channels, but not be detected by any radio except for hers, Leon's, Will's, or the master radio. His facial features were etched out perfectly. His nose was placed in the perfect center of his face, along with his two big, blue eyes.

Two more of his compatriots, Leon, rifles expert, and Will, explosives, were at the bottom floor of this apartment building, while Jeni, the sniper, had positioned herself in a window on the top floor of an office building directly across from the building where Trav was standing.

His radio beeped, followed by Jeni's perfect voice. "Okay, you're all clear." Her voice comforted him.

"Okay, going in."

He backed across the hall and aimed his massive gun at the door. He pulled the trigger and waited for the barrels to begin spinning fast enough, about 1200RPMs. Once they were, bullets rained out of it with such force he had to put a foot against the wall behind him to hold him in one place. The bullets shattered the door. He saw the look on Uniden's face: A face of sheer terror. He knew what must've been going through his head. Probably something like "How did they find me?" or "Who's he?"

He waited minute then let off the trigger. Uniden's body collapsed. He stepped in the door. The first thing he realized, besides the fact that Uniden looked like Swiss cheese, was the laser from Jeni's rifle.

The sound of automatic fire, breaking glass, and it was gone.

She heard a noise in the next office over, perhaps something falling off a desk. She brushed her long, beautiful brown hair behind her ear and peered back through the scope into the hotel room. Any of her compatriots would admit any day that she was one of the most attractive people they'd ever known. They'd also all agree that she was almost the perfect image of an ancient video game character from an ancient game they all though was called Parasite Eve, they could never remember. Her facial features were all perfectly etched. She had big, deep eyes that were so dark, they appeared to be all pupil. She wore a blue button up t-shirt that looked as if it had come from old China or Japan. It was buttoned about half-way, and under it was a white spaghetti strap t-shirt. She was wearing a necklace that someone had given her several years ago, and always did. It was a piece of string. Attached to it was a small, glass bubble that had a pewter dragon wrapped around it. She also had on black khaki pants and black bikers gloves she’d managed to steal from a vacant house. She was beginning to wish that she knew the future, or else she would’ve dressed a bit more appropriate for bloodshed. She was supposed to be flying cross-country from her current city, which was now in ruin, to the only other safe place, when her plane was shot down over this vacant craphole. She was the sole survivor. With the exception of Will, of course.

She had an old army M24 Socom sniper rifle, which she’d taken from her father’s suitcase because he always carried it, modified with a flashlight and a laser on the scope, and a sling. On the sling were two pouches with extra ten round clips. The scope itself was modified with three different modes, night vision, infrared, and just plain. It had an automatic focus with variable zoom up to 12x. She had a backpack with her radio and the master and extra clips and shells. On her backpack straps were two MK23 Socom Tactical pistols, also taken from her father’s suitcase; basic handguns, that is, if you overlook the red dot sites, LED flashlights, extened 25 round clips, and removable silencers.

She saw bullets spray through the door, Uniden shake from the impact of them. The bullets stopped, Uniden's boddy flopped onto the floor in a pool of blood and spent shells. Trav stepped in and looked around.

Jeni heard a thud, then automatic bullets whiz past her ear, and shatter the glass. She lept up, turned around and aimed her state of the art M24 Socom. Two men dressed in blue jumpsuits with kevlar vests, the basic Houd uniform, stood at the opposite end of the empty office.

"Put your gun down," one of them said.

She unslung her M24 and laid it down, stood back up and grabbed her backpack straps and sighed.

"All of them," said the other man.

She rolled her eyes. Almost faster than you can blink, she had both MK23's out and pointed at the men. They reacted by aiming their automatics at her. She looked down at herself and saw the two lasers from their rifles on her stomach, vibrating with the mens fear.

"Now," they protested.

"You mean now?" She fired two rounds, one from each gun, directly into the mens foreheads. Blood sprayed onto the wall behind them as their heads bent back with such force, she heard the backs of their heads hit their backs.

Her radio beeped and was followed by Trav's voice. "I heard gunfire. Are you okay?"

"I'm down two rounds, but not dead," she said as she picked up her M24 and left the office. The hallway was long, with about ten doors on each side of her. She turned to her right and ran down the hall. The stairwell had been destroyed, so she'd used a rope, threw it around a handrail, tied it, then pulled on one end so the knot would tighten around the handrail, then climbed up. She leapt down, grabbed the rope, and slid down two stories, putting her on the sixth. From here, she could jump from landing to landing on her way down.

She landed on the bottom floor.

"I just had a run-in with a few patrols. There should be more on their way, so we either get going, or stay and commit suicide by fighting."

Will’s voice boomed over the radio. "I’d rather find a way to escape, but that’s just my opinion.

"And it’s also probably easier said than done," Leon completed.

Jeni had known Will since she was in middle school, if memory served her correctly. Though she’d never shown a personal affection other than friendship, he always had feelings for her, and therefor always treated her like she was his, which really annoyed her. If she ever talked to another guy while he was there, he'd try and get in on the conversation.

Trav came up with an answer. "To the south of here is a river. There’s a wooden bridge crossing it. Will, if you can plant charges on it as we cross, then that should delay."

"Okay then, we’ll meet up in the streets outside of the hotel," Will ordered.

The streets weren’t quite what you’d expect. Actually, they were nothing like you’d expect. The street that they were all on was once a very busy street, though only two lanes. The buildings they were in were only two of the buildings that lined the streets. Most of the other buildings were in ruin. One had even collapsed across the street north of them, taking down another building in sort of a ‘domino’ effect. Chunks of concrete were overturned, as cars lay in dismay. About two miles south of them was a barricade that was laid as an attempt to protect Uniden. The air was dusty and the sun cast an eerie yellow glow that was quite often viewed at about five o’clock.

Jeni arrived first, followed closely by Leon. Leon was tall, but shorter than herself and Trav. He had curly red hair and a flat face. He wasn’t particularly fat, but at times it looked as if he had no chin. He was the oldest out of the four. He was twenty-four years old. Jeni was 17, and so was Will, while Trav was only 16. Three of his years were spent in the army, until this revolution occurred about three years back. He was wearing his black combat boots and cameo pants, with a dirty white muscle shirt. He had on dog tags that were illegible and a black wristband on his left wrist. Slung across his back was a G33E automatic.

"Where’s Will?" She asked him.

"He died," Leon joked. His joking sort of annoyed her. She couldn’t say it always did, seeing as how she’d only known him for a few hours.

"Who died?" Trav said from somewhere behind Leon.

"Nobody," Jeni and Leon both seemed to answer in correspondence.