"The challenge that is already with us is the temptation to accept as true freedom what in reality is only a new form of slavery."
-Pope John Paul II
Olympia, capital of Washington state. A home to many people, especially those of the hippie breed. Of all the cities along the West Coast of the U.S, it is one of the few that has not been taken over by the D.U.P. The mayor of decided that there would be no need for such "brutality" to come in, despite every threat he's received. Threats from both citizens and politicians alike. Though now, he just may have this decision turned against him.
Along another gloomy day, with snow just barely starting to show. When it's cold out, and you're about, for food you should go one way. That way, would be the "Wong Way".
"Welcome to Wong Way Miss, what can I get started for you?" says a young man working in a food truck.
"I'll take three orders of egg rolls. Along with that, some stir-fry noodles, pork fried rice, and some… nihhhhhhge…?"
"Nigiri?"
"Oh, yes. That, yes. I almost said something…"
"It's alright Miss, not the first time someone has called it that."
The young man tallied up the prices onto the register, and finished writing up a ticket for the woman's order.
"About how long will that take?"
"Around fifteen minutes."
"Ok, thank you."
"Alright, your total comes to thirty-two, forty."
The woman handed over her credit card, so he could run it through. Then the guy had his customer sign a tablet using her finger. After she finished signing, the tablet was set onto a counter inside the food cart.
"Your order will be ready soon."
"Ok, thank you. I'm sure you get asked this a lot, but is the title supposed to mean 'One Way', or 'Wrong Way'?"
"Oh, no. It's just named after the owner's dad."
"Oh."
As the woman walked away, the man then reported the order to everyone else inside the food cart. After doing so, he came back to the counter to see two D.U.P soldiers walking by. He got nervous, and pretended he was cleaning the front counter, right before he was called to work.
"Hey dumbass! Get those egg rolls dropped now!" his boss told him.
"Ok sir." the man replied back.
After dealing with the current customer, the radio that was playing current (and worn out) pop and hip-hop music was changed to a different station.
"I wonder if any of those bio-terrorists have come near, I heard something about an attack the other day." said the boss.
Radio static started to sound off as the station was changing. Eventually, it was stopped onto a news station.
"...on FM news one-oh-two-point-one, traffic is looking real horrible today. A crash over on Southeast 14th Avenue has left three cars totalled, and eight injured. The crash has blocked off the entrances and exits onto I - five, and it almost makes you glad the major didn't have D.U.P forces station here. Otherwise we'd have more road blocks, and no one would be getting to work. Don't know about you Tim, but I wouldn't be here right now if that were the case." The man on the radio allowed another reporter to speak. Everyone in the cart listened as they cleaned up.
"Well Rob, I'm not sure I could get past Dup roadblocks after some already heavy traffic. I can at least get maybe halfway through before work starts, but sadly for a Yakima resident, she wouldn't be able to make it to the first stop light. Ya see, A few days ago, a woman by the name of Elizabeth Homer was attacked by a bio-terrorist." said the other reporter.
"Holy crap! I'm surprised she made it through that alive, Tim!"
"Yeah, ya see, the bio-terrorist that attacked her apparently used it's powers to break her arm, and throw her against a dresser."
"Like what? Some kind of weird telekinesis, or something like that?"
"No one knows at the moment. Even the doctors are baffled. To add insult to the injury, on top of her being stuck in the hospital, her fiance bailed out on her. Reporters were all over him when his fiance was taken to the hospital, and it was found on that same day that his daughter had gone missing."
"Wow, quite a cluster of mayhem they've got."
After a bit, the man working the front of the cart started to ignore the radio.
When work hours were over, he got into his green hoodie, grabbed a bag on the counter, and left to go back to the dirty apartment he called home. The man thought to himself about the news report, and how so many conduits are attacking people, or being attacked. Either way life went, he did not care as long as he and his loved ones were ok.
He walked up the cramped stairway of the building, and found his room. He knocked on the door, to which a child's voice inside responded, "Who is it?".
The man said, "I got the de-riv-ery for a little punk." in a messy Asian accent.
The door opened, and a young boy came out and said, "Richy!" before giving the man a hug. "Did you bring some?"
The man walked into the room with the boy, and closed the door behind him before saying, "Yeah, I got your favorite Everett. Orange chicken with noodles."
"Yes! Thanks bro!"
The boy grabbed the bag in his brother's hand, and took it to the table to open his food. While the boy started to stuff his face, the young man Rich decided to walk towards the bathroom. The door was open, revealing a young woman inside washing her face. As she started to dry off, Rich snook up behind, and wrapped his arms around her body, right above the stomach area.
She shook a little in surprise, and said, "Hey, you need to stop doing that Richard! I wanna stab you right now."
"Come on babe, you need to relax. Just me comin' back from work, getting food for us. Hoping we can enjoy tonight."
"Yeah, well if you want to 'enjoy' this night, why don't you get those dishes done?"
"What? I thought we agreed that little Bruce was going to do those from now on? Didn't we Carol?"
"Today, he was very helpful in getting everything organized in our bedroom. Oh, and today I've been feeling under the weather. I think I'm getting a headache."
"Hm… great excuse. I guess I'll do the dishes." After he let go of Carol, Richard headed towards the sink in a kitchen area that didn't appear to have much. A small microwave, small fridge with no freezer, small stove with no oven, small peanut butter with no jelly, essentially everything in a basic apartment in a smaller size. "Damn, I wish could've gotten more money before leaving." Richard said to himself, thinking of events he regretted.
While this was not a great time of his life, the worst for Richard was yet to come. Only one day had passed, and hell had broken loose. A new conduit was attacking Olympia, taking down police and D.U.P forces alike. To protect Carol and Bruce, he grabbed them both in his arms, and ran to get out of the city. The D.U.P, however, kept everyone locked inside. No one was leaving without brutal force. With the top being covered in a swarm of D.U.P, Rich decided to go underground. I.e, the sewer system.
Entering the foul odors of the sewage filled pathway, Carol and Bruce tried their best to hold their breath. While those two were about to puke halfway through, Rich felt strange. The air did not harm him in any way, and felt rather soothing to him. This was rather odd, but not as strange as what happened next.
"Come on you two. I'll just jump across, and use that board to make a bridge to cross the sewage." Rich told his brother and girlfriend.
"You're crazy! You're ass is going to fall into that piss 'n crap down there!" Carol said in an irritated tone.
"Just quiet, it's like a five foot leap."
"More like eight!"
"Way to make it sound better Carol."
Without another word from either of them, Rich tried to make a jump over the sewage. For a second, it would seem like he would have made it, jumping a few feet into the air. The next second sadly, he ended up eating shit, literally. He fell in, with his feet landing first, then slipping off of them. His mouth was filled with fecal matter as he tripped into the sewage with his mouth open. He got up out of the sewage as fast as he could, tears rolling his face with all the nasty material inside his mouth and all over the outside of his body.
"Rich! OH MY GOD?!" Carol shouted at Rich.
The foolish man climbed onto the other side of the sewer stream, where he stayed on his hands and knees for about a minute.
"Richard, are you ok bro?!" Bruce asked his brother.
Barely able to breathe, Rich lifted his right hand up, and gave Bruce a thumbs up. He then began to puke all over the place, which made Carol do the same. Bruce almost did the same, but kept his head against the wall to keep from getting sick. After the puking, Rich began to feel strangely light headed. Then there was a feeling of blood rushing through his veins very quickly. He felt the strength to get moving, feeling very energized in a matter of seconds.
As he got up, the fecal matter covering his body started to dry out, turning into mere colorless, and scentless dust. Sadly though, that didn't mean he lost the smell of sewage on his body. "Ah man." he said to himself. This brought both surprise and confusion to the others.
After getting grossed out by his new fragrance, Rich grabbed the board, and slid it across the river of sewage. After doing so, his brother and girlfriend carefully walked across. As Bruce got to the other side, Rich tried to give him a hug. The boy though, backed away in fear, and said, "I'd prefer not to."
Rich put on an irritated look, and said, "What? Did the disappearing shit scare you?"
Carol grabbed a hold of Bruce and told Rich, "No. It's the fact that you smell like shit! No one wants to hug the smell of someone's ass!"
Bruce started giggling before looking up at Carol to tell her, "That's funny."
"Alright, whatever. Let's just get out of here!" Rich exclaimed.
They walked through the sewer system for what felt like hours, before finding the pipe that led to the river, (instead of more shit). Unfortunately, the end of the pipe was blocked off by a gate.
"Well, this is great." said Rich.
"Maybe if we go back, we can find another way." Carol suggested.
"No, we can't go back now. The water is literally right in front of us. We have to push forward."
"Richard…?"
While ignoring Carol, Rich tried to push open the gate at the end of the pipe. He tried hard to push it open, but nothing moved a single inch. Carol and Bruce would have tried to stop him, but he still wreaked of many foul odors, so they instead just kept their distance. After a minute or two, Rich became a little worn out from trying to open the gate. He got on his knees in front the gate, having his hands hang on to the gate a little. His brother looked through the gate, noticing a figure in the distance coming their way.
Bruce yelled, "Bro, there's someone in front of you!"
Richard looked up, and saw a woman with brown hair and a yellow jacket, right in front of the gate. As raindrops fell onto her, steam rose from her body. She grabbed a hole of the gate, and closed her eyes. Rich jumped back a little from her, thinking, "Oh god. Is she the bio-terrorist attacking police?"
This "bio-terrorist" held onto the gate tightly at its sides. Heat started to come from her hands, melting the metal into liquid form. Eventually, she was able to move the gate out of the way. She put her hand towards Rich as an offer to help him out. Rich hesitantly put out his hand to accept her offer, right before she backed away in disgust and said, "On second thought, you can get yourself out." Poor Rich, he'll never forget this day.
Rich got out of the drain, and was followed by his girlfriend and brother. Rich tried to talk with the conduit, but before anyone could speak, the D.U.P surrounded them all. It seemed as if either way, it was inevitable for Rich and his family to be captured. The interesting fact though about the whole situation, is that there is a group of conduits only a matter of minutes away from this city as well. Conduits lying within the woods, just North of a dormant volcano.
Hey everybody, CAJ is back! Sorry it's been a month since my last post. I've been working on some other pieces as well, such as a DBZ fanfic I Started before this infamous piece. Hopefully there will be more entries soon, showing off the original and OC infamous characters. Hope to see you all again soon, PEACE!