Young Writers Society

Rude Awakening

“Get up. That’s right you, with the face. GET UP.” After the boot roughly hits my side I groggily wake up. I remember the bomb I had to deactivate. That would be my top priority but my captor has a knife and my hands are bound. I scan the room I am in and see a camera, my captor with a knife, concrete walls, an iron door with a lock and the numbers 001 on it, a rusted metal ventilation screen, and a TV. On the TV screen, I see a man with a pistol aimed at Bob, my partner, in a replica of my containment room -- but there is 010 on the door instead. The words “Hey You!” snap me back to the current problem. “Are you deaf? I asked you what your job is,” my captor shouts in my face.

Deciding that it’s not confidential information, I reply, “I am an engineer for the war.”

My captor absorbs my words and asks me another question “Do you know anything about Utopia’s secret weapons?” After a few seconds of silence, he includes “I know you would guard that secret with your life, but your friend here could be saved if you just tell me this one secret.” Still more silence. “OK then,” he says, “I’ll leave you to think this over. I hope you would make the right decision next time we meet,” and leaves the room.

With the time I have left alone, I think about my wife and 5 year old son. My thoughts drift to the war. President War of Olympia was out to take over the whole world. Olympia’s main enemy and threat is Utopia, where many of the highest technological and scientific advances take place. President Peace of Utopia negotiated with President War to try to avoid conflict but the battle continued. After the meeting, President Peace tried to make as much allies as he could while President War tried to destroy the blockade of enemies standing in his way. Now here I am, in Olympia, trying to defend Storma’s capital from an atomic missile. Storma, one of Utopia’s first allies, is the richest country in the world. It contains an abundance of gold, steel, iron, coal, diamonds, and precious mineral mines. Governments include tyranny in Olympia, democracy in Utopia, and aristocracy in Storma. Now back to the present, how am I going to get out of this base alive with my friend? Before I could make any real plans, I find myself drooping and closing my eyes for the night.

When I open my eyes for a new day, I find myself looking at fingers snapping at me. A new person to interrogate me -- great. I look around and the TV isn’t on. What did they do to Bob? I think. “Hey. Listen hear,” the guy whispers, “I turned off the camera for a while.” He puts a pocket knife in my tied up hands and tells me, “My time’s up. Good luck.” He walks out of the room to be replaced by General Tanner – who I’ve seen leading the attacks against Storma.

“Good morning,” greets the general in a cold voice, “I hope you had a good night sleep because you certainly won’t have one tonight. Now, I’m going to only ask this once. What are Utopia’s secret weapons and where are they located?”

“I only know that they were given to our allies so that President War would have to target many countries and not only Utopia,” I reply as I start to secretly cut the ropes binding my hands together using the knife. “Enough of this foolish talk, I know they aren’t not in Storma or with anyone else. President Peace wouldn’t give weapons of mass destruction to his allies -- they would turn on him right away if he no longer had his advantage” General Tanner exclaimed. “Now I want to know the real information about your weapons otherwise your friend here,” he says as he flicks the TV on, “won’t be living.” My eyes widen and my heart pounds when I see Bob unconscious with bruises all over his body, second degree burns on his legs, and a gash on his head oozing blood. I quickly cut the last rope binding my hands together.

“This is payback for my friend,” I say as I slice the knife across his throat. General Tanner drops to the ground with a thump, his skin turning pale blue. The two soldiers guarding the door rushes in after seeing my murder through the barred window. They tackle me to the floor as I stab them with the knife. One of them takes out his gun and tries to shoot me -- but ends up shooting his friend who is on top of me. While using the dead soldier as a shield, I throw the knife at the other guard. He drops to the floor dead. I unscrew the metal ventilation screen off the wall and crawl through the duct. My heart pounds from having just murdered the general with his guards and my muscles tense up, but I think to myself, “They deserved to die.”

As I move through the duct, I see the numbers on the doors increasing. I also notice there is no one in most of the cells -- we must be in a new base. I spot the number 010 on a door and look through the screen. The soldier aiming the pistol at Bob is still there and the camera is also on. I quietly unscrew the metal screen off and throw the knife that I used to cut my ropes with at the soldier. The soldier drops to the floor with a knife in his head as Bob turns around in surprise. I throw the ventilation screen at the camera -- smashing it. I untie Bob and he quickly thanks me. Then, I pull him up, help him through the opening to the duct, and crawl in after him.

As we crawl, the cells become quarters. “Do you think we could find a map in one of these rooms?” Bob asks.

“We probably could,” I answer.

As we crawl through the ducts, we pass rooms crowded with soldiers. Eventually we come across one with only a single soldier. We exit into the quarter and knock him out using the butt of the knife. I search the room for anything that might be useful while Bob searches the soldier. I come across a closet filled with extra uniforms and a drawer with a pistol. “We hit the jackpot,” I call to Bob, “we can disguise ourselves as soldiers and blend into the crowd.” “Perfect,” Bob says, “I found a phone here in this guy’s pocket. I wonder if we might find anything useful on it.”

We quickly change into the black soldier uniforms, Bob grabs the pistol, and I begin hacking into the phone. I took off the back cover and rearranged a few wires; it took me to the “change your password” screen. I changed the password to 123456789 and clicked the back button which took me to the main screen. On the phone, we find a basic map of the whole base and an ID badge. “I don’t think there is anything else in here, and we should probably leave before anyone else comes in,” Bob says.

“You’re right, let’s see if we can head over to the explosive’s room. Maybe we still have a chance to deactivate the bomb.”

As we walk along the hallway, we blend in easily with the other soldiers – no one suspects that we are enemy troops who are about to bring down their entire operation. We make a right turn and walk down another hallway, stopping in front of the door saying ‘Explosives Room’. “Do you have a plan?” Bob asks.

“We bust in, kill everyone, deactivate the bomb, and then go with the flow,” I answer.

“If we get caught or die, I want to tell you it was nice working with you,” Bob says.

“You too. Let’s go and do this,” I reply. I could hear my heart racing as I open the door using the ID on the phone and walk into the room.

When we enter, one scientist is directing two others on how to rewire the bomb. Bob shoots the lead scientist while another one takes a look at us and runs toward the emergency button. Bob fires at him before he hits the button and then aims at the other scientist cowering against the humongous bomb meant for Storma. “Please spare me,” he whimpers.

“Fine -- stand right there so that I can see you. Bob, guard the door,” I say. I run over to the bomb sitting in the middle of the room and start deactivating it for good.

As I pull the final wire off the bomb, the scientist who we spared manages to sneak around the room to the emergency button. I shout, “Hey!” and Bob tries to shoot him but he is too late -- the alarm has been set off. Five soldiers rush into the room with guns raised. Bullets fly across the room, bouncing off the walls and we duck behind the bomb I was deactivating. ‘Three soldiers dead. Two more to go,’ I think. One soldier is shot down by Bob but the other soldier shoots my right arm. I groan and drop to the floor. Bob finishes off the other soldier and helps me to my feet. We exit the room and blend into the chaos out in the hallway.

I push through the stream of soldiers while gripping my injured arm. People fly by, too distracted to notice my arm wound. After walking through the maze of hallways and people, I spot an emergency exit. “Let’s get out of here,” I whisper to Bob while pointing at the exit. We shove our way past the river of soldiers and push through the door. Finally. We’re free!

Within a few seconds in the hot, dry desert air, my clothes are already soaked in sweat. “What are we going to do now?” I ask Bob.

“The data and phone lines are probably monitored here so we can’t call anyone for help. Let’s head out into the desert and hope we come across some town,” Bob replies.

“We don’t have any food or water,” I grumble and start to follow Bob across the desert. After a day of miserably walking over sand dunes and under the harsh bright sun, we come across a small town willing to lend us water and horses. We continue our journey across the desert on horseback through the night and day till we reached Silverleaf. “We make it!” I cried “We’re finally back home!” We hugged each other and called the general to pick us up on the cellphone. ‘We’re finally home,’I think.