#269
A First Shot Fired
Part 8
BREAKING NEWS: Civil War in Egypt heats up with many in the
region saying someone has to step in before it’s too late. The White House has
once again stated that in no fashion up to and including Pulpy will the U.S.
get involved in this conflict and that the two parties driving this war need to
stop it themselves.
BREAKING NEWS: In the U.S. the state of Georgia is set to
execute another mentally handicapped criminal in what most say is another state
push back against federal laws that they say are infringing on their rights.
BREAKING NEWS: A series of church arsons against Jewish and
Muslim dwellings continue in North Carolina and in response state senator
Krissy Joiner, “That what happens when these fringe religions try to upset the
true God.”
Everyone’s first fight, besides high school scraps; which
are more like puppy love than a real fight, that first real fight is something
that sticks with a person forever.
Sure in some instances in high school there can be fights
that end up with a lot of blood being spilled but that’s as rare as marrying
your high school sweet heart and living happily ever after.
The first time your brain, even maybe for only a second,
clicks into a state of survival at any cost during a fight it’s never erased
from your brain. That second, that moment is burned in there. It might be
burned into a place that your brain doesn’t scratch that often but it will
always be there.
Sometime this brain click manifests itself by laying in a
fetal position on the ground but most people at least get a swing in or some
words out. Survival can start or end both on your feet or on the ground. The
choice of what will come from you is something you are born with.
The first time Chris had ever felt a touch of the survival
instinct was just a few months after high school. Well, there was that time in
fifth grade when the man tried to snatch him when his family was at a park but
his brain was too young and trusting at the time to even understand.
His dad broke the guys face.
Chris on the day I’m talking about was leaving a pizza
buffet after a good meal of six kinds of pizza. He went there alone celebrating
finally being out of high school and thinking about what future he might have,
if any at all. He was kind of in the middle of thinking the future was hopeful
and that it had no hope and he should just kill himself.
Funny enough that was the point after which when he started
eating healthier. He went a little uptight vegetarian to push back against
things that reminded him of that night.
Most of our decisions are based off little subconscious ways
of dealing with things that have happen to us.
Chris crossed the street from the pizza buffet to where the
overnight bus line stopped, and right out of a bad Netflix movie you’d only
watch because you need background noise while working on something else, he was
surrounded by street thugs.
The thugs in reality were themselves on their way home from
a party to catch the same bus. Thugs kind of mislead you into thinking they
were rooming criminals but here is a little fact that is nasty part of the
human condition. Most random crimes aren’t committed by rooming criminals but
by rooming everyday people who found themselves with a taste in their mouths to
hurt someone else, most of the time someone they have never meet before.
They spotted Chris and their instincts took over. The
instincts of the hunt of someone perceived as weaker. But this wasn’t a hunt,
this wasn’t anything like that, when modern men try to paint themselves as
hunters while having their prey back into a corner, or in a pay pond, or at a
hunting range is a special form of cowardice.
The thugs all were slurring their threats towards Chris. He
was surrounded by an overwhelming bar smell and a gut feeling telling him
what’s about to go down and that same gut is speaking truths like that this
isn’t a win situation but a survival one.
Chris looked around but no one else was in sight. You can
truly feel in your bones just how empty streets can be at night when you find
yourself surrounded by people you know aren’t there for a group hug or to talk
about the news.
His father had taught him how to defend himself so maybe
four drunks wouldn’t hurt him too bad. The things that go through your head
when you about to get your ass kicked. Some people even think that someone
might show up at the last second to rescue them. Both kind of daff things to
have running through you head as someone tells you they are about to make you
bleed.
And his father may have taught him how to defend himself but
it’s not like his father was some kind of martial arts expert who went through
a quick course Karate Kid style that had him kicking ass and taking names in a
few weeks.
What his father taught him is what I also learned from my
father. That there is no such thing as a fair fight. There is a fight between
two forces and one almost always is more powerful than the other. You do what
you have to do to get yourself out of a situation alive, especially if you are
outnumbered or outgunned.
Chris had nothing in his pockets to defend himself with. His
keys could be used but he’d have to get really close for that and any movement
he made to his pockets would probably bring them in to attack.
He glanced around but there wasn’t anything he could pick up
and use as a weapon. No trash can lid or stray board with a nail in it in
grabbing distance.
But Chris’s father didn’t just teach his son how to defend
himself. He taught his whole family and friends. He also did a class for the
local neighborhood watch group. Remembering one memory about a lesson his
father gave a female friend in using her purse as a weapon reminded him that he
was carrying his mail bag and all the notebooks within it. He carries it with
him everywhere and most of the times it’s like just another piece of clothing.
You could use a shirt or a belt as a weapon but most of the time people never
think to do so.
One of the thugs went to grab Chris, and to be truthful the
grab for was more like a stagger toward, but with one big swing of his mail bag
Chris knocked him out cold.
Though the big swing of the bag took him off balance and
allowed another thug to grab him from behind. They all started shouting things
at Chris but his eyes were focused on the man on the ground and listening to
the fast beats of his own heart.
Chris struggled but couldn’t break the guys grip. The one
that had a hold of him was built like a bear. He probably couldn’t break free
from a skinny guy either but this big one kept him from even struggling much at
all.
The other two thugs started taking turns punching him when
they saw he wasn’t reacting to the things they were saying to him. The first
couple were glancing blows that caught him on the side of the head and jaw but
the first solid blow hid him in the center of his face breaking his nose. The
next two solid into each eye. After those the punches really didn’t have the
same sort of impact for lack of better phrasing.
They punched themselves tired after about 15 minutes. Blows
to his ears had him only hearing a ringing through most of it but by the time
he was dropped to the ground and they got in a few kicks each his hearing
cleared up.
Chris couldn’t see, his eyes had already swollen shut but he
could hear their footsteps and laughter as they walked away dragging their
knocked out friend with them like he had just had too much to drink at the bar.
At least that’s what the police would tell him when he
talked to them. Guys out who had too much to drink. That was the reasoning. Not
that human beings all have a bit of cruelty inside of them and it can come out
at random moments when they see a weakness in another person.
That’s what most bullying is. That’s what a lot of murder
is. And that has been behind a lot of wars.
At that moment as Chris was laying there he understood words
spoken to him once by his father, “A lot of people enjoy hurting others. They
are more animal than Sparky is.”
Sparky was their family pitbull.
Sparky died after being hit by a car.
‘You trust these guys?’ Sergeant Luke asked Chris as they
sat in a Billings sushi place.
Sergeant Luke had come up with a schedule for the places for
them to meet including places to eat outside of their secret headquarters to
try and keep any eyes from seeing a routine with them.
‘Every one of them has been off the grid for years. They’ve
been waiting their whole lives for something like this. Something that’s a real
thumb up the nose to the establishment and not just games and picket lines,’
Chris
‘Give me name, age, and a general picture of who they are,’
Sergeant Luke
‘Faith Veitch, 27, she’s a pretty fucking good hacker.
Darryl Rick, 23, hardware tech genius. Banks Roubeau, 30, artist and nurse,’
Chris
‘A team is who we live and die with. This is your first big
choice in this and I just hope you are making a good one with these people,’
Sergeant Luke
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we can continue with the credits and copyright and legal and stuff that people
just don’t ever pay attention to unless it is pumping their own horn.
An Original Publication of System* Publishing,
a Tin Universe book published by System*Publishing, a
division of System*Productions, Melbourne, Florida. This book is a
work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events
or locales or persons, living or dead or living dead, is entirely and very much
so in the coincidental.
Smashwords Edition Copyright © 2015, Brian
C. Williams, System*Productions. Tin Universe Daily, and
all related titles, characters, and elements are trademarks of System*Productions.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions
thereof in any form whatsoever. While unauthorized reproduction is sometimes
needed, please remember us writers types are for the most part a poor lot just
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Written by Brian C. Williams
Edited by Brian C. Williams
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