Hey guys...did you miss me? xP I'm posting this real quick, since I'm feeling shitty right now, but have fun reading!
(Oh, and about Our December? I'm throwing up and in bed with the flu, so hopefully I'll get around to that when I feel better)
CHAPTER 5: EVERYBODY WANTS TO CHANGE THE WORLD
March 01, 2013
New World Plaza, Battery City, California
3:39 PM
"Remind us why we're here again," Frank grumbled.
The four men stood in the center of the overcrowded plaza, buffeted on all sides by other human bodies. Above them, affixed to the fronts of the five new towering apartment buildings, were massive video screens showing blown-up versions of the podium in front of the crowd.
"We're here in protest," explained Gerard for the third time. He gestured to the cardboard-and-paint sign he had balanced at his feet, the side with writing carefully turned out of view. "We're protesting the new government in a public arena, remember?"
"You and your fucking protests," Mikey groaned. "Like anyone will pay attention to a bunch of dirty, practically homeless, law-evading teenage boys."
"Ah, but that's the point!" Gerard grinned. "No one would pay attention to us—but they'll have to notice the signs!"
"This isn't going to work," his brother admonished. "I don't think—"
But a sudden roar from the massive crowd cut him off. The four boys watched as a diminutive older Japanese man in a gray business suit mounted the three steps onto the raised platform, escorted by eight hulking six-foot-tall bodyguards equipped with automatic machine guns.
"Oh good, it's finally starting," Ray commented.
The Japanese businessman raised a hand, and everyone fell silent. He smiled genially.
"Hello, citizens of Battery City," he greeted in stilted, heavily accented English. This elicited more cheers from the gathered people, and he had to cough into the microphone to quiet them.
"Fuck you," Frank muttered. Gerard nodded, but Mikey hissed, "Shut up before somebody hears you!"
"Today is a joyous occasion," the Japanese man announced. "Before you stand the first construction projects completed since Day Zero!"
He paused then to let his words sink in, and the crowd rejoiced. Over the cheers, he shouted, "And all of this was planned, funded, and executed by your new government, Better Living Industries!"
The screens broadcasted shots of the ecstatic gathering: a couple embracing, a group of men pumping their fists, a young child cheering from her perch atop her father's shoulders. The last image stuck in Gerard's mind, steeling his nerve and making him seethe with anger. How was it that they could brainwash even these young, impressionable children? It wasn't right!
Gerard poked Ray in the side and hissed, "Now!"
Without hesitation, the two began to cheer exuberantly, startling the people around them. Frank and Mikey soon caught on and began to shriek too.
"We're not getting on the screens!" Ray muttered. "This whole thing will be pointless if we don't get up there!"
"Then it's time for part two," Gerard grinned and hoisted Frank onto his shoulders.
"What the fuck?" Frank wailed, holding onto Gerard's head for dear life. "Put me down, Gee!"
But they'd done it. One of the video screens filled with Frank's face, and he rearranged his expression into one of joy.
"Give him the sign, Mikey!" Gerard whispered. "Now!"
So Gerard's painstakingly hand-lettered sign was passed from Mikey to Ray to Frank, who lifted it above his head and began to boo.
And on the video screens, before the controllers could switch the camera feed, the angry words were broadcasted to the crowd. BL/ind Brainwashes, it said.
A technician frantically changed the screen to the Japanese man's face, but the crowd had taken notice. The excited shouts began to turn confused and angry. Frank watched as hundreds of heads swiveled to face him and the sign.
He swallowed dryly, knowing what came next.
"Down with the dictatorship!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. Gerard's grip on his legs tightened in encouragement. He glanced down, and his best friend smiled widely at him.
"You can do it, Frankie!" he said softly.
A warm feeling spread through Frank. "Don't believe the BL/ind lies! They are not the type of government we need in our new world!" Beneath him, Gerard, Mikey and Ray cheered loudly.
"We've been given a chance to start over!" At this, he garnered a few cheers from those listening to him. "Is this the kind of start you want for your new life? Are these the people you want controlling you?"
"Good job, Frankie. You can get down now," Gerard murmured.
But Frank was having too much fun. The crowd had begun to catch on, and a good number were actually shouting their support.
"We don't want our lives told to us by a council in a meeting room, do we?"
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted ripples of movement, disturbed people being pushed apart.
"We don't want our every movement dictated, do we?"
"Get down here, Frank," Gerard said through gritted teeth.
"We don't want Better Living Industries as our new government, do we?"
"I'm putting you down," Gerard warned. The crowd ripples had grown larger, and Frank could clearly see three of the white-suited police agents, nicknamed Draculoids for their vampirish appearance, moving towards them.
"Down with Better Living Industries!" Frank screamed before he felt Gerard crouch down below him. He stepped off his shoulders and immediately began to shove through the shell-shocked people.
Cheers broke out in the plaza, but Frank was running. He turned back quickly and saw Gerard sprinting after him. Ray and Mikey were nowhere in sight.
"Just run!" Gerard yelled at his best friend, catching p to him and grabbing his hand forcefully. "C'mon, Frank, the Dracs are right behind us!"
Frank elbowed his way through a group of teenage girls, who turned to stare at them as they passed. "Down with the government!" one of them giggled.
Frank shot a quick flirty smile at her and he heard her squeal as they ran by. The squeal cut off halfway, though, and turned into a high-pitched, muffled scream.
"Drac got her," Gerard observed grimly.
A brief wave of regret washed over Frank. The girl hadn't done anything, after all—it wasn't her fault that he'd chosen to run by her at that moment.
"We should go back and help her," he yelled over the sound of the cheering.
"Are you crazy?" Gerard shouted. "We're barely gonna get out alive ourselves! We don't have time to worry about anyone else!"
He pushed past another wall of people, turning a sharp left at the sight of a white suit. They were now running towards the back of the plaza, where the crowd flowed out and down side streets jutting away from the heart of Battery City.
"Don't look back, we've got five Dracs with those weird supped-up guns following us," muttered Gerard.
With a final burst of speed, the pair burst out of the square in the center of the city and into a dark street. The sound of their footsteps filled their ears, bouncing off the walls as they ran.
Gerard veered into an alley, and Frank followed him, picking his way past pieces of debris left from Day Zero. He was tugged into a dark doorway and he pressed himself against the wall, trying to make himself invisible.
"Do you think they're gone?" whispered Gerard quietly.
Slowly, Frank poked his head out of the doorway, glancing both ways. The alley was empty, but nearby, shouts of 'Where'd they go?' rang through the street.
"We're fine for now," he responded.
Gerard relaxed and slid down the wall, letting himself hit the ground with a thump. He ran a hand through his black hair and sighed. "That was fucking close."
"Too fucking close," Frank agreed. "I think we got the point across this time—can we stop endangering our lives now?"
They laughed quietly. "It's such a rush, though," Gerard murmured happily. "Don't you love it?"
"Don't I love running from the law?" Frank questioned incredulously. "Are you crazy?"
"Not just the running…the feeling that you're doing something, something that'll help the world." He closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the brick. "I can't explain it. It just feels like something I have to do."
But despite his friend's sparse description, Frank understood what he was trying to say. He felt it too. They all hated the new government that had sprung up seemingly out of nowhere only a month after Day Zero. The word was that Takashime Arashi, the president of BL/ind, and his army of businessmen were refugees from Japan. If it was true, they would be the only known Japanese people left in the world—the nation had sunken below the waves, ripped apart by massive earthquakes on December twenty-first.
All that anybody knew for sure was that thirty of them had show up in a wooden fishing boat on the Santa Monica beach a few days after the apocalypse and somehow had taken control. It had been a quiet takeover, and they had done good things for the less than one million people left in the broken shell of Los Angeles—those apartment buildings, for instance, had been rebuilt from the remains of other fallen buildings and could house nearly three thousand currently homeless people.
But what precious few people saw was that BL/ind's evil far outweighed any good it did. It had instituted too many harsh, unnecessary laws against trivial things, such as what to wear or how to act. They were slowly turning California into a dictatorship, but the population was too grateful to them for what they had already done in the aftermath to try and displace them before it grew out of hand.
That's exactly what Frank, Gerard, Ray and Mikey had been trying to do for nearly a month now: enlighten the public. Somehow, though, their schemes always ended in them running away from an army of Draculoids.
Gerard's phone beeped and he slid it out of his pocket. "Mikey and Ray are at Rendezvous point B,: he told Frank. "They couldn't get to A—the place is swarming with Dracs right now." Rendezvous point B was where Spaceland Rock Club had stood before the apocalypse. The name always carried a bittersweet taste for the boys nowadays, as it had been their favorite hangout before it was burned down.
Frank checked the alley again. The shouts had faded away into the distance and both ends were empty as far as he could see. "All clear," he muttered.
They darted out into the alley, running fast and hugging the wall. For nearly three blocks, they ran, turning corners at breakneck speed and dodging fallen pieces of buildings.
Gerard turned another corner and skidded to a halt, jerking Frank back into the street they were just on and pressing himself flat against the wall. His breathing was heavy but quiet. "Draculoid," he mouthed to Frank silently.
Frank nodded, holding his breath to keep himself silent. The sound of his heartbeat filled his ears. He squeezed his eyes shut to keep from passing out. When he opened them again, a pair of Draculoids with massive white rifles were passing in front of the opening to the street, their eyes fixed to the street ahead of them. They didn't glance sideways, to his immense relief. Instead, they turned down the next side street they passed.
"Quick," Frank whispered. He snuck out and inched along the wall, keeping completely silent. The four had found over the course of their brushes with the law that the Draculoids had supersensitive sight and hearing, making it even harder to keep evading them as they did on a daily basis.
Frank finally found the alleyway that led to the club and gratefully stopped to heave a loud sigh, hidden out of sight. Gerard followed behind him, exhausted but none the worse for wear.
"Good job," Gerard panted, hunched over with his hands on his knees. He smiled at Frank brightly.
"Team effort," Frank responded. "And we should get the other half of our team and get the fuck out of here. I think we've almost died enough times for one day."
The pair walked down the alley slowly, thankful that for once, they didn't have to run from anything. The silhouette of two boys began to become visible, dark spots against the sun shining through the mouth of the alley, as they neared the end.
"Gerard Way, you are such a fucking idiot!" Mikey spat as soon as they were within hearing range.
"Glad to see you're okay, too," Gerard called back. "I was so very worried about my darling brother!"
Mikey rolled his eyes. "We could have gotten killed back there! Gerard, this has to stop. Now. We can't keep doing this."
"Can we please talk about this later?" the older boy groaned. "Like when we get home?"
"We don't have a home!" Mikey exclaimed angrily. Ray nodded, his expression stoic, but kept silent.
"Neither do most of the people left in Los Angeles!" Gerard argued. And it was true—out of the 116 thousand people who had remained in the city, at least one hundred thousand still didn't have a permanent residence. Almost all of the buildings in the area had been made unusable by fire and acid rain.
Mikey gritted his teeth. "If someone had gotten their goddamn act together, we could have been moving into those new apartment buildings today rather than protesting them! We can't go on living this way—sooner or later, they'll stop ignoring us and we're gonna die! If we don't run out of food or die of cold first, of course!"
"Mikey, stop it!" yelled Gerard. "You don't think I'm doing the best I can already?"
"Obviously not!" Mikey shouted back. He took a step closer to his older brother so that they were almost chest to chest. Although Gerard was three years older, Mikey still had to look down at him.
Frank shot Ray a frightened look. Gerard and Mikey had argued before—what brothers hadn't?—but they had never been in a physical fight with each other. None of them had. They were supposed to be each others' support system.
Gerard, too, was obviously thinking something similar, because he took a step back, holding up his hands in surrender. "I don't want to fight with you, Mikey," he said softly.
Mikey stared tensely down at his brother for a moment, hands curled into fists at his sides, before relaxing. The tension drained from his shoulders and he turned away. "Sorry, Gee," he muttered. "I don't know what I was thinking."
"It's fine." Gerard took a deep, calming breath. "After all, everything you said is true."
At this, the rest of the boys looked back at him, shock evident in their eyes.
Gerard shrugged. "I'm sorry I've put you all through this. It's not fair on you, and God knows how fucking dangerous it is. You don't have to keep doing it if you don't want to. I won't blame you. In fact, it'd probably be better for you three if I disassociated myself from you entirely."
"Gee!" Frank cried out. "You're not serious, are you?"
"I'm as fucking serious as a heart attack," he responded.
Frank's jaw dropped, and Ray shook his head emphatically, frowning. "Gerard, you aren't just leaving," he said. "We don't want you to leave. I'm not going to let you leave."
"We all know the Dracs want me more than any of you—I'm putting you all in danger," Gerard argued.
Ray stared him down. "We are a family. You said it yourself the day after Day Zero. You support us, and we support you—no matter what you choose to do."
"And we hate BL/ind just as much as you do," Frank piped up. "Even if you leave, we're not going to stop fighting them."
"We're in this together. Till the end," stated Ray.
"That's…" Gerard smirked, but his gratitude was evident in his face. "That's really fucking cheesy, you guys."
"If that's what it takes to keep us together," Ray shrugged.
A slight smile grew on Gerard's face, and he walked forward to stand with his best friends. "And I do promise I'll tone down the protests—it was getting kind of out of hand, anyway."
"Deal." Ray grinned.
The four set out down the street, thankful to be walking and not running from anything for once. They hadn't had a permanent home in months, but they moved from area to area, always searching for somewhere relatively warm and, most importantly, with some form of food. Right now they were based out of an abandoned, half-destroyed shopping mall, which was by far the best place they had stayed—the Sleepy's mattress store was still intact, next to the food court. While most of the food had gone bad or had been contaminated by the rain, a fair amount of non-perishables remained—enough for at least three months if they were careful. It wasn't the best, but it was definitely better than what most of the people in the city had at the moment.
The four passed by the sad community of homeless children that had grown outside an old subway station near to the mall. They usually had to walk by them to get back to their base, and it always made them depressed. Normally, there were about ten there, but today, only three remained—a small red-haired girl and two boys, one brunette and one dirty blonde.
"Hey." Mikey gave a small wave. He, especially, had always been worried about them and would sometimes bring them food he had found in the mall—even if it meant he had to eat less. "Where'd everyone else go?"
"They're all at the celebration for the new apartment buildings," the older boy told him. "They heard there was food there, but we thought it was too dangerous." Beside him, the redhead shivered and nodded along with his words.
"We don't trust BL/ind," she said quietly. "I mean, why should we?" She shivered again, moreviolently this time, and the movement wracked her entire body. She winced.
"Very true," Gerard agreed, nodding. "What have they ever done for any of us?"
The girl smiled weakly. "Exactly." The four couldn't help but notice how painfully thin she was as she spoke.
"How old are you?" Mikey asked suddenly.
"Twelve," she replied. "Why?"
"N-no reason…" he stuttered, before turning away and walking back towards the mall in the distance. He desperately tried to control his shaking shoulders. "Come on, guys. We should get back."
"Er…okay." The other three said a quick goodbye to the kids before running to catch up with Mikey.
"Dude, what was that?" Frank murmured as soon as they were out of hearing range.
Mikey turned to look at his friends, and they were shocked to see a tear lingering in the corner of his eye. "That girl," he said angrily. "Her. She's why I want to keep fighting BL/ind as much as I can."
"Mikey…" Ray said quietly.
"She's twelve fucking years old!" he burst out. "Did you hear her?" It isn't fair. It isn't right!"
His words had shocked his companions. Mikey was the calm, reserved one. He never let his emotions get the best of him. And yet now, twice in one day, he had become angrier than they'd ever seen him.
"Don't let me stop protesting, Gerard," he begged. "No matter how dangerous it gets. Just remind me about that girl, and I swear I'll never back down again."
"Um…alright," Gerard agreed to his brother's strange request.
They walked through the shattered glass-door entryway to the mall, picking their way over trash and pieces of building scattered around the entrance. To everyone's surprise, Mikey veered off towards an unexplored part of the ruined mall rather than following the rest to the no-longer-functioning escalator that led to their temporary home.
"He probably just needs some time to think, poor kid," Frank murmured, watching his friend's receding figure.
"Don't we all," sighed Ray.