《Gunbreaker》


 Days of Justice

    1


    Life can be so terribly dull, so very uneventful. Going through the motions, following the daily grind it''s easy to just shut off your mind and do whatever you are told. A chosen few will come to detest this truth, but only the smallest number will successfully rebel against it, without being crushed into submission. But some events make you appreciate just how easy life actually is. Events like a sudden shootout, when you find yourself surrounded by maimed corpses, blood splattered all over you in merely a second. Yes, an event like this might cure these childish thoughts of rebellion,of changing the world, but for me, they were awakened. All i felt was uncontrollable rage, like a wild beast unleashed on this world. Not that it mattered, i was only lucky to survive the first barrage and the next one would surely extinguish my life. If it wasn''t for the girl, that is. I don''t think i ever thanked her for that...


    The faint blue color of the screen was the only light source in my small room, as i chugged down another can of my valuable energy-drink. Well listen, my allowance was really small at the time and those stupid cans were expensive as hell, it''s not like i had an addiction. Anyway, it was another all-nighter for me, watching my favourite shows or playing games together with a few slackers called my friends. I had school tomorrow, but what of it, this useless educational system could go straight to hell for all I cared. Still gonna go in the morning, of course, otherwise my mom would yell at me. Didn''t matter, I just slept in class, you could say I mastered this technique over time. No one ever noticed. Because the teachers are stupid, completely retarded. I spent many a night like this, wasting away, basically doing nothing but diminish the energy to actually achieve something in my life. I was 15 though, gimme a break, okay? Now this night, though, this night was special and in many ways it shaped my whole future. As I browsed through meaningless videos, funny threads filled with smart people (who always seemed so much more clever than my dumb teachers) and, of course, I left my own comments, receiving praise in the thousands, by my fellow internet brethren. What joy, I felt elevated, but this happened regularly, so that is not what I am talking about.


    No, the night was made special the moment I opened another video titled ¡°The truth of the wastelands¡±. The footage showed a small village, utterly ruined, smoke rose from the roofs while armored vehicles moved into the frame, spilling heavily-armed soldiers out of their guts. Now mind you, this is the first time I laid eyes on supposedly real firearms and it was also the first time I saw a human being die. They rushed into a hut, one of the few unscathed by what could only be an artillery-strike and dragged out a few people, bearing all the qualifications of a family.


    And then they just shot them, one after the other.


    There wasn''t any sound and the footage wasn''t of the highest quality, but the way the bodies, former humans, jerked after having a gun put to their head, made me sick to my stomach. Just then, the screen faded to black, showing only my reflection and my disgusted face.


    A message spread across the screen:¡±This video was taken in one of the rural areas surrounding our walled cities. This world is not safe, this world is not peaceful and we do not live in prosperity. They are lying to you. They keep you safe in your cages while they do as they please.¡±


    The message was signed by a group named ¡°Hermes¡±, their logo a pair of red winged sandals on a black background. I never heard of them before, yet I felt like they were right, like they had something to say that needed to be said. Outside of the cities, such horrific crimes took place? Could it be? How was I unaware of that, how was everyone unaware of that? As I read through the comments, I slowly started to understand:


    ¡°This looks fake.¡±


    ¡°lol, take off your tinfoil-hats!¡±


    ¡°who are these guys anyway?¡±


    ¡°wow, nasty, they just popped her head, lmfao¡±


    ¡°Is this real? Then someone should change this! Actually, screw that, I want to change this, I am so mad right now!!¡±


    The last message belonged to me, my true feelings, written down by a 15-year-old highschooler.


    Even today it makes me chuckle and before I could receive any reaction on my comment, the video was gone.


    I refreshed the page, there was nothing, just the error message.


    Now I could have just forgotten about it, there were a million reasons why this video got deleted. Maybe it violated the guide-lines of this website, maybe the contents were stolen from someone else, maybe it actually was fake and the administrator tried to prevent the spreading of such bullshit.


    Or maybe it was all a grand conspiracy and the government themselves deleted the video, to cover up their crimes!


    You are free to guess what was most plausible in my mind there. Now let me say something to my defense though, it wasn''t actually that outlandish. It was like an open secret that you can not leave our five major cities. If you were born in one, you were going to die in this same metropolis. It was commonly known, obviously, nobody could cover up the fact, that the mainland of our planet was a hellish landscape, unfit to any human life. Yet people lived there, apparently and maybe seeing that triggered this anger in me, this self-righteous justice. Everyone else was just lying to themselves, because they weren''t the one on gunpoint, they were safe and only later, I understood them. That it was easier this way. You were simply happier and fighting it was futile, you tried to climb a mountain without any limbs.


    But back then, I didn''t see it that way in my youthful recklessness. Ultimately, it really didn''t matter anyway. I was helpless, there was nothing I could do to help those poor people living outside the safe zones. There was nothing to be found online, I searched every nook and cranny, stumbling over baseless rumors. One suggested that Hermes was actually the government themselves, luring in stupid teenagers and offing them once they got their personal information. I also met at least a dozen people claiming to be Hermes, but that soon proved to be just trolling. There was nothing left and it depressed me a little, I became distant to my friends, I never replied to their requests to play some games, I was obsessed with that video. How their bodies went limb, how they were meaninglessly slaughtered.


    Now that was my own interpretation of the scenes, for all I know this family could have been a band of mass murderers and the armed forces only exacted revenge, but in my conviction, I had to save innocent lives. Me, a failure of a student, with no exceptional intelligence to speak of. Really, if Hermes had any sense, they''d tell me to leave as soon as I made contact. Instead, after a week of frantic searches, asking around online, I received a message:


    ¡°We witnessed your resolve, brother. If you still want to bring the deserved peace to this world, then join us.¡±


    2


    Embedded in this simple message was a link. The logical assumption would be that this would either lead me to some fucked up porn or a virus, ready to just disintegrate my entire system.


    Naturally, I clicked it without a moments hesitation.


    Nothing bad happened against all odds, instead I found myself in some chat room. They really were serious with me! There was no members-list, no previous message, radio-silence. I felt like I stepped into a hall of heroes, onto the round table itself, only virtually of course. My real scrawny body was still hunched over the keyboard, not knowing what to say, what message I could write. Really, I blacked out completely, I didn''t even know a simple online-chat room could feel so awkward, yet here I was, frozen stiff. I typed a simple ¡°hello¡± and deleted it before I could send it.


    Then I wrote some eight-grader nonsense of justice and prophecies and thankfully deleted that too. I have enough cringy memories, I didn''t need that one...on further thought, does one more on the huge pile really matter? Only then, he finally broke the silence:


    HERMES: So you want to change our fate, breaking free, destroying the influence of the five Warlords? Tell me, brother, what motivates your actions? Why do you want to join our justice?


    Yeah, turns out this guy was as much of a child as I was. Of course I replied enthusiastically, but at this point I had no screen-name yet. I thought long and hard about my answer, actually only a minute, I didn''t want them to think I just left.


    ANON: I saw the video you guys published a few days ago and since then, I simply cannot stand by while innocent lives are erased. Please let my join in your noble cause, my brothers, in your pursuit of liberation!


    I don''t know what to say here...


    I could practically feel how the people on the other side of the screen laughed their asses off...is what I want to say, but in reality, I felt pretty damn proud after my convincing answer.


    HERMES: Very well. A good answer. Yet we see that you are still unrefined, without a strict direction. Without a plan to actually achieve our ends. Fret not, we are here to guide you in your path, but you have to take action yourself, just as you did before we found you.


    HERMES: Are you capable of doing that? This is your trial, identify who is responsible for these crimes, we will contact you in another week.


    And just like that, I was back on my homepage, unsure of what to do. The culprit? The person who is responsible? Or was this about an idea, the motive behind these actions? Come to think of it, why would they turn our planet into an unruly land, where only the strongest survive and the laws are made at the muzzle of a gun? What could be the meaning of this? I had to mull it over and most importantly I could not disappoint these internet-warriors. For all I knew they were just kids, maybe not even a group, some teenager who knew a little more about computers and managed to abuse a security-leak. There was absolutely no guarantee that Hermes was the real thing.


    It''s just that it didn''t even matter to me.


    I was just happy to escape my boring life, to have a sense of purpose so many teenagers are missing. A feeling of superiority filled my very being, I was better than all these blind idiots, lying to themselves just to preserve their peaceful lives. This would all change, I''d fight to birth a new world. Or at least I was about to.


    3


    The following days I did nothing but research, I even skipped school, coming up with an excuse how terribly sick I am. Maybe I laid it on a little thick, my mother almost send me to the hospital, but the end-result was me sitting in front of my computer-screen, looking up everything I could think of. Some things I looked into were common knowledge, that every one of our five cities were independent states, governed by a prime minister and that there was a big conference every four years. This already struck me as odd, were they allowed to leave the cities? And wasn''t it a little to convenient, five cities for five warlords?


    Surely there must be some sort of conspiracy on a government-level so I dug deeper, I needed to know everything of our administration down to the districtional plane. Needless to say, I found nothing and that in itself was weird. You''d expect a bunch of theories online, some baseless rumors, some insane people dedicating everything to bring some shocking truths to light, even if there is no proof.


    Hermes wasn''t much different, after all.


    However, I found nothing, like the entire network was curated by some unknown source. It was scary, I seriously considered giving up, who knows what they would do to me... if they could track me. Well, I had a lot of countermeasures against that, at least I thought I did. Hacking or cracking, these were never skills I acquired, so I just relied on some tutorials to set up an impregnable barrier.


    Feeling safe like that, I naturally continued, but I couldn''t shake this bad feeling.


    The only information I could gather out of direct conversations, groups similar to Hermes, just not as influential or effective.


    Cause when I mentioned the group, everyone held their breath, metaphorically of course. For the first time, I heard of their reputation, how they brought down the website of the government, putting their logo across the entire screen whenever you tried to access it or how their leader escaped multiple raids on his home-base, injuring the special forces in the process.


    I never even knew our police had a special force!


    It was awe-inspiring to me and more than ever, I wanted to be a part of this organization. Again, there was no proof for any of this, only my faith. Surely nobody would do such a terrible thing, just telling lies on the internet.


    So while I did acquire some information, true or false, no matter, I didn''t really feel like inching closer to my goal. What was the reason, how could I find out? In the end I even pinned everything I found on a board in my room, feeling like some kind of TV-Detective. If my parents caught me, they might have send me to the therapist, but luckily they never entered my room without knocking first...for both our sakes.


    I put down all kind of names, organizations, looking for a link that shouldn''t be there, evidence for some sketchy business. The video flared back into my mind, how all life left the body of this innocent woman, but it wasn''t just about that, not just a reminder for the injustice I vowed to destroy. No, I looked for something, an emblem, a badge on the soldiers, maybe a number on their weapons, anything I could use. Hermes gave me nothing, our exchange took maybe five minutes, then they send me on my way, to prove myself, but what did they expect? How could a student figure this out, if no one else could? Nobody knew why we lived confined in these cities, nor when it even began. It was lost to history, maybe all accounts of a time before the metropolis were deleted, maybe destroyed in some kind of catastrophe. This was the most likely scenario, that nobody meant for this to happen, just some natural disaster scorching the earth. But if that was the case, Hermes wouldn''t fight against...against someone. Who was it, I had to know! The five Warlords, yes, I remembered, but who are they? The deadline was drawing near, tomorrow, at night most likely, they would expect my answer.


    No sleep was found this night, not until I could come up with something, anything. The most embarrassing thing would happen if I just had no answer at all, if I''d just stay silent. Or spout some generic shit, like ¡°The government¡± or ¡°the Banks, they are responsible for our misery¡±. I could not let it end here!


    So I stayed up all night thinking about it, I continued to rack my brain in the morning, eventually, I couldn''t go on any longer and just fell asleep on my desk. The sound of a notification woke me up and there it was, another message. It didn''t say anything, which did nothing to ease my nervousness, only provided a link again. The sender was clear though, so there was no doubt, Hermes contacted me just like they said they would.


    But I still had no answer.


    Regardless, I had to dive in, of course, always thinking about this video. It was the only definite hint that I had, so the answer had to be in there. Who is behind all of it, what is the reason for the sorry state of our planet? The reason...wait, it could be so simple!


    HERMES: Now then, Initiate. Did you find the solution to our query?


    I hesitated, I wasn''t sure, it might be too simple, it might even be idiotic. It was all I had, however. With trembling fingers, I hammered my answer into the keys.


    ANON: The reason these crimes are possible, the true culprit...is the weaponry used by men.


    This was my answer, this was my solution. I had to wait a while for a response and every second served only to make me more anxious.


    HERMES:...Weaponry. Very well! This is the first time we heard this answer, yet it strikes closest to the truth, well done! Now let us show you the true works behind our government, our true leaders. Let us talk about the five Warlords.


    4


    HERMES: They started out as weapon manufacturers funded by their countries, nothing suspicious about them, only that they provided the tools necessary for killing. And since humanity so loves to kill each other, to snuff the flames of life, they rose in power and wealth and eventually in influence.


    For if you bring the money, everyone will soon bow to your whims. They bribed politicians, other public figures to speak favorably of their weapon-businesses, to pass little bills, just to make the life of an arms dealer a little easier. We now believe that these were just tests, to see how far they could go without being detected or obstructed. At some point they awakened to a truth: that whoever holds the power to kill someone, anyone, would be destined to rule this world.


    Suddenly, people lost their lives, political figures advocating a demilitarization, suffering convenient accidents or turning to suicide. The general public is a simple beast, but the frequency of these incidents raised even the suspicion of your average person.


    So they changed tactics and turned back to bribes and threats.


    I know this is a lot to take in, I let you take a minute, Initiate.


    ANON: No, it''s fine! Please continue!


    Really, I was glued to the screen as Hermes told his story.


    HERMES: I see, as you wish. So in the end, these weapon manufacturers established a shadow government, with the acting prime minister as a mere puppet, needed to quell the suspicions of the people. That was the plan at least, but it never worked out, there were riots, there were rebels, people trying to convince the public of the truth, just as we do now.


    So they turned to extreme measures.


    Pumping out weapons, they supplied all the criminal scum they could get their hands on. Ruthless tribes, violent bands of mercenaries, the organized crime, all of them suddenly found themselves with a new stock of lead and were ready to wreak havoc. After it all became to terrible to bear, the citizens armed themselves and the world had an all-out war on their hands. Not struggle between nations, but simply between men. This massacre raged for years and now all that is left are the five cities, each ruled by a designated Warlord.


    ANON: This is insane. A war like that, someone has to know about it, an event like this can''t simply be forgotten!


    HERMES: It is lost to time, simply because no one is alive to remember. Only the Warlords know about it, passed down through their lineage. We managed to obtain this information through great sacrifices.


    They never told me how exactly they could get a hold of such vital intel, the real history of our world. It was groundbreaking, if it was true, but again, they showed me no proof, I just swallowed it all up.


    ANON: But what can we even do against an organization that plunged the whole world into chaos?


    HERMES: They needed a smaller population, to control them easily and indeed, the plan is sound. Our capabilities to strike back are basically nil. We don''t even know the identities of these Warlords, only that they named themselves after animals. We are working on a breakthrough in that regard and you might be able to help us. We assume you are well-versed when it comes to hacking? Why else would you approach us, right?


    ANON: Of course, absolutely not a problem.


    I lied without a moments hesitation.


    HERMES: Good. Do not be alarmed, it is a simple matter. We need to gain access to the local warlords mainframe, but to do this, some of our members will stage a distraction. You just got to attack some official websites, keep their staff busy. We take care of the main task.


    Are you truly capable of that?


    They must have felt that I was just bullshitting, they were pretty insistent and it felt really bad, when I repeated my lie.


    ANON: I am willing and able to participate in this attack!


    HERMES: We will redirect you to another room, there you will meet the leader of your operation, but this can wait until tomorrow. Find some rest, digest everything we told you today and be ready. Your fight for liberation begins now.


    I was stoked as I crawled out of my chair and into my bed. The monitor continued to shine its cold light into my room. I hardly ever turned it off. A million thoughts were running through my head, it was impossible to find any sleep that night, but I had my orders. Yes, starting with this night I saw myself as a soldier, a warrior for the network called Hermes, loyal and obedient. It''s kinda scary how easy it is to manipulate some high-school-freshman. The problem remained however: I had no idea how to assist in this attack. Nothing, there was nothing I could contribute, all I had was a superiority-complex and a mouth too big for my own good. Well, surely, they would forgive me once they''d find out, right? We''d just laugh it off, what''s the worst that could happen, it was just a game after all.


    Still, sleep would not find me. I entertained the thought to return to my computer-screen, play some games, but in reality, I was too excited to concentrate on anything. So Hermes tried to gather the identities of these so-called Warlords, that was their, our, goal at the moment, but it didn''t go far enough.


    We had to truly and utterly erase all conflict on this planet. We had to get rid of the demon called ¡°Weaponry¡±.


    This was my personal goal, but as I said, I was loyal, I wouldn''t further my own interests when there were orders to fulfill. That is, until I started to warp the truth a little. I just assumed that my goal aligned with Hermes'', that I acted in their interests and from here on out, it all comes tumbling down. Be assured though, no harm came to me. As I sit here, telling my story, reminiscing about my embarrassing childhood, I am still in possession of all my limbs and received no scars, be it physically or emotionally. Oh, and I am very much alive obviously, I won''t pull a plot twist on you, someone else actually narrating the story, a close friend standing in front of the grave of the actual protagonist in the end. We will have none of that. But just because I say that, don''t think that they are no stakes involved. No, terrible things happened, it''s just that I am sturdier than the average person so none of these events ever really affected me.


    I am getting sidetracked here...So what I first intended, my first plan to erase all conflict was simply to tell everyone the truth. I was going to lay it all out, about the warlords, about the wasteland surrounding us, about our forged history, everyone needed to know. Screw the consequences, I had a narrative to share. The people deserved to know the truth. So when I finally fell asleep, I wasted no time, skipping school without even thinking about it and went online. I needed a new handle, a new identity and soon, all over the internet, a mysterious name popped up, educating the masses. The infamous GunBreaker.


    That''s the title card right here.


    5


    So suddenly, the GunBreaker popped up everywhere, posting comments, writing long blog-posts, which seemed more like fictional writing, but the whole story was true! At least, I thought so, after all, I trusted my anonymous source, why wouldn''t I? But as one can imagine, nobody believed me, instead they trolled me into oblivion. However, while I might have hated all these spiteful messages, the people who laughed about my crazy theories, I steadily gained some sort of twisted fame. People started to reference me, things like ¡°A new conspiracy? Better get GunBreaker on the case.¡± or ¡°not even GunBreaker would buy that shit.¡± Now, nobody took me serious and that was a problem, but it was still a weird feeling, seeing my new name popping up all over the sites I used to frequent, as a total nobody. They knew my name now and whenever I posted a comment, people were all over me, asking me questions, making fun of me. As I said, no one actually believed me or took me seriously, but also no one hated me. I was like the jester of the internet. Wait, that''s something my teenager-self thought at the time, more realistically, they treated me like a retarded child. That''s a little harsh, I know, but that doesn''t make it any less true.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    And of course, how else could it be, I was happy about all this attention they threw at me.


    Eventually, I received another Invitation from Hermes, leading me into another room. Honestly, I almost forgot about the operation we were supposed to carry out, too caught up in my own hijinks. Yet as I saw the message, the memory returned, crystal-clear and I gulped audibly. I still had no idea how to ¡°distract¡± the government, how to hack into any website. Damn, I was dumb, I had at least a little time, enough to understand the fundamentals at least. Here I was, completely clueless. So I entered the room, but this time, I changed my screen-name.


    GUNBREAKER: Hey, guys.


    Was all I typed and the response followed swiftly.


    DECOY: So it was you... I am the appointed leader of this operation, everyone else is already instructed.


    Yet again, I found myself in a one-on-one chat-room, I guess to many participants would only complicate things, so it was fine by me.


    GUNBREAKER: Nice to meet you.


    DECOY: I trust Hermes already told you? Our goal is to attack the official sites of some government institutions, like the high council, the ministry of finances,nothing to exciting. Every skript-kiddie would be capable of shutting these down for a few minutes, but that is exactly what we want them to think. While we strike at their main-frame, a treasure trove of information, the identities of the warlords will be the least shocking revelation if we actually manage this.


    Man, this guy must have felt like some military commander instructing his troops right before they jump into a decisive battle. So embarrassing...


    DECOY: We appoint the Ministry of city development to you, these sheeps will be surprised to find out that there is no information about the next construction area. Serves them right, being stuck in traffic for believing these lies.


    Uh huh...


    GUNBREAKER: I understand completely. When will we carry out the operation?


    DECOY: At 2200, tomorrow, hit them at night, when their bosses sleep peacefully. We can deal with some bored IT-guys, no problem. It is imperative that you act on time. Shut down your designated homepage and keep them busy. Further instruction should be unnecessary, but do keep in mind that we operate on a tight schedule, every attack needs to happen, otherwise our professional team will miss the time to successfully break in and leave without any traces. Do you understand? Please confirm these mission directives.


    GUNBREAKER: I understand my orders. Bring down the public website of the Ministry of City Development, I will not disappoint you.


    DECOY: Understood, we meet at 2100, to coordinate the attack. Just be there, we will invite you again. Decoy out.


    I was so fucked! Then again, why would a single attack matter? Who knows how many hackers and crackers were on the job, why should a single failure doom the entire mission? So the operation to liberate all of humanity was not at stake, what relief.


    However, I was still screwed, if the site of this ministry would not go down, if they noticed, then Hermes would know that I am at fault, that I didn''t do my part. Surely, they would throw me out then. I couldn''t let this happen!


    So naturally, I did what everyone would do in my situation. I sat down in front of my computer, brought up a search-engine and typed:¡±How to hack a website¡±


    6


    I actually found some interesting results! Judging by how heavily curated our network seemed to be earlier when I conducted my research, I expected absolutely nothing. Yet here I found multiple guidelines, detailing how to easily bring down a webpage.


    There was just one problem, despite their claims, it wasn''t easy at all!


    I couldn''t wrap my head around it, what the hell? Maybe I could have, if only I had more time, but until tomorrow? There was no chance! I read about scripts, directory listings, source codes, saw some weird programming chains, remote files, none of it made any sense to me. Clutching my head, staring at the screen, I tried my darndest, but nothing would sink in. I was only a teenager, not even particularly smart, no one could expect this shit of me. They would though, Hermes would expect this of me and if I was unable to deliver, who knows what they would do to me. I seriously started


    to get a little scared, recalled the stories I heard about him, true or not. He seemed like a badass, I didn''t want him to come after me...


    So I did my best, I spent all my time reading up on this hacker-business. Even an idiot like me could do this, I just needed to put in the effort.


    Some time later, I grasped some of the ideas. And I needed tools, these guides clearly stated I need some programs to actually start. Obviously, I looked for them...and found absolutely nothing.


    That was bullshit, the guide clearly stated that these tools were easily obtainable! There was absolutely nothing, no matter how hard I looked!


    Was that a joke, did the government intervene here? They leave the guidelines up, but then remove any possibility to actually follow through? Are they taunting me? Or worse tracking me as soon as I made my search query? What a scary thought, I just wanted to quit at this point. I simply was not allowed to, Hermes probably knew all about me already, if I just left now, there would be retribution.


    A new dawn rose, the sun annoyingly caressed my sleep-deprived face.


    Then, after a few hours of morning despair, I even went so far and visited some nearby bookstores, for the first time in my recent memory. Analogue reading is only done by losers after all, but I was running out of options here. ¡°Programming for absolute Morons¡± caught my eye, but I didn''t want to learn how to program, this was useless. ¡°Even a skript-kiddie could do it¡±. Does this mean I''m not even on this level? What an embarrassment, how tragic! I seriously started to loose it, but there was nothing to be done. So at 9 pm I sat in front of my screen, clueless, utterly useless, but at least I was on time. As before, an invitation, it was second nature by now, I struggled to stay awake, being up for over 24 hours, as I entered the chat-room.


    This time it wasn''t just me, multiple people were gathered, I counted eight including our operations-leader. Their names were such typical products of a teenage mind: Iceglazier, Bloodedge, AcidicKiller, you get the idea. I vividly remember thinking how cool they all sounded, but I didn''t need to hide. Gunbreaker was an awesome name, after all, nothing to laugh about. Well, I am laughing in embarrassment when I think back, especially since it only got worse over time. But wait a second, was eight even enough? Could we pull this off? I''m saying we, but obviously I couldn''t really contribute.


    DECOY: So you all have gathered here, very well. Our role is just as important as the main groups work, without us, they can only fail. I just wanted to make this clear one more time.


    Nobody replied here, this was Decoys show and he seemed to really enjoy himself. Or herself, hell if I ever found out.


    DECOY: Everyone present here already received their orders and we got precisely 43 minutes until this mission commences. If there is everything still open, something that''s not clear, now is the time to ask. There shouldn''t be, though, we are professionals after all.


    Yes, excuse me, but how do I exactly hack a website? I don''t really get the bare-bone fundamentals.


    Like I''d ever ask something like that. But goddammit, what could I do instead? The truth was out of the question, my lie already to advanced to safely pull out now.


    BLOODEDGE: How long will it take the main-team to fulfill their objective?


    DECOY: We estimate around 15 minutes. Just clear your mission, that should give us enough time. Is there anything else?


    No response. Maybe these guys actually were professionals. Or maybe it was just that nobody dared to ask a stupid question, just like myself. At this time in the past, I of course assumed the first point, no doubt about it.


    DECOY: Then you are dismissed. Our mission is nothing less then the liberation of all humanity. Act accordingly and do not disappoint us. Don''t let Hermes down! And do it for our future, do it for our children and do it for their children. And the past, can''t forget the fallen warriors coming before us, the billions of lives lost in the great Wars that lead our planet into this cruel fate. Also, do it for Jenny, I''m gonna tell her my feelings after this!...yeah.


    God, how did I ever get tricked by these losers?


    DECOY: Afterwards, you will be invited again for a post-mission briefing, good luck!


    Everyone left the room one after another and then there I was, slumped down in my comfy chair, staring blankly at the screen, while the clock was ticking. I had to act, I could not let them down. I opened the site for the ministry, just looking at it, expecting a clue to pop up, a gate leading me to a solution. Maybe I should have asked where the other ones got their tools from, but then I had to admit that I never done this before.


    Before I reached out to Hermes. Why, you might ask? Why was it such a big deal? This is so childish. The thing is: yes, exactly, I was a child after all, none of this shit really mattered if you think about it. But to a useless teenager, who had no talents, nothing he was really good at, this was very important, it was everything, a chance to finally be someone.


    Five minutes left until 10 pm. My head crashed on my desk in frustration, but more then a small bruise on my forehead was not achieved by this. Then I had to surrender, I had to finally admit, that there was nothing I could do, that I lost. I was lying to myself thinking I could achieve something, anything to change the world...with Hermes help!


    Indeed, I had to do this on my own, this was my conclusion out of this event. GunBreaker would go on a solo-mission, using his unflappable mind and his sharp rhetoric to open the eyes of the population. Hermes would become my rival, a friendly relationship, our goals aligned, yet our methods would be different and it would be very interesting to see who would come out on top. Just you wait, Hermes, you are not the only one who will free humanity of its shackles, breaking the walls of their cities.


    Curiosity, however got the better of me and I absolutely wanted to see if they could pull off their attack. It was 10 pm by now, so I just brought up the official site of our High Council and there it was. ¡°This page is unavailable while we perform maintenance. Please refer to our social media-account for updates.¡±


    I kinda expected something more flashy, the Hermes logo all over the site, mocking words behind it, while the allegedly teenage hacker celebrated his victory over the stupid authority. Something like this, not some official statement, that might as well be a coincidence. I checked the city development page next and my eyes went wide. The same message? But I didn''t do anything. That was very weird, really suspicious even!


    However, highschool-me just shrugged it off, like the moron that he was. Someone else must have taken my part as soon as they realized I wasn''t participating, a simple answer to a rather complicated problem. They succeeded apparently, this was all I took from this, good for them. For my newfound rival, a worthy opponent.


    And for the following weeks, the net was haunted by the GunBreaker, more determined then ever before.


    7


    Slowly, people started to come around to me. ¡°He might be a troll, but isn''t he way to serious about this? Like, we are the ones making fun of him, this can''t be entertaining for him anymore...¡±


    ¡°Maybe he is just legitimately insane.¡±


    ¡°Or maybe he has a point...¡±


    ¡°What, erase all guns from this planet? This is bullshit.¡±


    It was at a very sluggish pace, yet I could see some positivity. People started to doubt themselves, maybe, just maybe there was some truth to my teachings. The hit count on my blog and on my channel also climbed steadily and some people were even saying they ¡°might look into this¡±.


    An euphoric feeling in my chest, I was even more resolved. Do you see, Hermes? We can do it, people can help themselves, you just have to be persistent in spreading the truth.


    Now I really started to break the law though, it wasn''t enough to just spread my message online, I wanted everyone to know, be it the net-generation, kids my age or the old man, who never quite got the hang of technology. Everyone needed to know what happened behind these walls and how we can change it. So I bought some spray-cans, pulled a hoodie over my face and hit the town, as soon as the sun went down. ¡°Wake up, sheeps!¡± ¡°Gunbreaker will liberate you!¡± these phrases were soon spread all over the walls, underneath some brigdes or on the broad site of a train. Pretty clumsily too, I''m sure it was hard to read, especially at night, but it was there, in their faces and I felt proud and accomplished. Flyers I threw all over the walkways, the adresse of my net-blog written on it. I certainly gave the police enough reason to go after me and in hindsight, this was so absolutely moronic!


    Given everything I knew or believed to know, how could I pull such a stunt?!


    If they caught me, they would have straight up put a bullet into my head or maybe torture me for information first. Teenagers really feel like they are invincible, it''s scary... .


    My actions were certainly noticed, even if I the city was huge and I only vandalised a really small district. My home district, incidentally, so stupid, the thought makes me cringe.


    Just how wrong this all could have gone...


    Pictures were taken and posted on the net, feeding my myth, the myth of the Gunbreaker. Seriously, at this point, I was like an urban legend, everyone talked about me.


    ¡°Did you see? It was written all over the district!¡±


    ¡°Yes, I go through there on my way to work, was it really him?¡±


    ¡°This happened in Ravenstar, right? So weird...is this an uprising?¡±


    Now the circle of people who really knew about my ideals was still relatively small, I might blow it a little out of proportion. I certainly wasn''t e-famous and I also never got any news-coverage on a big network. Thank God. But people recognized my name and I received messages, almost daily. Hate-mail mostly, but slowly, there were words of encouragement.


    Outside of all the fuss, I never told anyone, not a single person in my admittedly small, social circle. At least I had that much foresight, as if I wasn''t bullied enough at school, running around, throwing conspiracy theories around would have only made it worse. But the school talked about the Gunbreaker, obviously, it was their town that was dirtied by all the ugly graffiti, impossible for them to miss it. It wasn''t all that interesting, the gossip in my class, just a mirror of the internet comments, only voiced this time. Well I didn''t attend school all too frequently anyway, so I only catched some snippets. When my friends talked about it, I felt like a masked vigilante, some kind of superhero and when they asked me about my opinion I just said:¡±Meh, probably some loser living in his mom¡äs basement.¡± Gotta keep it cool after all, can''t raise any suspicion.


    This went on for a while, my popularity steadily rising and as other people started to look into the matter, researching, basically asking what the hell actually happened behind these walls in their own, long blog-posts, I received another E-Mail. ¡°Bloodedge¡± , that was the name displayed as the sender and of course I remembered him, it wasn''t so long ago. Curiously I opened his message:


    ¡°Yo, man! The Net is on fire, you''re really making a change! Well, that''s how I feel at least, but the bois over at HERMES don''t really share my opinion. They''re probs just jelly, right? Anyway, if there is anything I can do to help, totally tell me. We''re going to tear their asses down, these government shitbags.¡±


    This was great, I had my own sidekick. Naturally, I motivated him further, told him simply to imitate my actions. In other words, hit his district the same way I hit mine. I think they call that ¡°Inciting an offence¡±, add this to my growing criminal record. He did it, too! The next day I saw a bunch of pictures, sprayed words similar to my own work, even signed as the GunBreaker.


    Again, the clicks kept on coming and more conspirators joined me.


    They introduced themselves rather similar to my dear and bloody assistent, ready to prove themselves after Hermes couldn''t give them what they were seeking. The thrill of a real revolution, it was the same thing I was looking for after all. I was way in over my head here, some teenager leading a rebellion.


    But as young folk tend to do, I simply didn''t give a shit about that, just doing what I thought was right, no matter the consequences. In a way, that''s rather admirable, even we adults should take some risks from time to time, standing up for what we believe in. Let''s be real though, I wasn''t all that idealistic, as i said, I was just a bored teenager. The only weird thing is, despite all that, despite the growing scale of the little Gunbreaker-operation, the police never came after us, they never conducted an investigation and they never silently arrested us. Was that it, the power of the five Warlords, the quiet power leading our very lives. Laughable, I only grew more confident as time went on. More and more people believed us, our voices were heard, questions were asked and even the media started to show interest!


    Once, on an ordinary day, the sky bleak and covered with grey clouds, someone wrote his query into a rather popular forum. That he''d like to look into these allegations, that he started to believe that there was something wrong in our world and that he''d find the ones responsible and expose them. A huge report on a major tv-network was about to happen, as soon as he''d got the clear of his editor and then nobody could pretend they didn''t see the lies anymore.


    Yes, this was it! The breakthrough, the final attack. First we would riot and save our glorious Metropolis Ravenstar and then, after we achieved this, the other four cities would be next.


    Beware, Warlords, this was the day of your reckoning!


    This reporter guy, he never gave his name, since it could put him at risk, promised to interview me personally, the legendary Gunbreaker! We even set a date, obviously we would communicate via video, so I should get a cool looking mask. As I browsed through various online shops in the search of my perfect outfit (thank god I never actually got the chance to wear any of it, my personal favorite was the glowing skull-mask after all) the day of the scheduled interview drew ever closer.


    And as it arrived, I never heard from him again.


    No posts, no mails, not a single call. He never left me his contact-info, so there was nothing I could do. Honestly, at this point I think they just killed him, neutralized him before he could become a problem. And this trend continued! Suddenly all my contacts disappeared one after another, never to be heard of again. Now there weren''t as well known as I was, but by the time even the Bloodedge vanished, people were spreading dark rumors. That the government finally catched up to them, that they were tortured, probed for information and ultimately killed off.


    Fear started to spread, the kind inhabitants of the internet started to wonder if maybe, they should stop talking about war, about massacres behind the wall and return to their quiet, ignorant lifes. While I did my best, really gave it my all to quell these concerns I trembled behind my flat computer-screen. I could barely hit the keyboard, the way my fingers were shaking. This was bad, it was way to weird, how could they all just up and leave? All of them, there was no other explanation, something happened to them.


    And I would be next.


    Will they at least keep my family alive? They never did anything wrong after all, why should they suffer for my reckless crimes. Really it was a dread I would not feel for many years afterwards, the imminent threat of my life ending any time now.


    But in front of my audience, my fans if you will, I played it cool, Problem was, nobody cared about me anymore, it was all just about these mysterious disappearences, so slowly, my message died down.


    It was then that I received a light in my darkness, a ray of hope that might just save me. I had a high opinion of Hermes after all, so soon I found myself face to face with him again. Figuratively speaking of course. He didn''t waste any time bringing his point across.


    HERMES: We wish to cooperate. Your cause is a just one, however, the ship you set out with received crippling damage and won''t be able to carry you to your destination. How about you board our vessel instead? After all, our destination remains the same.


    Now I could have continued to stay cool, to keep up my composed facade but I was just scared shitless.


    GUNBREAKER: Yes! I mean, that is an interesting propostion. Actually, please let''s cooperate. Together we might be able to change something.


    HERMES: We are acknowledging your position and what you were able to achieve all on your own, so...


    GUNBREAKER: Please, just take me under your wing. I don''t care if I am just a code monkey or your personal servant!


    HERMES:...we would grant you a position befitting of your abilities, at the side of our best and brightest.


    After this exchange, there was an awkward silence, no words appeared on the sreen for a while. Cold sweat ran down my back, did I blew it? Did he now think I was absolutely disgusting, some basement-dwelling virgin who lost his mind at the mere sight of danger? Well, I let you know we lived in an appartement, there was no basement.


    HERMES: Why don''t we continue this personally? We are sure we can work this out and we also understand that you are frightened. It is a difficult position to be in after all, no one here can even imagine how you feel. After all, we''d never draw this kind of attention to ourselves, knowing our dangerous enemy.


    I could practically see his mocking smirk. Or theirs, he kept speaking like there''s a whole group behind his name.


    HERMES: There is an abandoned toy shop not far from your location. We''d like to meet you there, if you feel that you can trust us. Please know that we also put our trust in you, never before have we decided to reveal our face. This offer is not to be taken lightly. Meet us at 2100 tomorrow evening, we will wait for you exactly thirty minutes, but if you fail to arrive in time, there won''t be a second chance. We will cease all contact, you will be on your own.


    He never even waited for my reply, after he told me of the plan, he was just gone. No chance to talk back, all I could do was follow his directions exactly as told. I actually knew of the toy shop he mentioned, I passed it sometimes on my way to school, when I was feeling adventurous and picked the alternate route and of course I sprayed it with graffiti when I was spreading my message. A huge, kinda creepy building with a giant stuffed bear on top? That certainly attracted attention, a perfect target to vandalize.


    So this was to be the place where I''d find my destiny. So be it.


    Honestly, I am kinda bluffing here, my actual thought process at this time looked more like:¡±OHSHIT, whatdoidowhatdoido, WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO NOW?!¡±


    Even Hermes started to give me some seriously bad vibes, being all smug, so high and mighty. Like he enjoyed my misery. It was a fleeting thought however, then in the end, I had no choice in the matter. They would come for me, whoever they were and they would hurt and kill me and maybe even my family. Never thought that I actually cared that much about my parents and my little sister, but here I was, priotizing their safety over my own.


    But why tomorrow, I could barely handle the wait. Feeling antsy all day I hardly slept, always half expecting for someone to break down my door and take me away, dragging me past the corpses of my family members. Indeed, my thoughts went to a real dark place there, but why not? Reasons I had enough, people didn''t just vanish off the internet after all. Okay, I mean, they did sometimes, then they surfaced again after weeks or months of absence, it happened. Maybe they just needed a change of pace, a new identity, a new screen-name and a new community. Or maybe their parents grounded them, taking away their internet-access. It was all possible, on an individual level at least. But all of them, in the span of just a few days? Impossible, something got to them, they really died, I was certain of that. Someone like the warlords, they wouldn''t just question you and leave you off, scot free and with just a friendly warning. They would silence you, permanently.


    To prevent that, I snuck out of the apartement, careful to wake no one up as I treaded carefully through the living room and out of the door, closing as slowly as I possibly could. Not an easy task, considering my shaking arms, but I managed to do it. Frankly, this wasn''t the first time, obviously, though I was never this anxious before, somehow, back then there seemed to be no stakes involved.


    Dressed in a grey hoodie, concealing my face god knows why I slowly walked down the stairs. While it was true that the toy store wasn''t far from here, I still had to take the train. Reaching it by foot would have been possible, only I just had an hour left at best, so taking a long walk was out of the question. As I made my way to the station I couldn''t help but look around, almost jumping out of my skin at every noise, every stray cat moving about in the shadows. It was almost unbearable, every hair stood on end and my heart seemed to be resolved to burst out of my chest. My breath came hard and fast out between my teeth and I had to steady myself at the corner of a street. Did I have a little panic-attack? It was certainly possible, but I had to compose myself, otherwise i''d attract the eyes I so desperately seeked to avoid. In a way, I already looked up to no good anyway, with the hood covering my face. Like a small, skinny drug dealer, I never dared to take it off though. Like they knew my face, of course they didn''t, I just... I was confused, can you really fault me for losing my head a little. So I arrived at the station, there were only a few people, it was late after all and a week day to boot, so I was only surrounded by the night owls of this district. And they looked at me funny, of course they did, some kid with a hood, hands buried deep in his pocket, while looking nervously around, shaking all the while. At least I graduated, from a dealer to an addict.


    That was fine, it was alright if they perceived me like that as long as no one could identify me as the rumored, the infamous Gunbreaker! I gripped my shaking arm, hard enough until it started to sting and I had to clench my teeth. It was time to end this, never again would I speak that name, I learned my lesson, just...let me survive this, I''m begging you, whoever''s in charge of my fate, don''t let it end here. People around me started to check the time, I could see them looking briefly at their phones, twisting their faces in annoyance.


    The train was late, it was plain to see.


    But that wasn''t actually possible, haha, it couldn''t be late, I needed to get their on time. 9 pm, that''s what he said, he''d vanish exactly half an hour later, never to contact me again. So it could not be late! My eyes were glued to my phone, displaying 20:35. Not even an hour left, but then again, the train was only five minutes late. He''d arrive any second now, surely.


    So while I stood there, in horror on the brightly lit station, people were slowly leaving the station.


    Another five minutes passed, then ten, then twenty.


    Until I could only clench my fists, while the tears flowed freely under my grey hood.


    Only when there was no way to reach the store in time would the train finally arrive at the station. I boarded it regardless, clinging to this tiny hope that maybe, a one in a million chance, Hermes would still be waiting for me. My heart skipped a beat as the battered door actually creaked open, but as I squinted into the darkness I soon found out:


    There was nothing, no clue, no notes, not even the lingering presence of a human being. Maybe he toyed with me from the start, maybe Hermes wasn''t even real, not the one I imagined at least...


    8


    And that was the end for the Gunbreaker.


    Not me as a person, nobody ever came for me. While I was devastated, scared out of my wits to the point where I slightly worried my family for a few days, even a whole month almost, nothing ever happened. There was no police force, no assassins, never a mention again of these warlords. Even the Net went silent on these topics, but to be honest, I never really dug all that deep anymore.It was over and done with, I didn''t want any part in it anymore. Purged it all out of my memory, Hermes, Decoy, Bloodedge, all these stupid names, I tried not to think about them anymore.


    And life became easier!


    My grades went up, as I attended school more regularly, I spent more time with my friends, even found myself the occasional girlfriend. Certainly lost my shut-in card over these last highschool years, even if I still enjoyed some video games. They didn''t consume my life anymore though.


    The only downside of it all? I lived in blissful ignorance.


    Somewhere in the back of my head I still remebered the video that started it all, this dreadful execution so on some level I was still very much aware what exactly took place behind the massive walls surrounding my existence. I just didn''t care anymore and in some ways, I think that''s worse than not looking for the truth in the first place.


    Guilt however, was never an emotion that burdened my carefree days, I simply told myself that it was all fake anyway. Not an unreasonable assumption, given that I never received any proof and yet I just knew it to be true. Yes, there were some details that I missed, something was definitely fishy, but I was convinced.


    Convinced of the existence of the warlords and their schemes. Yet I chose to ignore it, for my own happiness, leaving the presumed millions of corpses aside.


    And so I stood on another station, the subway this time, roughly four years, staring bored down on my phone.


    It was at this time, my red-headed destiny passed me without even looking twice.

 Disruption of Peace

    I don''t want to die!


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    ¡°This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


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    please don''t catch up. Please, oh god, please don''t do it. Never before in my life have I felt such intense dread, such raw emotion. Like a frightened animal, mere prey running away from a superior species, my natural enemy, that''s how I felt. And I never felt this specific fear again for a long time.


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 Dreadful Dissonance

    1


    Only with our combined strength did we manage to open the heavy steel door.


    ¡°Where will this lead us?¡± I asked stupidly, staring into the darkness.


    Turning on a light she took out of her bag, the girl bravely advanced into the unknown.


    ¡°A maintenance-shaft, most likely? What else could be down here.¡±


    ¡°One of your secret hideouts?¡±


    ¡°Shut up.¡±


    I did, but just for a brief moment:¡±So, I''ve been thinking.¡±


    ¡°Oh no.¡±


    I offered a little laugh, but only to be polite at her joke. She probably wasn''t joking though.


    ¡°Anyway, so why don''t we go to the police, why would we go even deeper into these tunnels?¡±


    ¡°Did you just pass out? They basically driven us down here, there was no other option.¡±


    ¡°I meant before that, on the station. What did you do anyway, why are they chasing you? Why would they even shoot innocent people, just to get you?¡±


    ¡°Who says they are after me?¡±


    Did she think I was that stupid? Come on, at least give me a little credit here...


    ¡°This huge guy said they needed to find a girl...¡±


    ¡°Plenty of those around, don''t you think?¡±


    ¡°Yes, but...¡±


    ¡°Stop it. I told you how this will go, so stop asking questions.¡±


    So it was silence then, very well. Maybe this was my fate then, surviving this crazy encounter, returning to my normal life without ever telling anyone exactly what had transpired here. That seemed to anticlimactic but such is life is suppose.


    But really, could I really let it end like that? I kept staring at her gun, little side way-glances I didn''t want her to notice, since she''d probably scold me for it.


    I had to force her to get rid of this murderous piece of metal, that''s what a tiny voice in the back of my head kept telling me.


    Okay, but why though?


    I mean, I did comprehend that my very brief teenage obsession turned it''s head here and kinda resurfaced, but didn''t I left this shit behind me? It was cringy and illogical, there was no way to ¡°destroy all weapons¡±, to pacify the entire world. Especially not for some nobody, like say, a totally average college student.


    Yet here I was, staring at her modified gun, stored away in a holster on her hips, illuminated by the shine of her flashlight.


    ¡°What are you looking at, exactly?¡±


    ¡°Your butt.¡± I replied in a panic and I actually think this was an answer favorable to the truth.


    There was a shocked silence, a tension so thick it caught the breath in my throat.


    ¡°Excu...¡±


    ¡°No, sorry, that was a lie, I was looking at your gun.¡±


    She even came to a halt, turning towards me, the light shining into my eyes:¡±Now that just sounds like a terrible excuse.¡±


    ¡°Wait, no, it''s the truth. You see, guns fascinate me, they always did. And yours is not a standard model, right?¡±


    Even my amateurish eye could tell that much, I''ve never seen a gun like this before, the way the barrel was shaped, looking like it accommodated a higher caliber than usual. I told her that much, trying to make my lie more convincing. I lied to her, then pedaled back only to lie again. Go me, I really thought I learned how to talk to people the last few years.


    Then again, this girl wasn''t just any ordinary girl and that did not only refer to her stunning looks.


    When would you ever meet a girl that just casually pulled out a gun to mess with a bunch of trained soldiers?


    Right now, this very gun was the problem though. If I could just get rid of it, we could finally get along.


    No, wait, we''d die, completely defenseless against another attack, what was I thinking?


    ¡°You''re not very good at your hobby then, huh? Well, I guess such a modification is kinda unheard of...¡± She pulled out her weapon, her finger always off the trigger, while showing it to me. Of course she would never point it at me unless she intended to shoot me, what a professional. Or rather, what a possessor of common sense!


    ¡°Guess there is no harm in talking about this, I am actually kinda proud of this baby. This gun, this work of art...¡±, she held it up for me to see clearly, ¡°...is a customized Makarov PMM. Blowback action, a 12 round magazine, drift-adjustable sights, higher muzzle velocity compared to it''s predecessor model.¡±


    ¡°Impressive!¡±


    ¡°I know, but these are just the specifications of the regular model. Now when it comes to the customization...firstly, it''s got a cute kitty engraved on the handle.¡±


    She showed me, smiling bright and jumping up and down. What a personality-shift, but she was right, on the black handle, there was the stylized head of a cat. Quite the amazing artwork actually, but why was that necessary?


    ¡°I...I see.¡±


    ¡°And that''s about all I can tell you, the rest is confidential.¡±


    ¡°So you just told me some facts I could have looked up on the net and bragged about your cat-handle.¡±


    ¡°That about sums it up.¡±


    I looked at her, dumbfounded. This redheaded girl had a sense of humor? More importantly, was this really the time to joke around? Our lives were kinda at stake here.


    ¡°What''s your name, actually?I know I''ve asked you before, but it''s kinda weird to only refer to you as ¡°the girl¡±.¡±


    ¡°Referring to me? In front of whom?¡±


    ¡°You know, people.¡±


    ¡°People...well, that too is confidential. In fact it''s so confidential that I have to kill you, should you ever find out my name. In fact, just a single letter would be enough.¡±


    ¡°Does your name contain an A?¡±


    ¡°Yes, actually!¡±


    I shivered a little, half expecting her to really draw her gun at me, but she only laughed. It was a nice sound, even if it seemed a little mocking to me.


    There was silence again, then she turned away, returning to her serious character, like our banter never happened:¡±We should keep moving.¡±


    ¡°Wait, there is something I need to talk about.¡±


    ¡°Do it while we walk, we can''t linger here for much longer.¡±


    I wasn''t exaggerating, I had to talk about this. ¡°Uh, wow, how do I say this? How about you lay down your weapons and live a peaceful live?¡±


    No response.


    ¡°Cause, you see, there is this dream I have, since I was a teenager. That maybe, the bad situation of our planet directly relates to our use of guns. And...and if we just abandoned weaponry as a whole, then maybe we could finally change something.¡±


    She never even moved or looked at me, just continued walking. A sure-fire way to find out if I should continue or just shut up about it. And of course, I chose the wrong option.


    ¡°Okay, let me get to the point. I want to end all armed conflict. I want to achieve real world peace! And I want to start with you, Missy, so throw down your gun! Huh, how about it? Just throw it away.¡±


    ¡°You''re stressed, I understand. But if you won''t keep it together you might actually loose your sanity. Without the chance to turn back. But again, I get it. Something like that would mess with everyone. After all, you''re still covered in...never mind.¡±


    As the corridor narrowed, all the images returned in my head, the subway-station, the walls and the platform painted in blood, the people who didn''t die immediately lay there, afraid and in horrible pain.


    Tears welled up in my eyes and I almost threw up again, but I had to remain steadfast!


    ¡°YOU''RE WRONG! It''s my mission, you stupid...¡±


    Lightning-fast she turned around and grabbed my mouth, pinning me hard against the wall, while looking intently into my eyes:¡±Sssshhh.¡±


    Not the first time this happened tonight, but I just couldn''t match her awareness for danger.


    As a side-effect I got to see her eyes up-close, those green little gems. However, there was something else, something I didn''t quite grasped at the time. Wouldn''t take much longer though, I can tell you that much.


    In this perfect silence, I only heard footsteps heavy boots moving silently through the corridor adjacent to the one we hid into. I couldn''t see a thing and they moved silently, not even exchanging a single word. Only their boots betrayed them and I was glad that the girl picked up on it. That said, would we really be safe? They came ever closer, the footsteps obviously drawing nearer and then I finally got a real glimpse of our enemy. They looked like they jumped straight of a movie, clad in black ballistic armor, their heads completely covered by a black, large helmet, with goggles that emitted a faint, green light, hardly visible. That''s why they needed no light, probably using the night-vision in these goggles. While I finally got to see them, I still couldn''t really see any details, it was just so dark, even when my eyes slowly adjusted. Just judging by how carefully they moved they must have heard us, mostly me. My cheeks flushed as I felt some significant shame over this fact.


    As they reached the crossroad, they had the option to either advance further on their path, leaving us alone or they could turn to the left, immediately running into us. That would not end well, I eyed the rifles they carried, huge assault-rifles, capable to rip us to shreds in less then a second.


    If they saw us, that is. The first soldier started to turn and I could feel the body of the girl in front of me tensing. She was ready, any moment now and she would strike. While all I could do was hold my breath and send a silent prayer to whichever deity was listening at the moment. Just let us survive this, please. At least I didn''t close my eyes, as the soldier turned abruptly into our direction. Even if I had to stare straight down the barrel of his assault-rifle.


    2


    That terrifying experiencing, face to face with a gaping hole that was able to unload dozens of rounds in the blink of an eye, lasted only for a brief second.


    Cause she never flinched, the girl was ready, for the whole time she anticipated this moment and as it finally arrived it was only a matter of executing the plan she already laid out for herself. Namely, pushing his gun violently to the side, causing him to turn and crashing her elbow into his face. I could see her flinching, it must have hurt like hell, hitting the hard combat-helmet with such force and yet it proved useful as his body went limp, threatening to fall to the ground. Her red-hair flowing in her movement, she grabbed his shoulders and held him upright, his huge body covering her small frame, as his companion readied his gun.


    He never exclaimed anything, no sound of surprise, those guys were professionals, trained perfectly and so he avoided shooting as soon as he realized what the girl was doing. Using his comrade as a meat-shield. His compassion kinda surprised me, in retrospective at least when I was watching these events, I had no conscious thought, it was like watching a movie while slowly drifting to sleep.


    I guess the adrenaline was just too much handle for me, I couldn''t even imagine how stressed out the girl must have been.


    There was no sign of it on her face though, she just looked deadly serious, as she pushed the body into the arms of the remaining opponent, knocking him off balance. Rendering his rifle useless and then she was upon him, like a red demoness. Grabbing his arm, I heard a loud cracking sound filling the entire, narrow hallway. His scream came dull and distorted out of the speakers of his helmet, then he lost his rifle, the other soldier finally fell, slumped against the dark, cold wall.


    The girl drew her gun, which she was so proud off and stared her enemies down, one whimpering, the other motionless, their weapons well out of reach.


    She was brilliant!


    I despised all combat, as you might have grasped by now, but this was so expertly done that I couldn''t do anything but stare in awe. Even an amateur like me understood how she used the unprotected joints of his armor to her advantage, easily breaking his wrist.


    And she never used a gun! Maybe this was it, the way to achieve my goal...


    Heavily breathing, rasping into his microphone the soldier looked up to the girl, bending down in pain:¡±Fine, you win. We formally surrender.¡±This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    I couldn''t see her face, it was way to dark for that. While I could make out some basic shapes, these details were lost on me.


    However, it did sound like she was sneering mockingly when she answered:¡±We? I only hear one of you.¡±


    ¡°Listen, you bi...¡± he was cut short, as her gun roared. Screaming, he clutched his leg.


    ¡°Just to remind you that your armor is like paper to this little cutie. Also, you might have trouble walking on that for the rest of your life now, sorry about that.¡±


    H-hey, ease up a little, okay? Aren''t you enjoying this a little too much?


    ¡°Okay, god, this hurts...we surrendered, fuck!¡± Drawing sharp breaths, the soldier was visibly and understandably distressed.


    ¡°But you attacked me, words can hurt me oh so much.¡± I could see her pursing her lips, only in my imagination however.


    ¡°Fine, whatever, you''re crazy. I can''t pursue you anymore, so just leave already.¡±


    Then her gun sounded again, followed by a fleshy sound. Even I saw what happened, as dark as it may be, she just shot the unconscious soldier in the head, unceremoniously, without so much as a sharp breath.


    The survivor was too stunned to speak, so I basically shouted what must have run through his head: ¡±Why the fuck did you do that?!¡±


    She paid me no mind, in fact she didn''t utter a single word.


    ¡°I...we surrendered, he wasn''t even awake, why would you...?¡± Even the hardened soldier was shocked over such a display of senseless brutality.


    He even whimpered as she put his gun to his head next, without hesitation. ¡°Wait, this is insane, I give up, you win, there is nothing to be gained by killing me! Just walk away, just...!¡±


    And then his skull too, exploded inside his fancy helmet.


    Calmly, like there was nothing wrong in her behavior, she turned on her light and turned towards me. Finally I could see her face. I thought she was enjoying it, that she was some kind of twisted sadist reveling in the suffering of her victims.


    Instead, there was nothing.


    No emotion, not even in her eyes, her face was utterly blank. She didn''t care about what she just did, murdering these guys in cold blood was nothing to her, it was as natural as taking a breath or batting her eyelids. That was way too scary, I never felt such intense dread.


    As she opened her mouth and simply said:¡±Let''s go.¡± in the calmest voice imaginable, I completely lost it. Turning around, screaming on the top of my lungs I dashed down the corridor, not caring about the absolute darkness I entered.


    No matter what was lurking inside it, it could not be any more terrifying than the red devil.


    3


    My legs carried me all the way back and I never even considered the possibility that I might run into more enemy soldiers. Or why we fled into this maintenance-shaft in the first place. But it soon came back, flashing images of this hulking giant, who I only witnessed in little glimpses. That was more then enough however and yet I had no choice. I couldn''t return to her, she was chilling me to the bone, so much that I feared my heart might stop any second in her presence. Then again, the giant scared me just as much, but it was a different kind of fear and I could not decide what was worse. Did it even matter? They would both kill me without hesitation, didn''t even matter who gets the pleasure of robbing me of my life. Somehow, I just wished it wasn''t her, that would be too cruel. Almost every two seconds, my head turned around, to see if I finally got rid of her. Not only once, but twice did I bump into a wall this way, my body crashing into the unyielding stone, I knew what I was doing was dangerous beyond belief, fleeing like a headless chicken, without stopping to think about my surroundings, but I just couldn''t help it. Thank god the shaft wasn''t of a very complex layout, no twists and turns, otherwise I might have, no, I absolutely would have gotten lost in these dark tunnels, without any hope to ever see the sunlight again. But since I was in luck, I soon stumbled into the door, only to find it tightly shut.


    Oh no, last time we needed the two of us to push this metal hunk open, oh god no!


    Desperately I pushed against it, straining my body to its limits as I pressed my shoulder into the door. Adrenaline gave me a slight edge and indeed the door even budged! But I took too long, you know how fast the demon tended to move!


    And indeed, an icy chill ran down my spine as I heard her innocent voice behind me:¡±Hey,where are you going? You know that this giant might still be around, don''t you?¡±


    ¡°Stop! Get away from me.¡±,I screamed at the top of my lungs, multiple octaves higher than I used to talk.


    She only sighed at my pathetic display:¡±Right, yeah, let me help you with that.¡±


    Together, it was easily possible to push the door open and as soon as I glimpsed a gap big enough for me to fit through, I fled again. If I was lucky, the door would close again, leaving her trapped, but somehow I doubted this would happen. So I had to keep running, with everything I had.


    Every time I stopped to think what I was doing, all I saw where those empty eyes. She just killed them, without feeling anything, she never even regarded them as human beings and consequently she lost all of her own humanity in my eyes. I just couldn''t understand, who does these kind of things? It was something that belonged into the realm of fiction and even then I''d call the work deranged and not at all relatable. Main-heroine my ass, no one could feel any sympathy for this red-headed psychopath now.


    But god I was stupid, thinking about this otaku-crap with my life on the line, I might be just as insane.


    At least I had the dignity to feel sick to my stomach as I reached the subway-tunnel again, seeing all these dead soldiers. The armor dehumanized them enough that I didn''t feel too bad and it wasn''t such a huge amount of corpses, four to be precise.


    Still, they were human, with their own thoughts and aspirations, even if the girl seemed to be willing to ignore this.


    Staggering, my knees shaking I entered this accursed tunnel again. When I''m through with all this I had to look for alternate public transportation, no one could ever get me back into the subway.


    Made me wonder what kind of effects today would have on our city. Nothing comparable ever happened, the peace of Ravenstar was absolute, at least on the surface. A shooting at a public station? Unprecedented, but then again, I knew nothing about the shooters. For all I knew, they''d cover it all up, but how could you even do this? Yes, nobody would care about these soldiers, they''d be slightly moved out of the public eye, most likely none of them had any family or a place in society, but how do you explain all these helpless victims. Well, listen to me acting like I know it all, I didn''t understand jack-shit. Just wanted to get out here, was that too much to ask? How to do it though? I couldn''t think too long, everyone was out to get me, me, a lousy and boring college student, why was I of any interest to these monsters? Think, stop getting distracted but this bullshit and think. That was all that mattered to me right now, to ensure my survival. No, you''re doing it again, don''t think about survival, don''t think about danger, those are just abstract and subjective things, think only about your escape. I looked through the room, scanning it with my ice-blue eyes. There was plenty of light, falling in from the huge hole in the ceiling. Three ways, potentially, going right, left or up.


    Going up was out of the question, I couldn''t jump that high. Damn, I took too long, clutching my head while I desperately tried to remain calm. The giant rushed down to the right, but if I go left...


    Suddenly a huge impact into my back, pushing me face first forward, followed by a sharp noise, next to my ear.


    ¡°Guess I saved your life again.¡± she smiled at me, the girl with the green eyes and reddish-pink hair. What did I do to deserve this torment?


    4


    Sitting again, leaned against the rubble, the girl by my side. Like a soldier sitting in the trenches... once more. This was just too much. This time at least, she didn''t shoot out of our cover, instead holding a small mirror. Checking her make-up? Nah, even I knew by now that she tried to asses the position of the sniper who almost put a high-caliber round into my fragile body. Nothing weird about this, just the world I was living in now. I heaved a heavy sigh, once more.


    ¡°Hey...¡± I leaned to the side, a sad smile on my lips.


    ¡°Yes?¡±


    ¡°You think we can stop now?¡±


    ¡°I don''t think so...I might know this guy. We just call him the Hawkeye, over 100 confirmed kills with his sniper-rifle, why is every freak after me today?¡±


    ¡°Heh, the Hawkeye, of course. That''s who he is, huh?¡±


    A sigh again, dropping my head.


    ¡°He is known to lie in wait for days, no one knows how he does it.¡±


    ¡°Sure, why not? Guess we stay here for a few days.¡±


    She turned towards me looking displeased:¡±I don''t think you are taking this seriously.¡±


    I could only shrug, the girl reverted completely back to her old personality, nothing left of the cold-blooded killer. Maybe she really did suffer a split, could a life at war do this to you?


    Just as you learned to flip the burger just right, without any trouble if you wanted to work minimum-wage at some fast-food joint, a professional killer had to learn how to kill people routinely? She never stroke me as a killer, though. Appearances could be deceiving.


    ¡°The thing is, we won''t have this much time. If he transmits our position...but, dammit, I don''t see a way out of this. If only there was some means of communicating...¡±


    I was long past caring, so I just said what was on my mind, this whole experience proved to really change my character:¡±When you killed these two guys just now, that really scared me.¡±


    ¡°I could tell...¡± Was she going to be sarcastic again, mocking me? Was it impossible to actually talk to this girl?


    ¡°It was just, the way you did it, without any emotion, like those people were nothing to you.¡±


    Looking into the mirror, very focused, she answered:¡±They are the enemy, nothing else. What benefit could there be in letting them go? They''d just report us, they saw my face and someday they''d be coming back. Sometimes, one less foe on the field could make all the difference and maybe I saved a friends life by killing these two, who mean nothing to me.¡±


    She brushed through her hair, almost looking a little flustered:¡±I get it, okay? I know how it looks, I am not that far removed from society. You must think I''m insane or a terrible, evil person, but it''s not that. It''s just the way I have to live. I do this for you, too, you know? For every average guy, for every happy family. What happened at the station, it was my fault. I thought if I use the crowds as cover, they''d never find me. I don''t know how they did it and I never expected them to just...¡±


    She choked, I never knew she was that sensitive. But even a iron heart might melt in the sight of such tragedy.


    ¡°But who are they?¡± I tried again, but she just waved her hand.


    ¡°You still don''t need to know! You''re my redemption, nothing more. If I can save one innocent guy, if I can safely rescue you out of this hell, then it will be fine in the end. That''s your role, so just stop asking questions and allow yourself to be saved.¡±


    Did she just wipe a tear? This was starting to get really cute...


    ¡°Now, what to do about this guy...¡±


    That was the question, one we couldn''t answer and so one hour passed.


    ¡°So, what do you do in your free-time, when you don''t fight for your life?¡± I laughed a little and immediately regretted it, but to my surprise she even smiled a little at my joke.


    ¡°Well, as you guessed I don''t really get any days off. Reading is fun, kinda.¡± she scratched her cheek softly, seemingly embarrassed and she never specified what exactly she liked to read, but I picked the topic up regardless.


    ¡°Oh, yes, reading is great! Just yesterday I bought this new book, the newest installment of my favorite series.¡±


    ¡°What''s it about?¡± ,she looked at me, honestly interested and that made me blush a little. Such a pretty girl caring for anything I had to say, that was new to me. Wait a second, you had a girlfriend!


    Ah, but I couldn''t deny it, she absolutely paled in comparison to the beauty in front of me.


    ¡°I-It''s nothing impressive, just some light novel-trash, some guy getting reincarnated in another world, the usual stuff, but I really like the authors spin on the genre!¡±


    ¡°Mmh, I always wondered how this medium survived into the present day, same with all the anime. It''s so different from our general culture.¡±


    ¡°Right?! But that''s what makes it so interesting!¡±


    We talked like this for a while, movies she liked, how there was basically coffee instead of blood running through her veins and I even managed to snatch the vital information that she had no boyfriend, even if she got a little mad at me for finding out. You told me, lady, that''s not exactly my fault.


    It was a bizarre to say the least, for a moment you could almost think we were just some young people having a chat. Apart from the rubble and the blood...and the corpses around us.


    Four Hours passed in the meantime, while we were talking away and yet no strike team was called in to finally waste us. We were just waiting, the sniper was just waiting and the air around us came to a standstill. A deadlock, neither party could really do anything and it was starting to tear at my nerves. Getting to know the girl (whose name I still haven''t found out) distracted me for a while, but now that we were running out of things to talk about the tension felt really palpable.


    And I was alone in that feeling too, the warrior next to me showed no signs of exhaustion. I mean, it was only four hours, I get that, but still...try sitting that long in one spot, with a sniper-rifle trained on your cover. It was stressful, it was absolutely exhilarating, but at the same time it wasn''t at all exciting.


    ¡°I''m about ready to leave now.¡± I said jokingly, despite my tension.


    ¡°So am I. But he won''t let us.¡± Did she even see anything in that little mirror of hers? I tried it, as she lend me the looking glass for a second, but all I saw was a bunch of high, modern skyscrapers. He could be anywhere, he could have left even, there was just no way to tell. But did she see things I didn''t? That was entirely possible, combat training was something else. Who trained her anyway? And how did she get so good so fast? She could not be any older than 22...


    So many questions and a lot of time to ask them too, but I knew that these topics belonged to the forbidden territory.


    ¡°You sure he''s still around?¡±


    ¡°He''s around. You can see the reflection...what is that, actually? His rifle, some sort of body armor? We don''t know all that much about him, to be frank. But that''s really sloppy. Am I mistaken? Is it not the Hawkeye?¡±


    ¡°Why would you think that anyway? You never saw him.¡±


    ¡°I just assumed it''s him and with good reason. This city is his territory, he is the only hunter with this kind of weapon. He is not the only assassin, don''t get me wrong, but taking out targets from an extreme distance, that''s his MO.¡±


    In what kind of city have I lived all my life?! I thought it was the outside world that was scary, but even here, in Ravenstar, you could die at the drop of a hat.


    ¡°It''s just weird that he hasn''t called for backup yet, we really cannot leave, so it would be easy to catch us now. Unless...¡±, deep in thought, her face seemed to lit up suddenly.


    And she fell silent, thinking to herself. It was weird in general to think aloud like that, but maybe she just did it so I wouldn''t be left completely in the dark. Now though, there wasn''t a single sound coming of her lips, she just bit her thumb softly, deeply focused. Then she turned her head abruptly and flashed me a brilliant smile:¡±We are definitely going to get out of this mess!¡±


    Are we? Um, great! But I couldn''t really share her confidence yet, after all, the situation remained completely unchanged. With new-found enthusiasm, the girl started to look into her mirror again, her giddiness reminded me of a young child. Maybe that''s exaggerated, but why was she so goddamn happy? 10 minutes passed, then 20 and finally I heard the answer.


    Gunfire, distant, but it was still a familiar sound to me by now. A fact I hated as you might imagine, but at this point everything that broke the monotony of our hiding was welcome.


    A last look, then the girl grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet:¡±This is it, just follow me.¡± Running down the tunnel, I felt elevated. We made it! Yeah, sure, this monstrous guy should be somewhere ahead, but hours passed, I was sure he was long gone. Maybe I shouldn''t jinx it, I thought to myself, but Lady Luck was on our side today and we reached another station safely. Surprised looks followed us, as we stepped of the rails and onto the platform, then shocked gasping as they saw my bloodstained figure. It was dry by now, the color fading from a deep red to a dirty brown and maybe that was the reason that no panic broke out all around us.


    However...what was going on? Why were there so many people around? Did they not hear the news, the terrible tragedy that happened just a station further down the line? They...really covered it up?


    Still grabbing the girls hand, I could feel her shaking, but her face was hidden to me. Walking up the stairs, the bystanders made a point in avoiding me, dirty as I was. Surely they noticed the intense iron smell coming off me, nut nobody even approached us and offered his help.


    I was willing to give humanity the benefit of the doubt here, obviously I was already in capable hands, seeing how my protector dragged me behind her.


    As we reached the top of the stairs, the both of us could only gape in complete terror, our mouths open, the eyes wide.


    People! Everywhere! Happy families taking their kids for a shopping trip, young couples on a date, colleagues going for a drink.


    Somehow, the worst case just happened to us, the station was directly connected to a mall.


    Indeed, the clock was fast approaching the middle of the night, but such a consumer-palace didn''t care about that, it would likely be open for one or two more hours. And as the weekend was fast approaching nobody here cared about an early bedtime. There must have been like 500 people around here, lingering in the stores, walking around in the great main hall or just lounging around in front of the doors.


    If they''d found us now...


    The girl understood the dreadful situation:¡±We need to leave.¡± she urged, her voice flat and without any emotion, but her face as she briefly looked at me, showed plainly just how afraid she was.


    Again, some people looked at me funny, but here in this mass of people many never even payed me any mind.


    Then, time came to a halt, as I saw the black armor, soldiers storming through the main entrance.


    All around us, voices rose in sudden fear, their peaceful lives violently interrupted.