Revolt: 2035

Liberty read the note and shook her head before looking at Ellen putting out a number 2 pencil from her pocket she wrote on the note looking at Ellen with a slight, but funny smirk.

'I think he was looking to talk to you. I don't know him, but he does know you.' She wrote back before looking to Hope, Angel, Will, and Tom, for the most part all strangers. She's seen Angel around, she's a field nurse or medic, was in a few of the same traumatic anatomy courses. But the other's were all strangers to her.

Her attention though like the other's were pulled away towards the pillar as their "president" appeared above.

"Welcome students, tonight we shall have a show. We are here to see what happens to people who are thieves, who think other's wealth is theirs to take. He shall pay for every bit he took with his blood. And if any of his colleagues decide to continue in their line of work, they shall suffer the same fate. Begin."

Liberty watched the whip hit the young man as he screamed out in pain. The crowd grew silent as they watched some watched shaking their heads showing no sympathy to the person being punished, others looked away not able to watch the gruesome scene, and some, not a lot, but some watched on with intense look in their eyes.

Liberty was in that category, her fist clenched upon hearing the whip. Every single sound of the whip being thrown down made her angrier. She looked down as her bangs covered her face when it seemed to over. She closed her eyes not wanting to hear the verdict of what happened to the young man.

It was during this time, like always, despite how scientific she was she prayed, she prayed to her father, for hope that freedom and liberty would return, one day.

 

Jordan watched as the two disappeared into the crowd, leaving him by himself. Now he had to watch this by himself. He was used to solidarity, but in no way did he need this at this current point in time. He stuffed the waving hand away into his pocket, a bit embarrassed. His attention turned to the action on the stage, where the president began to speak.

"Welcome students, tonight we shall have a show."

'A fucking show. Is that the word for it now? He is being showcased like a freak at the circus, so yeah, a "show" sounds about right.'

"We are here to see what happens to people who are thieves, who think other's wealth is theirs to take."

'But when the money was never rightfully yours, but the money of the proud, heh proud, sure, American people who worked their asses off for it only to have ridiculous tax money. I believe we were simply taking a page out of your own book.'

"He shall pay for every bit he took with his blood. And if any of his colleagues decide to continue in their line of work, they shall suffer the same fate."

'Then let my blood be shed you bastard.'

"Begin."

At the second the words were uttered, the whippings began. Jordan was challenging the president non-verbally a second ago, but the suddenness had caught him off guard. After just the first one, he watched his friend scream in agony, making his own knees to buckle. Then the second lash came down, momentum building in this one so it cracked louder than the last. Jordan's eyes widen, his breath quickening, his fingers flexing. It wasn't until this very second that it had honestly hit him: they were going to whip Alex to death in front of all of these young students and everyone was just going to watch and stare.


Jordan looked around at his fellow classmates, disgusted with their behavior. Some didn't look at all and some were actually cheering. "You fucking bastards," he yelled out, no one even looking at him. "That man stole back your parents money so that we could save you all! We were going to end the LIFE of this tyrant, who shows you his claws and you all turn a blind eye! Is this justice? Freedom? ANYTHING that this country was built on?! Some of you want to be historians and don't even know your GODDAMN HISTORY! WHAT ARE YOU ALL WAITING FOR?! IT ONLY TAKES ONE!"

No one looked at him. They were all turning a blind eye on him as well, it would seem. They always did. Of course there would be no change in that.

Jordan, frustrated, pushed his way through the crowd, which showed no resistance. He jumped up on the stage, pointing to his friend Alex. "Is this what you guys want," he asked he crowd, tears in his eyes. "Beat a man to death in front of all of you because he stole some money? Men before him have stolen MILLIONS of dollars in their lifetimes and would go to jail for, what, 10 years? He takes less than 80,000 dollars and he has to be put to death? When it's the politician's money, it deserves death? To enjoy this, to watch this, to not feel any hate towards this man or anything he does, or even ACCEPT what he does is betraying your family and your country. "

They stared right through him. They watched the whipping with more intent now.

He turned to look at the president now, the source of all of this. "And you. I want you to know, I will NOT stop fighting your oppression. If anything, I'm just going to fight harder you son of a-"


Jordan had blacked out out of rage and depression. He shook his head and looked back up to see Alex still being whipped. The tough bastard was not willing to let go of his thread of life so easily. Jordan regained his composure from earlier, standing straight, knees no longer buckling, and watched only for one thing. His fists were still clenched tightly, he winced every single time the whip cracked, and his eyes grew wider the louder the screams got, but still he watched.

Through L34gue's screams, he looked up only one time, his eyes examining every part of the place. One familiar face. Just one. All he wanted was to see someone that would just give him comfort by just seeing. And then his eyes fixated on a boy in the crowd who stared directly at him. His shirt was a bit out there, but his vest seemed fairly crisp. The boy's left eye had an odd twitch as L34gue was whipped, almost like he was ready to snap. Although he had never seen him once, he felt he knew him. With all of the others that he knew in states much further away, he deduced that this boy was an old internet friend. A member of the group of 4 that he and two others made years ago. K4y0h. Finally eye to eye.

He started to hold his screams back, trying to show his strength in front of his old friend. He had always played the tough guy off so well that he wanted to keep his image. The pain, however, was slowly getting to him. He looked back down a the ground now, hoping that his friend had noticed him as he did him.

'He noticed me. He wouldn't look like such a damn show off if he wasn't showing off for someone.' After L34gue looked away from Jordan, he finally let out a tear. 'Don't show off for me, Alex. Show off for that bastard behind you. Tell him you're going to fight, damn it.'

"You're going to fight until your last breath," Jordan muttered to himself.

The boy next to him must have heard him and chuckled. "I hope his last breath is soon, damn criminal," he yelled, with a couple of students cheering. He gave Jordan two hard pats on the back in joy.

Disgusting.

 

"Oh... Well... Umm... Good to know. It's nice to talk to you Angel." Tom spoke, getting more embarrassed at the fact that he couldn't seem to talk to Angel without being incredibly self conscious and overly critical of himself. He wanted to talk normally to her, get to know her better, but always had difficulty doing so. Clearly human interactions were not his strong point. Being in a laboratory and doing some sort of project with whatever chemicals available to him, now that was his strong point. But then again, he could chat with Hope just fine. Thinking about the difference in his ability between interacting with each individual sister just caused him to feel even more embarrassed.

Fortunately, though it would be more correct to say unfortunately, whatever sort of self conscious criticisms went on his mind were immediately put on hold by the torturing that began to take place. Events like these caused Tom to absolutely hate himself. In his mind, he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Normally he could simply ignore these things by focusing entirely on science. Just thinking about some phenomena and the possible explanations were enough to get him to lose focus on a person being tortured and then not actually witness the horrid even that played out in front of him. But whenever he thought about the times he did that he knew how wrong it was. Deep down he knew that every person who witnessed these terrors had a moral obligation to put an end to them. And by essentially pretending that nothing was going on, Tom was committing a massive act of disrespect to the poor soul who unjustly lost their life. If everybody could just rise up, hand in hand, and fight they could easily reclaim the freedoms that were once stolen. But unfortunately every person here was only human. Even if everybody was aware of their duties, their responsibilities to combat this terrorism, they never would. To do so properly would require the armed soldiers to fight against the leader of the land they swore to protect. And if that didn't happen, then those who would rise to fight would die; examples of what happens when you try to fight for what was truly right.

Deep down Tom knew that is what it boiled down to. Everybody here was too scared of dying. It was fear that held up the status-quo. Nobody would stand up to the President because they assumed they were alone. In each person's eyes, nobody would stand up next to them. Saying that it would only take one to start a revolt clearly didn't understand the extent at which everybody was controlled by their fear. If it only took one, then the world wouldn't be in the sorry state it was in. The very first martyr would've been enough to change things and cause people to take matters into their own hands. Nothing was going to happen. People were too paralyzed by their fear, knowing that should they rise they will only fall in a hail of gunfire alone; abandoned by everybody else who was too scared to risk their lives. No, it would take more than one. It would take everybody at once, all willing to sacrifice their lives for the greater good.

And so it was that realization that he abandoned the entire human race each time he didn't make a stand for what was right that gnawed at Tom from the inside. He knew that his attempts to block out the world were the worst things he could do; that giving into this fear each time was his consent to this current state of affairs. Perhaps it was because of these feelings and the complete suddenness at which the torturing began that Tom couldn't ignore it. He was just unable to absentmindedly fade into his own little world. And he felt sick to his stomach as he heard the snap of the whip and the screams of the victim. At any point along the way, it wouldn't be surprising if Tom suddenly lost all the feelings in his legs, fell down, and immediately threw up from the sight.

 

As the students began to walk back, Jordan dashed through them. He pushed past several groups of girls and guys, getting rude looks from most of them. After shoving past a kid wearing sunglasses, he stopped at the edge of the stage, guards not paying him any mind. The blood spilling on the stage was few inches to his left but did not seem likely to touch him. He folded his arms on the stage and put his head down in his arms. When the guards finally noticed, they thought nothing of it other than the poor kid was praying for the boy that just died.

"Alex, I'm so sorry man...I'm so sorry."

His hands trembled, his knees beginning to buckle once more. At least the worst of it was over now. He knew that several students could see him but at this point he didn't care. He was broken and this was the only way he knew how to fix himself.

 

Liberty hardly moved before a guard dragged her off and she fell to the ground being dragged out and thrown to the ground on the outside of the gate.

She laid there on the ground, the last one out it would seem staring up at the cloudy sky filled with dirt and smoke.

She closed her eyes and pushed herself off the ground. She began to whisper to herself...

"We the people... We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America... We the people..." She looked up and glanced up beyond the brick wall of the confinement that held the school within where the tower resided and the President lived within.

"Mr. President, we're going to get OUR constitution back." She spoke more aloud before walking off back to her dorm her mind set on the stories her father used to tell her.

 

By the time Jordan had finally pulled himself together, majority of the square was empty, and Will had left. His eyes were red, but he had finally regained his composure. He turned around and took a deep breath. The president had done a perfect job in terms of getting a reaction out of him. In terms of trying to scare Jordan straight, he failed. In fact, Jordan was now more determined than ever to bring down Gabriel even more. However, now he was a bit unsure of how he would do so. He put one hand in his pocket and another on his head, his fingers running through his own hair.

"My move I guess then..."

He slowly made his walk back to his dorm, unsure about himself and the state at which his group would now be in. He watched as a crowd gathered around something by the infirmary. He walked over to the group, wondering what the commotion was all about. He spotted the familiar looking boy, Will, yelling at the crowd, puke surrounding him. Jordan took a step forward, and smirked a bit. "McBride right? Come on, let's get you to the nurse, yeah?"

 

Liberty no sooner later get back in her dorm before her phone started ringing. She looked at the phone recognizing the nurse's office number picking it up as she started to change into pj's balancing the phone on her shoulder.

"Hello?" She talked into the phone. After what she just witnessed she hoped to be able to climb into bed and try to sleep away the scene, but at the same time something was bothering her in the pit of her stomach as she pulled on the PJ shorts and tank top.

 

Jordan smirked, the boy getting his comeuppance for talking bad about Jordan's, deceased, friend. He stepped past the boy with the surely broken nose and followed Will. As he walked with him, he remained quiet, not knowing what exactly to say. "So...you said we met before, right? Well I know who you are McBride, but I don't know if we've ever really talked before. I'm usually..." he paused, trying to find the right words. He pulled a stick of gum from his pocket and quietly started chewing. "...an outsider." He held a piece of gum out for Will, not looking in his direction, eyes staying forward. "Your breath smells like shit."