EK1

Evan Kelly W.D Blackmon 9/4/2013 Target Audience Adult Fiction, Political Readers, Fiction Readers in General USA 2044 He ducks around the corner of the blown-out building, crouching low, low enough for his thighs to tighten under the strain, low enough to slide under the outer, rotted window sill. Lines of sweat bead down his forehead and collect in a peach fuzz beard, his eyes dart left and right, right then left, one last check, then he moves. Long-ruined glass crunches under his feet, as he shuffles from the concealing shadows of what at one time was a tire shop and towards the cover of a nearby bridges retaining wall. Just a short gap, just a moment in the open, just a heartbeat in the damning sun Target spotted237 yards, north east, crossing the bridge from the east, an excited, young voice whispers from the shadows. Target acquiredCorrection244 yardsWind0, an old, steady whispered voice replies. Black cross hairs follow the target as he moves from the shadow of the building and into the shelter of the bridges retaining wall, covering, following, just as they have been for the past few minutes, long before the spotters first recognition. Four deep breaths, four more, in and out, in and out, his legs and hands shaking, his chest rising and falling rapidly. He leans against the retaining wall, quivering hands tightening an already tight small black helmet, choking red lines into his chin, sweat dropping from a red chin.

EK2

One quick look, just a peak around the blown out portion of the retaining wall, just enough to make sure its still safe. Clear shot! The black cross hairs hold steady, unwavering, confidently hanging over the young man as he peaks his head out from shelter. Moments pass. His head retreats for a second, then slides back out, just barely, his left gloved hand covers his eyes from the gaze of the sun blue e yes, scared eyes. Clear shot! The young, whispered voice now filled with impatience. No shot, no movement. The black cross hairs hold. Hes young, just as young as youhe shouldnt be herejust as you shouldnt. You should both be at high school, chasing girls and flunking mathnot out here, killing each other...Not being taught by me how to kill He moves again, quickly, head lowered, eyes on the wall ahead, legs pumping beneath him, chest rising and falling rapidly, eyes set on the safety ahead, 5 yards ahead. Just a short gap Clear shot! Take the kill! The young voice is no longer a whisper, desperation has raised it an octave. The black cross hairs follow, held steady. Turn around, go home Hes almost there, just 2 yards away, just a few more pumps from strained legs and hell be safe again, safe from the revealing sun, safe behind the protecting retaining wall. He trips, his ankle rolls on broken concrete. His feet slip from beneath him and he falls, face first into the broken debris. He cries out, in surprise and fear. Take the shot! Hes down! Kill him!

EK3

The trigger isnt pulled. The killing finger holds steady, the black cross hairs hold steady. Moments pass. Get up, get behind that wall, you can do it. He scrambles his feet beneath him and slips again, desperation unnerves his balance. He catches himself with gloved hands. Kill him! Shoot him! Hes gonna get away! The young voice is louder now, more desperate. He sees an easy kill escaping. His feet are back underneath him and hes moving, just a few steps, just a few more strides to shelter Let me take the shot! Hes gonna get away! The young voice next to him, a young man, so much like the one below on the bridge, shifts, displacing rumble that was cleverly concealing him, blending with his carefully made camouflage, as he readies his rifle. He breathes in and out, slowing his heart rate, zeroing in with his own cross hairs, his killing finger pressuring the trigger. No. The old voice is no longer a whisper. The word rolls out steady, measured, solid. No? No?! What do you mean no?! The young man, his spotter, his crosshairs burn upon the target, his finger choking the trigger, just a twitch away from death. The target, the young man, the scout, he dashes into the protection of the bridges retaining wall, safe from the spotters slaying finger, safe in the shadow. No. No shot. The old man, the sniper, he relaxes. He releases a long held breath, a breath filled with relief. His eyes, old grey eyes, peering from between a hood and face mask leave the scope, revealing his surroundings. The sniper and the spotter, both wearing full grey matte ghillie suits, both partially buried by broken building chunks, wires, and old crumbling plaster,

EK4

both expertly hidden. From their perch, the 22nd floor of what use to be the restaurant of the Hammonds Tower, they can see all of the west side of what remains of downtown Springfield. After 25 years of war, not much is left. The downtown square, which use to be a vibrant place filled with bars, clubs, apartments and people, is now just a junk pile of broken twisted buildings and vehicles, a graveyard of the time from before, before the war. No shot. No shot? No shot?! The spotter whips his head around, only his enraged green bloodshot eyes show from behind the grey veil. Ive sat here with you for almost two days. Ive done everything the captain told me to do. Be quiet. Dont move unless told to. Dont speak unless spoken to, and above all else, dont ask about before. I pissed myself, PISSED myself because I wasnt told to move. And the first action I get in nearly two days, easy shots, multiple easy shots, and you sit here and tell me No Shot?!?! The old sniper methodically scans other places he would hide, places he would kill from, making sure that hes safe. He then lays his rifle down, muzzle pointed outwards, and turns his hooded head to match eyes with his spotter. Old eyes, grey eyes, tired eyes, peer out from behind a matching veil. First, lower your voice, there could be someone out there we dont see. Secondly, why do you want to shoot that kid so bad? Because hes one of them. He said it casually, as if the scouts life didnt matter, as if turning that boy on the bridge into a corpse wouldnt change a thing. What do you mean one of them? You know, hes from Table Rock, one of those lake tribe people?!?! Not a railroader like me

EK5

The old sniper had heard it before, multiple times, multiple places, but it never really set in. He had lived in the time before, back before the nations, back before tribes, back before border wars between different towns, back before people killed each other over where they were born, how they spoke. Back when the United States was one country. To him, in a way, it still is as long as he believes it so, as long as he holds back that trigger finger. His old grey eyes look over the kid, into those young, green nave orbs. He wants to tell the kid, but he knows the young killer wont understand, he had been born into this world, he was use to its savageness. He turns his eyes away, looking back out over the ruined city withering in the scorching sun. A minute of silence passed. I know Im not suppose to ask, but, Just stop right there. Dont even finish that sentence, his tone left no room for discussion, but he knew it wouldnt work. Look II just wnna know. You know, there arent many people left from before , and youre, well, the first one Ive seen in years. And who knows, if you dont tell me, and you die, then how will I ever know? I mean theres books and stuff, but I cant read And youre supposed to be some kind of legend, 2000+ confirmed kills, that s crazy good! Who better to hear it from? And youve been everywhere, or at least thats what the guys back at the tracks say. 2000+ confirmed killsthats crazy goodthats crazy good The statement echoes in his mind. 2176 lives. 2176 faces to haunt him each night. 2176 grandfathers, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters. 2176 splinters in a broken soulthats crazy good thats crazy good Fuck you kid. Minutes pass.

EK6

They sit in silence. They sit in the silence until it becomes oppressive, heavy. Until the very weight of words unsaid hangs over them like a cloud in a funeral parlor. Its too much for the spotter. Look, I didnt mean anything, by- Have you ever heard the tale of Humpty Dumpty, kid? Of what? Humpty Dumpty. Its an old English rhyme. About a fellow named Humpty Dumpty. He was an egg, a special egg. He had arms and legs just like you and me, could talk just like you and me, but he had the body of an egg. Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, All the kings horses and all the kings men, Couldnt put Humpty together again. Ok? The old sniper takes a deep breath. He knows hes going to need it. It all started about 29 years ago. The old sniper stares off into the distance again, this time looking beyond the ruined city, looking somewhere were only the soul can see, where only memories can be seen. I was 26 and working my way through law school. I had this dream..this dream that I was going to be a lawyer. I was going to make a name for myself, and enough money that I would never have to worry about anything ever again. I was going to be one of them, one of the Haves, one of the people that had it all. Given the social situation at the time, it seemed the right move. Unemployment was at an all time high, social equality was at an all time low, public trust

EK7

in the government was nonexistent. Even if you had a college education there was still a high chance that you would end up working some shit job, slaving away 9-5 trying to swim your way out of drowning debt that you could never repay, your nose just an inch below the water. It was like that everywhere, for everyone, except the Haves, the lucky ones, people so rich and powerful you couldnt imagine it, people above the law because they owned it. We all just wanted a piece of the pie, but there wasnt enough to go around, or so we were told. After 911, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the housing crises in 2008, Libya, Benghazi, after the NSA spying scandals and Syria, during the War on Terror, we were all told that we had to give things up, give up our freedom to be safe, give up our hard fought social safety nets to pay for war, otherwise people living in sand dunes across the ocean would come over and kill us. At first, a lot of people bought it. We exchanged freedom for safety, and it made a lot of people feel better because they thought they were doing the right thing, protecting America from terrorist. Well, it wasnt long before the government, the Haves wanted more. They needed more laws, more power, more money to combat terrorism in order to keep us safe, otherwise we were all going to die. But what they really wanted was for us to just cower in our homes, to turn a blind eye to what they were doing, to give silent consent. And we did. The weapons intended for terrorists were actually used against us, the Have Nots. The Patriot Act, the National Defense Authorization Act, SOPA, PIPA, the NSA spying programs, the list goes on and on. All these weapons, all these shields meant to protect us were actually used against us, so that they could see everything we were doing, read every little email, listen in on every phone call, so that they could control us, keep us scared, keep us safe.

EK8

Their biggest ally was the media. Originally, it was intended to be the fourth arm of the system, to make sure that the other three were balanced, and fair. But after years of deregulation and buyouts, the media just became the governments pawn. They blasted fear, hate and distraction across the networks for a decade, to make sure we had no idea what was really going on. They created enough fake problems, fake envy, fake hate, enough to keep us all distracted from what was really going on, to keep us all tuned in to this fake reality we were living in. The media had us all in the governments hands, doing exactly what the Haves wanted us to do. Behind the veil the media had created for them, the government ran free. But they got cocky and made mistakes. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Well, once we had all had our fair shares of shame, we didnt buy their lies anymore. After all the scandals, all the wars, all the lies, we, the Have Nots, had had enough. They couldnt convince us that we wanted chocolate while we were wearing white gloves anymore, we didnt want what they were selling. We didnt want their lies, their fake promises, their way of life. We all had this idea that if we banded together that we could change the government, return it to its noble foundations, make it work for the people again. But that was our biggest problem, banding together. After years of being told that we should hate each other, we all started believ ing it. What the media cleverly faked had become real. So while we rallied in the streets and courthouses to fight the government, we also took special time aside to fight each other in the same manner. One big leaderless hateful mob, and everyone was the enemy. Our great idea was almost over before it started, and then the 2016 presidential election happened.

EK9

I never really believed in fairy tale heroes, I still dont, but we finally had one who could have been. He was like you and me, someone who came from nothing and made something of himself. Someone charismatic and true, someone who really cared, really wanted to make a difference, someone to lift us out of the shit hole and clean our eyes so we could see again, someone who couldnt be bought. We finally had our leader. The headless mob finally had a purpose, a direction, and that scared the shit out of the government. They slandered him, threatened him, had a media blackout on him. You couldnt find him on any major network, but whenever he gave a speech in a small town or a rally in a stadium, it seemed like the whole world showed up, just to hear him talk, just to hear him promise that he was going to change everything. And just like that, we were winning, momentum was on our side. We had the energy, leadership, we believed again, but most importantly we had the votes, and with the votes came power, the power to change everything back to the way it should have been. Victory was on the horizon. But even back then, the government had a special way of taking care of problems that wouldnt disappear. Our leader, our savior, had an accident. They said it was massive heart failure due to a heart attack, killed him instantly. Their doctors did the autopsy, their media spoke the lies, and they tried to bury the issue just as they had buried him. But you can only dig a lie so deep before it hits rock bottom, where it has nowhere else to run, where its white rotting skeleton has to face the truth. After all the stonewalling, after evading all the questions, when coincidence turned into sinister plot, the truth came out, he had been murdered. Riots couldnt spring up fast enough, and the government wasted no time instituting martial law. Looking back at it now, this was all part of their plan.

EK10

They let the cities burn for a week, then they cut cable lines, took over radio stations, started media blackouts, they wanted everyone in the dark for what they were about to do. Anyone connected with the riots or speaking political dissention started disappearing off the streets. After a few days rumor got out that the government had secret prisons in the Appalachians where people were being held and tortured, questioned about who was leading the riots and who was involved. Once the government had what they needed, and knew who they needed to get, they gave law enforcement and National Guard permission to use deadly force on the rioters. Once they started using guns on us, we started using guns on them. To me, thats when it really started, the war between us and them, the Haves and Have Nots. If you kill someone in war, someone whos trying to kill you, you can justify it, you can say you had to otherwise they would have killed you. But killing a protestor, someone like you, someone you see when you go to the grocery store, someone that teaches your kids at school, someone that use to be in your basketball league, someone trying to get by just like you, that didnt sit right with a lot of people. Sure there were some sick bastards who took advantage of the order, and turned the streets red, but there were a lot who didnt. Once fighting broke out between us, the police, National Guard, and other agencies, the government realized that things werent exactly going their way. Apparently Americans werent as willing to kill each other as they thought. They called the overseas military home to defend the integrity of the nation from anarchists. The Haves found out that their money had bought less killers than they hoped for. Once the military started returning home the fighting escalated. Everyone started taking sides and the real war began to take shape. Like the first civil war, states started withdrawing

EK11

from the union, forming mutual defense pacts with one another, gathering their forces, thats when you found out who was your friend, and who was one of them. The nation became a high stakes chess board, and no one wanted to make the first move. It started with the Predator Drones. We had spent decades perfecting the unmanned airplanes to kill foreign enemies, to find combatants hidden in holes and in mountain caves but they worked just as well on us, probably even better. We didnt have as many mountains and deserts to hide in, and after years of spying there wasnt many places where you could hide, where the drones couldnt find you. At the time, I imagined the drones as the medieval people must have imagined dragons. Always keeping one eye on the sky, always knowing that it was never safe outside, and even if you saw the drone before it saw you, you knew you were fucked. Its damn hard to outrun a missile. Of course we also bombed the shit out of each other with fighter jets, stealth bombers, AC-130s and everything else that flew, but you knew when saw a drone, that soulless piece of metal, that cold killing machine, you knew there wasnt going to be any emotional reaction from a pilot second guessing whether what he was about to do was right or wrong. Each side lost a lot of men to what amounted to little more than a single guy playing a video game. The first year of the war was one of the worst. Once the drones had been exhausted, the proxy war was over and the ground war began. The railways and any cities connected to them became prime targets. If you controlled the railways, you controlled the flow of supplies and troops. Chicago was a particularly nasty battle. It was October of 2021 and we had been fighting over the city for about 6 months. Block to block, building to building, it was a meat grinder of the worst kind. Then winter came early, and Lake Michigan froze over. They didnt call it the windy city for nothing. The temperature

EK12

dropped below zero, and with the wind blowing you could die in minutes from exposure. Those of us who were there got a taste of what the Germans dealt with on the Russian front in WW2. Unlike the Russians, however, we werent use to fighting wars in the blistering cold. More men died from exposure than from combat. It was an unusually long and cruel winter. In spring of 22 we pushed the government out of Chicago. Neither side called it a victory. With Chicago and its railways in our control, we pumped the lifeblood of the rebellion throughout the country. The Windy City was the first step towards victory, but we hadnt won the knockout blow we needed yet, the Haves still had plenty of fight left in them. For the next two years, we chased each other across the country. We traded cities back and forth, burned entire towns to the ground during skirmishes, laid waste to the country sides, but neither side wanted to commit to a major engagement. After 6 years of war, everybody was running out of fuel, supplies, vehicles, and most importantly, soldiers. It was even worse for the Haves, they had a serious problem with deserters. People didnt like fighting wars in their own backyard, and they liked it even less when they found out that they were fighting to protect a rich mans hoard of wealth. To combat the desertion, the government implemented the Safe Haven Protocol. They claimed they were protecting soldiers families while they were away by relocating them to secured facilities, or Safe Havens. We just called them prisons. Essentially, it was effective. Hold a gun to a mans family and he will do just about anything you say to make sure you dont pull the trigger. So, with desertion momentarily curbed, the government came back at us, and we went for them, each side looking for the final crushing blow to finish the war.

EK13

After 8 months of gathering our forces, pulling together every last tank, truck, gun, soldier, and bit of hope we had, we went for them, we went to finish it. We went to burn what we thought was the worst of the nation from history. Looking back now, its ironic where it all ended. Just like the first civil war, the Haves and the Have Nots met outside of Gettysburg Pennsylvania, to fight above the remains of those who had died fighting the same battle over a centuries ago, to once again spill the blood of brothers. I wish I could tell you the battle was a heroic, glorious fight where good triumphed over evil and the world was set right at the end, but it wasnt. It was horrible . It is well that war is so terrible- otherwise we would grow too fond of it. Robert E. Lee said that, the same general who fought on the same battlefield as we did, the same man who led soldiers there to bleed, just like we did, only in 1863. Our battle lasted 11 days. I fought the first four, providing sniper fire for positions and troop movements. The overwhelming smell of gunpowder, burnt flesh, and shit only added to the fact that we had turned this green country side into hell on earth. Watching people get torn apart by explosions is terrible, watching them cut each others throats out is worse, even through the eye of a scope. I lost a part of myself over those four days, and Ill never get it back. The old sniper pauses for a moment, catching his breath. He knows the next part is going to be hard. On the fourth day I caught a face full of shrapnel from a mortar round, nearly died. A medic was nearby and he patched me up pretty good, and luckily for me the sick and injured lines were about 15 miles away, well clear of the fighting. I had had my fill of killing. All kinds of information drifted back from the front, lines holding here, enemy retreats in the center, counter attacks on the flanks, but everything that was being said had one thing in common, we

EK14

were winning. After six years of horrible war, we were winning, the end was in sight. We should have seen it coming then we should have known that if we pushed them to desperation that they would use desperate measures, anything just to survive, anything just to keep their way of life The old sniper pauses. He starts to speak again, forming words in his mouth, but no sound comes forth. His eyes blink, holding back long buried emotions. Moments pass. On the 11th day, the government ended the battle, they nuked the field. If they couldnt win, then they couldnt let us either. Just like that, in one moment, in one decision, 200,000 lives, 200,000 stories, 200,000 hopes and dreams and futures turned to ash. The remains of our dead mixed with theirs, indiscriminate, void of status, wealth, of allegiance, our ashes fell to lie with those who had died fighting the same battle over a century ago, fighting a similar war. That was the end of it, for us and for them. The American way of life died on October 3rd, 2024. The old man lets out a deep breath, his eyes turn red, the pain of that moment returns to him. He is silent as he pulls himself together. Minutes pass. What happened after that? The spotter breaks the silence, his voice curious, unburdened by the emotions of the old man. The sniper takes a moment to answer. What you see now, a world broken. Without any rule of law, or means to enforce those laws, each side fell apart. Bandits and highwaymen became a real issue, and crime skyrocketed. Without farms and factories trucking food into the cities millions of people starved and left, heading out into the countryside to look for food. Those who stayed fought and killed each other over scraps of bread or spoiling milk. The cities became incredibly dangerous. And then the hate returned. What the media had fabricated before the war, what they had created to divide us and keep us fighting each other, to keep us

EK15

distracted, became more real than we could have imagined. Now there was no longer any kind of social order to stop us from carrying out those hatreds. People killed each other over race, religion, family origin, political ideas, mean words, anything you can think of, even down to the most pathetic excuses. What started as one crack in a nation turned into hundreds of little splinters, each declaring their own sovereignty. We broke just like Humpty Dumpty, but this time no one wanted to put us back together. We finally had what we had been fighting the war for, freedom, absolute freedom. But as we found out, absolute freedom is a double edged sword. It can make the greatest of men, and the worst monsters you can imagine. Unlike some of the stories Im sure youve heard, about human-eating giants in the woods, Sasquatch, or the damn Chupacabra, these monsters were real. They hid behind smiles and kind gestures, and invited you into their homes just so they could kill you, for no better reason than boredom, and the worst part is, they look just like you and me. We became the fucking Middle East of North America, the old sniper finished in anger. Quite a bit of us were still worried that the Haves would nuke us again, but they were having issues of their own. There was huge fallout over the loss of the war, the use of the nuke, and who was responsible. Some of them wanted to finish us off, nuke us into submission, but fortunately that didnt sit right with all of them. Somewhere along the lines the launch codes for the weapons were lost or destroyed, and a great deed for humanity was done. Their breakup wasnt as violent as ours. They came to some kind of agreement, Im sure it involved money or trade of some sort, something materialistic. When it was all settled, and both sides were broken and done, the United States ceased to be. After 249 years, the greatest nation on earth faded into history, the greatest nation to ever grace this damn planet, faded into history .

EK16

Minutes pass as the words sink in again, as the cancerous loss eats away at the scraps of his soul. The past 19 years since then have been the worst in my life. With no family, friends, or a place to call home, I became a drifter with a gun, a hired hand. Ive seen th e whole damn country since then, from the Ganglands in California to the new Gilded Towers overlooking New York Bay, from North Dakota to the U.S-Mexican border. A lot has happened. The cartels from Mexico traveled north and took over everything from the Pecos River to the Gulf of California. There were a couple short wars, but when decapitated heads repeatedly show up on your doorstep with notes saying youre next, you either leave, lose your head, or join the cartels. A lot of people joined. Those psychopaths actually brought some order to the southwest, after all the heads were done rolling. They even snatched up some of the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, and when they mixed drug and oil money, their little turf turned into the new Dubai. Its actually pretty nice there now. The Haves settled on the north-east coast and became as you know them now, The Families. Their old nation wealth preserved them pretty well and allowed them to rebuild a few of the cities as they saw fit. They dont have the power they use to, but they keep an e ye on everyone, and I mean everyone. They have spies everywhere. Word has it that they have some kind of cloning facility hidden somewhere in the Appalachians, probably in one of their former secret prisons, churning out a bunch of brainless monsters to do their bidding, or to fight their next war. The southern east coast tried a revival of the Confederacy, they called it the New Confederacy, and it worked for a few years, even stretched out almost to Texas. But culture

EK17

has changed a lot since the 1800s and when they tried to bring back the old ways, suppression of women and minorities, it fell apart pretty quick. The people they tried to suppress had just fought a war over the same problem, they werent about to take on new masters. The New Confederacy lost most of its territory, but it still has some power in Georgia and the Carolinas. Once the New Confederacy started breaking apart, the bible belt exploded into serious sectarian violence. All the different men of god had no qualms about killing each other over who had the right way to worship. The Catholic Church got the worst end of the violence, and the Vatican in Rome has no intentions of saving any of its faithful followers in the new hell the United States has become. The heartland has made it out pretty well. When all of the people left the cities due to lack of food and water, or because of block wars between gangs, they wound up in small towns or farming communities. Thats where all the food was, in the fields, in the woods, rivers, where it always was. The populations of those places exploded , but they didnt have the crime rates the cities had. Those farming communities encouraged vigilantism, and they had the guns and arms to enforce it. And now with the abundance of labor, food, and a social order based on eye of an eye, those farming communities have turned into some of the most powerful nations around here. Two of the main waterways in the country, the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, they fell prey to pirates. Without any kind of coast guard or national agency to cross borders, the pirates have had free reign up and down the rivers. Sometimes they let you pass after charging a hefty fee, which is usually everything you have, other times they are bored and just want to kill you. The same pretty much goes for the major highways. Without any agencies to maintain them or

EK18

protect them, bandits and highwaymen have become a real problem. If you arent traveling with a group, and it better be a well armed group, there is a pretty good chance bandits will stop by to see what you have, and free you of your burden, whether it be goods or your life. Without a constant supply of fertilizer or a way to renew water sources, the Midwest crumbled into dust. A few droughts were all it took and that flat farm land returned to the way it was before, dirt, blood and tumbleweeds. Its just like the old west now, cowboys, cattle rustlers, and saloons. Its a hard life out there. The Dakotas, Montana, and Idaho were reclaimed by nature. Without the highway department or conservation agency to check the wilderness, wolves, bears and mountain lions made a resurgence. Highways and normal roadways disappeared when the forest overgrew them or they washed away in the springtime snow melts. Its a wild country up there now, really peaceful. A man could disappear into that territory and never been seen again, and no one would blame him. The Rocky Mountains bec- Hes moving again! The young spotter swerves his rifle back into place, his killing cross hairs fall over the scout below once more, breaking the atmosphere that the sniper had held for minutes. The kids finger crosses back over the trigger, preparing to squeeze it as his eye zeros in for the kill. He shifts his body into position to reduce the weapons kick, displacing a few clumps of mortar around him. The old man cant see it, but a smile creases the young kids veiled face. Youve been out there a while. Whats your real kill count, you know, the one you dont tell anybody? The kid smirks as if hes found some great secret the old man is hiding.

EK19

The old sniper sighs. He thought that if he told the young killer about what happened before that maybe he would listen, maybe he would change his ways. Maybe he wouldnt see these people as foreigners, but instead see them fellow countrymen. Maybe the young kid would try to take responsibility, as he had, and try to make the country a better place for everyone. 6,572. Wow thats impressive! He takes his eye off the scope for a moment , looking towards the old man to see if he is bullshitting him. You really kill that many people? No, he says with pride. Thats how many people I havent had to kill. He smiles, its a rare show of emotion, barely noticeable. Thats how many people have been in my scope and I havent had to pull the trigger. Thats the number I like to think about, the lives I havent had to take. Today Im hoping to add to that number. That is dumb!! Your kill score is way better! This guy is mine. The young killer chuckles, then returns his eye to the scope, following the scout, finger on the trigger, moments from pulling it. The old sniper can no longer deny it now. When he dies, the last hopes, the last dreams of a reunited America will die with him. He realizes now that those people he fought decades ago, those people he hated, those people he killed, his fellow countrymen, they had more in common with him than these newer generations ever will. The old English rhyme comes back to him, haunting him. All the kings horses and all the kings men wont put America together again The young sniper breathes in and out, slowing his pulse, releasing all the air from his body. He breathes out one last time, and pulls the trigger.

EK20