Errrr... Okay, I don't know if any of you have read George Orwell's 1984, but if you have this is a bit of a modernized version. shrugs Hope you'll find it interesting. All references to 1984 are copyrighted to Mr. Orwell, obviously. Enjoy!

In the Beginning

At first glance, you might say it was a young girl walking down the avenue of the city, her head bent slightly against the wind. On second glance, you'd recognize the features of the face to be those of a young adult, in her late teens perhaps, early twenties at best. There was no one but the woman out that night; that worked to her advantage, though only to a limited extent. She raised her head briefly to confirm her destination; an all but abandoned bus stop, in an all but abandoned neighborhood.

The woman promptly lowered her head again, and stuffed her hands in her pockets. They could hardly be called pockets, as she could only fit her fingers in to the second knuckle. The jeans were government designed so nothing could be hidden in them. The woman dealt with this by securing her thumbs in the loops where a belt might have gone on a different day, that suiting her purpose as well as full sized pockets might have. The wind suddenly caught a lock of her bracken colored hair, and swept it behind her with several others that had escaped the untidy braid that fell a few scant inches down her back. Finally the woman reached the bus stop, and sat on the bench. The poor thing groaned in protest under her weight, but it held her in spite of it's condition.

The woman looked up sharply as she heard the crunch of footsteps coming towards her through the litter of one of the side streets, then her tense face visibly relaxed as she saw who it was. "You scared me," she said flatly as a man not much older than she walked to her side.

"Sorry," he replied sheepishly. "How did it g-"

"I have bad news," the woman interrupted. "I've been tagged." She raised one wrist and pulled back the tattered green jacket that concealed it. A battered slip of precious paper dangled there by a loop of thread, so tightly that the woman's grayish blood dripped around it and dyed it. The man's reaction would have been satisfactory if this had been a joke.

"You what? Do they suspect you yet?" he spluttered.

"I don't know, but the Politicians certainly are aware of what's starting to happen," the woman replied.

"What about a chip Ivy?"

'Ivy' shot him a piercing look that would have killed him if the blue eyes could have a physical force.

"No. They didn't give me a chip yet," Was the reply. The man breathed an obvious sigh of relief that was almost comical.

"There's also good news," Ivy said after a pause.

"Well get on with it," the man replied impatiently. Ivy wordlessly pulled at a gold chain around her neck, and pulled up a gold pendant from under her shirt with it. The pendant was engraved with an emblem in a shape not unlike that of a griffin in the center, and around it there were countless runes, some of which could only have been properly examined under a microscope.

"Where'd you find it?" the man hissed quietly, barely resisting the urge to punch the air and yell for joy.

"One of the Vices was wearing it around his neck. I snagged it when he tagged me. Don't even THINK about making any noise Fred, you'll bring the Media down on us like hawks," Ivy growled when he saw the awe on her friend's face.

"I wasn't going to. And how many times do I have to tell you to call me Fredrick?" he replied, running his fingers through black hair that looked like it should have been washed the day before.

"At least one more time, now let's go befo-" The woman's voice was promptly cut off, and she started choking. Fredrick soon saw why. A dart tipped on one end by a sharp needle, and on the other by a single green feather, trademark of the current generation of Vices, was stuck the full length of the needle in Ivy's neck. The feather seemed ridiculously colorful in the grey surroundings, and it seemed a violation to the dismal neighborhood. Fredrick stared at the dart for a moment, but his gaze was torn away against his will as Ivy toppled to the ground.

Fredrick's gaze undoubtedly would have remained on Ivy's still form had he not been born and grown up in this neighborhood. He searched over the buildings' faces for any glint of metal, his grey-hued eyes pained but intent. Finally he saw it; the glint of a gun being withdrawn from a window on the third floor of a building, painfully close to his position at the bus stop. With little thought, Fredrick reached down and wrenched the chain from Ivy's neck, then pelted down the street and away from her. He didn't even check for a pulse; the Vices' darts always killed.

And that was what happened on October 13th, 2084. It would happen hundreds of times more, though only in Fredrick's memory.