The Roaring of the Engines

            He shot across the night sky as he accelerated. Taking a corner, (perhaps a bit too fast) he routed all of his reserve power into the main thruster. “Crap!” The thermal coupler failed and now he was overheating. Of course he new he had no business being surprised. That coupler wasn’t even built for racing, let alone handling that amount of energy in the engine. Thinking fast, he disengaged the secondary coupler and allowed the engine to engage its failsafe and shut down. As the roaring of the jet turbines stopped he started gliding lower and lower. He quickly reengaged the engine and, had it worked? Yes! Yes it had! the both couplers were back online. But now he was behind Jorinn and he new that he might have lost the race altogether by letting that happen. Jorinn was the top jet-bike racer not only on his home world, but also in the entire league. He cursed under his breath, (not that he could’ve heard himself over the engine anyway) now a racer that he didn’t recognize was gaining on him. He took a risky move and went full throttle. A burst of speed, then he was neck and neck with Jorinn. He said a silent prayer of thanksgiving that his bold acceleration hadn’t blown up the engine. Suddenly Jorrin maneuvered across the horizon to the left and released a spray of  aerosol. Then, his monitor went black, his goggles with his head’s up display was gone too. He was now flying by his naked eye, an almost impossible task. He had heard of this gas before. It wasn’t gas, really, it was a substance comprised of microscopic electronic leeches. Robots that sucked all the power out of anything they landed on. He wasn’t as preoccupied with winning anymore as he was just staying alive. All his onboard computer systems were gone as well which meant that he had no way of seeing how his bike was holding up to all the power surges that he had been putting on her. He had his basic jet systems but that was all. Then, the moment he had been waiting for arrived. His onboard systems rebooted and he was back in the race and still in second since the others had slowed down as well (the only good thing about leeches was that they effected everyone who fell into the trap). With Jorinn so far ahead he decided to go big. He dumped ALL power that wasn’t absolutely necessary into his engine and gunned it. This was it, the final stretch. There was Jorinn, ahead of him. He saw the lights of the stadium, so bright he may not need his screens. He decided to risk it. He rerouted his onboard computer display and screen power to the engine. A burst of speed. And then: A photo finish. “Curses!” He had it! He hoped that the race that he had just put everything into hadn’t been wasted. He hoped the cameras saw him win.

The Assyrian battering ram

     No rest for the weary. This siege had taken everything out of Benjamin. The Assyrians had come with their iron, their battering rams, their massive army that had been labeled undefeatable. Well, he had been praying constantly and had been burdened heavily by this hopelessness; this dark cloud over the heads of his people. He went to the grinding stone and started to unsheathe his sword. But then he decided to go get something to eat instead. He went to the tents, where the food would be. He walked around looking for any sign of stew or meat anywhere. Not finding any, he decided to talk to his friend Enoch to see if he had any bread or wine. While he walked, he thought about Sennacherib and his army and the way that the Assyrians terrorized everyone who wasn’t already in their empire. It was sickening to see their greed. But it was pointless to think such things. It was impossible to stop their relentless war machine.

     He reached Enoch and asked him if he had anything to eat. He told him no and disappointed, Benjamin decided to go to bed. He silently prayed for his city, for the impossible odds that they faced. Silently and quickly he drifted off to sleep.

     He woke up with a start. It was early, but he could already hear that the entire city was in a panic. Without putting on his full armor, he ran out of his bunk house and went to the wall. An immense crowd had gathered at the top of the wall, and all of them were pointing and shouting at a scene in the enemy camp. Only when he reached the top of the wall did he see and (more prominently) hear what the spectacle was. What he heard from the massive camp was complete silence. What he saw from it was nothing. No driving war machine, no busy soldiers preparing for a bloody battle. The only soldiers he saw were lying prostrate on the ground. They appeared to be motionless—dead. Had there been a guerilla attack that he hadn’t been informed of? Had their been disease in the enemy lines? All these questions and more were posed in Benjamin’s head when he heard the news: “The Lord has delivered us!” He heard one archer say. “The Angel of the Lord has stricken our enemies in the night!” Said another young infantryman. Praise be to God, for he had delivered them out of their most dire circumstance. He had risen up against the enemy and triumphed. There would be much celebrating in the city tonight; drinking, eating, being merry. They would praise and worship God tonight. They would erect altars and burn offerings. This victory was the Lord’s, and he would be praised for it. Benjamin uttered a silent prayer of thanksgiving. “The Lord is indeed with us.” And then, he realized that he had eaten nothing in over a day’s time. He would find Enoch and they would share in some bread and wine, and they would celebrate together.

Rash Decision

    There were two people in the world that Eli hated: Hap and Jasmine. Both were high ranking officials in the C.I.A; one a Liaison to special operations, the other a public relations officer. Their illustrious titles were of no consequence to their devilish priorities.

     His most recent discussion with Lewis hap (the man he despised) had left him angry. He told Hap that if he didn’t stop the under the table dealings, Eli himself would go public with the information. He thought he had been fair: Hap gets to keep his image and position, Eli gets to rest with the knowledge that foreign countries were not receiving the latest intel about America’s high priority missions. The argument became heated. Hap threatened Eli with various fates ranging from death, to fates worse than death.

   Aside from Hap, recently Eli had been faced with the problem of a Jasmine who had been paid to cover up a serious crime within the agency. The problem was, Eli wasn’t sure what the crime was. All he had access to was a phone call that he had caught over the airways and analyzed: Talks of “being backed into a corner again”, and “prevented from getting rid of the evidence.” Elsa Jasmine had been on one end of the call. The  other caller had access to high enough security to block all traces and locks onto his location. He had to get out in the open with Hap, and he had to get to the bottom of this mysterious crime.

     The lies had pushed Eli to his limit. But he believed that it was his duty to try and resolve this unrest. It was a disgrace to the agency. He laughed for making such an old fashioned sentiment. There was hardly anyone who believed in the integrity of the C.I.A anymore. He had to come to terms with the fact that he was trapped. There was no way he could get out of this with clean hands. He had to do something rash. Something impossible. Something that bespeaks of a desperate soul.

     Eli had a knack for getting in trouble he couldn’t get out of. He had a knack for becoming an enemy. He decided that he had to use that knack right now. He strapped on his Glock 9mm pistol and took the elevator to the 8^th floor. He shot the man that he believed most deserved it, and walked away. He then took the elevator to the 2^nd floor and repeated the act on another despicable human being. He went back to his office, sat down, and pondered what he had just done. “A well done job,” he said. “A well done job.”

Damp Morning

      Jesse finished his cigarette and stamped it out. It was a cold winter morning, although it was eleven o’ clock, it was foggy and damp and uncomfortable in general. He didn’t mind though, he never minded.

He casually checked the bolt in his 7mm rifle, although an efficient weapon, it wouldn’t have been his first choice, but he was hired and given a weapon to do the job and it was best not to question it. He was under strict orders to do this job quickly and efficiently, without any complications to slow down his getaway. Kill and get out, a simple directive that rarely bothered him and frequently paid well.

 There was his target, just like his source had told him. He didn’t have a problem with his profession, killing. It was the only thing that he had really ever been able to understand, it was quick and it was definite. There was no uncertainty about it. He had once been an accomplished man, in his country’s military. He was proud of his accomplishments as a man who had once helped defend his country. He didn’t like to think of himself as a man who took life, he instead liked to think of it as trying to make a living.

He let out a deep sigh, he considered lighting another cigarette to calm his nerves, but he had been considering trying to quit smoking and decided not to. He went back to his personal thoughts. Somewhere, he had a son, he had had a wife as well but she had not wanted his trouble. He missed his Jacob, he missed the way that he laughed, he missed the way he cried, he missed everything about his son. His thoughts were pleasant ones about his family and the time (no matter how short it might have been) that they had spent together. He wished that he could find a way to get his old life back, his life of normality and trust, not this life of grey areas,  no rest,  and constant fear that he might be caught at any given time. But all these thoughts were foolish ones, and he was a professional who tried to rise above sentimentality in order to perform the task he had been assigned.

It now dawned on him that he had wasted precious time in his thoughts, his target was still there though, his life of grey areas still waiting on him. He, without putting thought into it, lined up the target in his scope and pulled the trigger. He walked away that day thirty-thousand euros richer, and he convinced himself that it had been worth taking a human life in order to obtain it. But it was his sincere hope that he could, someday, have a normal life again.

Two Worlds of Design

     They lied to us. They lied to all of us. We never suspected that, all along, they had been deceiving us.
Taken away from all we knew, we clawed at the walls and begged for help. But they chose not to hear us. They stood by and watched our world burn.

       Then they told us it was for the good of all, "For the best" they had said. But all they had done was to put us into a prison. But, despite their tampering, we found ourselves in the darkness. Suddenly we had realized that we had been lied to and put into what they had called a "Utopia". But to make a utopia, you need to destroy every remnant of the dystopia that existed before:  every memory, every thought, every last shattered feeling.  And they had tried, but they had failed.

     For what makes us human is not perfection, but imperfection. We can't exist in the perfect little world that they made for us, the flawless design that they had been so naive' to assume we would accept as reality. Our suspicion was always there, creeping, making us doubt our existence. We finally broke free of them though, and now we know the truth, the truth that they had so perfectly designed our lives for us, the truth that we came from a world with fallibility and no perfection.

      And now we will reveal our discovery to them as we combine these two worlds of design, these places that we used to call home, and now can call only the battlefield. We will not rest until they know the depths of our knowledge, that we are stronger than they had counted on and that their mistake has cost them their lives.

      This is our memoir, this is the account of the great discovery. Be aware that our lives have changed on account of this knowledge; do not take it lightly.