Third Generation of Guerrsen
THIRD GENERATION of GUERRSEN
by Jenshin - 2004
Vines cover the curved walls of the temple, thriving in the humid, shady atmosphere of
the forest. Undergrowth grows as well between giant trees, in places half as high as the open
doorway to the place. The temple isn’t anything particularly special to look at. It is a cylinder in
the proportion of a can of soup stuck upside down in the earth. Surrounding it are a few pillars
who’s stonework has been darkened by age and wear. Ages ago the pillars must have been
hollow, but mud and debris have clogged their unkept insides. The pillars vary in height,
although each one stands taller than the temple and shorter than the trees. A few small hole
pocket the tops of each pillar through which, if one looks closely, a bell can be seen. When the
wind blows, it whistles through each pillar in a different pitch and each bell rings in a different
tone. But the aged pillars, uncared for and abandoned, no longer resonate with sound. Instead,
the bells make a dim tinkle when they can, and once in a while, during a particularly strong gust
of wind, a lonely whine can be heard coming from the structure.
One would expect such a place to be entirely forgotten about, but only a day earlier, hired
hands have chopped down a massive amount of undergrowth to recreate the original path leading
to the temple. Slabs of stone, cut the same rounded shape of the temple, lead up to the arched
doorway. A few more arches adorn the side of the temple, letting in what sunlight can filter
down through the thick branches of trees. Inside the temple, a round table stands on another,
though shortened, hollowed pillar. Around this table, seven people stand. They wear modern
uniforms, each crafted with the new Plasti-Cool material developed by the military to be
lightweight, breathable, and soak up sweat without becoming wet.
Plasti-Cool material will be the last great feat of the military. In less than ten minutes, the
military will cease to be and all territories under the late King Guerrsen will become self reliant.
There has, however, been word of the remnants of the military forming a small private training
facility on a path of neutral territory to the south.
The Plasti-Cool uniforms worn by those in the temple look like thick, opaque plastic
because of the nature of this material, which contrasts sharply with the vine encrusted stonework
of the temple. These people could not look more out of place, and yet the dark haired man at the
head of the table says in a voice soaked in composure and saturated with familiarity, “How
fitting.”
This man is probably the most striking of those around the table. For one, he must be at
least ten years younger than the rest of them. His dark eyes shine brightly from their deep
sockets with passion. The look, by the rest of the members at the table, is interpreted as different
emotions ranging from foolhardy to condescending. Part of this may have to do with the smirk
on his face that he has kept with him since he entered the place. Adding to his youthful image is
the windblown appearance of his hair, as if he had just walked in from something intensely more
exciting. Once in a while a few strands of this hair will fall across his forehead and land near his
nose or of the side of his eye. These he makes no attempt to push away.
He speaks again, slightly louder this time so that all at the table will hear him. “This
temple is really not a bad place at all. It will be a pity to see it go.” He is the first of the seven
who have dared to start any kind of casual conversation. While he says this, he glances up
through one of the windows and feels the soft light fall upon his smooth face. The others stand
motionless, as rigid around the table as the pillars are around the temple.
“Do not mock me, Mr. Kohust,” says a woman who stands nearest to him. Where the
man’s hair can be considered black, this woman’s hair is a full shade blacker. Where his is loose,
her is pulled back sharply into a lumpy formation at the back of her head. She stands the most
rigidly of anyone present. Her feet seem planted to the ground as stalwart as a tree, and her
hairstyle pins her body upright in space. One would think that if the hair were to be let down, her
features would fold and collapse to the ground.
This woman’s peach colored Plasti-Cool uniform is tailored to fit her form precisely. Her
body looks incredibly feminine with strongly outlined curves accented by the suit, but her
personality is such that no one would dare look at her in such a way.
“Do not mock me, Mr. Kohust,” she says, “Or you will regret it.”
Kohust knows this. All words spoken at the table have been said a hundred times in the
past. This meeting is entirely useless.
“Ancient beauty has no place in a war,” says another voice. It belongs to a middle aged
man standing with his hand on the shoulder of his wife. The man’s hair is somewhat long with
boyish bangs that look ridiculous on his slowly aging face. His wife hair, however, extends all
the way down her back and a little bit lower. When anyone looks at this couple, they think of all
the hair and forget about their faces.
“We all know that,” the man adds in. He has said these words in contrast to what Kohust
has said. He wants everyone to know that while they are all against eachother, they are all
against Kohust together. But his words make the situation worse.
The woman with dark hair gives him a sharp and hateful look, reminding him of her
efforts to preserve this temple in the first place. Across from him at the table, a fully bearded
man says, “This is my land anyway, I can do what I want with it.”
The bearded one looks quite a lot like Santa Clause, if the jolly fellow was actually a
millitary leader who had stopped smiling since the death of his wife and took up the habit of
hating everyone including his own son. His Plasti-Cool uniform is composed of brilliant colors
like oranges and yellows. The colors do nothing but draw attention to his rosy cheeks and
strawberry hair. Of everyone in the room, he is probably the most noticeable, if not for the
colors, then at least because he is so large.
At his comment, the couple at the very end of the table speak up. A man with a
moustache and greying hair says, “Your land? Don’t be getting ahead of yourself.” His wife
adds, “If it were truly your land, this war wouldn’t be starting.” Both of them are dressed in grey
and blue Plasti-Cool uniforms which fade a little into the shadows of the temple.
The dark haired woman’s slitted gaze reaches them and she speaks out sharply. “If we’d
follow the rules in the first place, none of us would be so greedy for land.” She’s very keen on
following rules, and everyone is quite sick of her having to point this out so often.
“I’m not about to sacrifice my honor for a dead man’s rules,” says the large man in the
bright colors.
“Is it your honor or your selfishness?”asks the blue-and-grey woman. Her husband sighs
and leans slightly forward in his posture, “Please, Kohust. . . Before this bickering continues.”
Everyone is quite relieved to get on with business. Kohust gives his smirk again and
everyone becomes annoyed that he has to be the one playing leader to them all for the moment.
But then again, his Fifth Territory was the one designing all of Guerrsen’s electronics before the
King passed away, and being the most efficient at this, no one else was trusted operate the
electronic device that Kohust pulls casually out of his pocket.
Kohust proceeds in a tone of voice overwhelming with seriousness. “The reason we’ve
gathered is to end our differences, not to start arguments anew. The property we each recieved
from the late King Guerrsen and have come to call our own is from hereon in the hands of those
who destroy is.”
At this he slams the device down on the stone table. A low sound emits faintly from the
hollow pillar in response to the vibration. The device is basically a bomb with a timer. Two
buttons set the time and one turns it off. The timer is set off by being removed from an external
source of electricity, so the device is connected by a few wires to a battery pack that Kohust
holds in his right hand. The bomb was designed this way specifically because Kohust thought it
looked cool to have dangling wires coming out of it.
His right hand occupied, Kohust raises his left arm dramatically. From outside, a faint
wind blows and the bells in the pillars start to go ping ping ping.
“The first shots of war will ring out here in this temple, where ancient people once
gathered to worship something which now has no meaning. The destruction of this temple, the
destruction of meaning and beauty, is the destruction of our own history. It symbolizes our -“
Kohust’s speech is cut off by the dark haired woman who speaks out sharply between
blood red lips, “Get on with it, Kohust!"
Instead of displaying any dismay, Kohust smiles cooly as if he had planned her to say that
from the beginning. He puts a firm, gloved hand on the bomb and pulls out the chords with the
other in one swift, calculated motion. The timer initiates, a red light begins to flash, and Kohust
says with intensity, “Three minutes.”
The couple with the long hair glance at eachother when he says that because they both
have a firm distaste of Kohust’s melodramatics. The woman turns his head slightly and her hair
shifts accordingly behind her. She says softly to her husband, “Why is he in charge?”
Kohust hears this on his way to the door. He looks back at them under the archway, his
body surrounded by the light from the outside. His Plasti-Cool uniform shows stark black lines
on white. Like everyone else in the room, the patterns on his uniform speak for themselves so
any other adornment or ornamentation conveying rank and experience is unnecessary. Kohust
speaks the second reason he was permitted to handle the bomb that no one has wanted to admit
for the longest time. “Because I don’t care.” With that he turns and leaves.
The six left in the room exchange dark glances with each other until the timer hits two
minutes. Then the man in the blue and grey Plasti-Cool puts a hand on the table and says, “We
ought to follow his example.” His wife adds, as if on cue, “No use staying here.”
With that, everyone files out of the temple and begins walking through the forest toward
their private helicopters positioned elsewhere in the forest. They each walk calmly, although in
the pit of their stomachs everyone is a little worried about exactly how much damage the bomb
will do and if they perhaps should have started walking from the temple a bit sooner. No one,
however, considers running, because that would do horrors for their image.
Eventually, the bomb does go off. It isn’t very big, just barely enough to raze the temple
and do a bit of damage to the pillars. The seven, now divided into five groups, continue walking
calmly. The silhouettes of them and the trees become backed for a moment by dusk and light,
but this fades quickly.
The bearded man, being heavy set, does not walk as fast as the others however, and a few
pieces of debris fall around him. One of these is a chunk off the top of one of the pillars. The
bell inside clangs noisily as the thing whistles through the air and lands at an angle beside the
bearded man’s path. As he steps past it, the bell does not stop ringing. This annoys him and he
grabs a small hand gun from the inside of his uniform. In a second, he fires a bullet through the
hole of the pillar and shatters the bell. Technically speaking, this is the first actual shot of the
war and sets the Guerrsen War officially at Year 4-87, Day 19, 13:08 PM.
The first day of school is the best day to do business because the staff aren’t on top of
everything yet and figure that most students are too busy dealing with first day anxieties to be
getting in to any kind of trouble. But Bane has carefully adjusted his schedule so that he has a
full half hour between the morning meal and his first class, so he has plenty of time to get in to
trouble. Now, he stands at the very back end of a trash alley in Sector 2, waiting with his hands
behind his back. It’s windy today and the breeze pulls tugs at his overgrown mop of a hairstyle
and plays with the edges of his Plasti-Cool coat. The wind also stirs up the smell of rotting waste
which permeates the trash area.
Three young men are coming up the alley. One of them is stooped a little, but has small,
hard eyes which dart around like lazer beams as he moves. His expression at rest is a glare, but
today he appears to be having a particularly bad day and the glare is sharp and hateful. The two
boys to either side of him aren’t quite so noteworthy, but they have the sleeves of their uniforms
rolled up to show off their large, bare arms. Do not mess with us, is the basic statement. Bane
knows that they also have plenty of time to get in to trouble, or get him in to trouble.
“Do you have it?” the leader of the small band questions.
Bane responds quickly, “Can you pay?”
The leader pulls out two bills from his pocket. In turn, Bane brings out a small
contraption from behind his back. They each put their hands forward. Their eyes never leave
each other as the exchange is made. Bane cannot match the contempt of the other’s expression,
so he keeps his gaze calm and strong. Emotion is unnecessary and none can be read in his grey
blue eyes.
Then, Bane has his bills and the bully has his device. Bane knows better than to look
away, so he watches as the man looks over his purchase. His gaze turns upward after a moment
and their eyes lock again. “How can I trust you that this will work?”
“Do you doubt my work?” Bane asks in mock offense.
“Just being cautious,” says the leader. The two beside him take a step forward. Bane
knows that his life is in danger should his product not work.
To answer the question, he cocks his head back, drawing attention to the collar of his
uniform where his identity number stands out prominently, black figures on white. “2000,” he
says, so that no one has to move any closer to read the numbers. He adds, “Any commander will
know who I am.” Bane has just given them a great deal of power over him. Should he ever
become bothersome to the group, they need only to notify a commander. The leader nods slowly,
realizing and accepting his power. He says quietly, “We’ll meet again, Bane,” before facing the
other way and moving back up the trash alley. The two beside him take a few steps backward,
watching Bane warily, then turn also to leave.
Bane watches them until they’re gone from sight. When he is alone at last, he allows
himself a breath of relief. His shoulders sag down a little, but after a moment his expression
brightens. Unable to sustain his composure any longer, he jumps up on his feet and starts to do a
little dance as he holds up the bills. “Yes!” he shouts out to the heavens. “I have money!!” For
the first time, he looks down to count the bills. One and five. “Awesome! I can get FIVE
batteries!” He lets out another shout and continues his erratic dance.
Behind him, one of the trash cans moves a little and the lid begins to rise up. Bane is too
preoccupied to notice that he hasn’t been alone after all. Out from the trash can stands another
young man in a school uniform. He is tall and slim and his dark, stringy hair is tied back in a
ponytail that dangles to the nape of his neck. Despite the breeze, the lid of the trash can remains
on his head as he stands. The alley begins to smell even worse.
“Looks like you didn’t need me after all,” says the young man, trying to get Bane’s
attention.
Bane freezes in place at the voice. He turns his head a little, then to make up for his lack
of observation, grabs the man by his arm and bows his head, “Oh Troi, I’m SO glad you were
there!!”
Troi raises an eyebrow, unconvinced, so Bane continues to whine pathetically. “It was so
scary! There were three of them, and they all came up to me at once.” He lets go and starts to
make gestures to illustrate his story. “First this one guy came up like this. And then he gave me
a look like this.” He continues going through the actions as Troi gets out of the trash can and
brushes himself off.
“And then there were these other guys who sorta walked like this..” Bane sticks out his
arm to roll up the sleeve, but Troi grabs his arm before he can complete the motion. Troi
wrenches the arm backward over Bane’s shoulder, then starts to walk up the alley. “Yeah, yeah.
Let’s get to class.”
Bane gasps and his storytelling ceases immediately as the pain in his arm becomes more
important. He has to shuffle after Troi in order to keep the guy from breaking his arm at the
elbow. The two move close together out of the alley. Bane whines for a moment about how
arms shouldn’t bend certain ways, trying to remember what the gym teacher said about getting
out of holds this way. Then he frowns as the scent of rotting trash follows them while they leave
the alley behind.
“Troi, you stink like trash,” Bane says while grimacing.
Troi says nothing but wrenches the arm up higher. Bane is silenced completely.
The school, put bluntly, is gigantic. Seven prominent structures rise from the ground, six
of them branching out from the center one, with large hallways interconnecting everything. The
center structure is skinny and sticks up out of the ground for four stories. Directly behind it to
the east is the largest building where helicopters hum around, dropping off students that are
coming back from summer break from all across the continent. The five others, though smaller,
are still at least six acres in area. Apart from each one are two buildings about half the area but a
few stories taller. These are the dorms for male and female students, divided by sex and by
sector.
Bane is in Sector 2, but Troi lets him in to Sector 1 so he can cut across without having to
walk all the way around. The outside doors of the five Sectors are all locked electronically with
student IDs as passcodes. Bane can hack into every one of them easily, but Troi won’t let when
he can help it. Bane gets in enough trouble enough.
As Bane dashes through the corridor between Sector 1 and Sector 2, he passes by Shyel
Onerson, another person who has a good half hour of troublemaking time between morning meal
and class. She is also running, although in the opposite direction, because she is going to be late.
Bane assumes that she runs because she has also been doing something less than appropriate in
school. This is because her hair falls all the way down to her ankles. The student handbook
dictates that all students and faculty must keep their hair above the shoulders. Shyel’s rich
lengths of shadowy blonde defy that rule in every way possible. Because of this, many of the
Sector 1 male students find her incredibly sexy and she is well known in other Sectors as well.
Other than the hair length policy, Shyel never disobeys anything. In fact, she spends her
troublemaking time doing errands for the Sector 1 High Commander. Which sometimes makes
her late for class.
The second she reaches Sector 1, Shyel realizes that she has forgotten her Notebook. A
personal Notebook is issued to every kid upon entrance to the 7th grade. Each Notebook
contains a flat, backlit screen, a gig of memory, and ports that will allow it to connect to any
system in the school. Every semester, students receive disks upon which are stored their
calendars, schedules, planners, and a copy of the newest edition of the official handbook. Stored
in read-only memory are passcodes that will allow the individual student into his Sector, dorm,
locker, and room. Any additional passcodes or software are issued by individual teachers during
class. Teachers are referred to as commanders and administrators are referred to as high
commanders. No student has ever met with anyone with higher rank than a high commander.
Shyel is fortunate, however, because one of her girl friends meets up with her in the
hallway and lets her in to Sector 1. Shyel has a lot of friends, and she can probably get through a
whole day without needing her Notebook. A problem occurs to her, however. She remembers
distinctly that one of her classes is being held in Sector 5. As far as she knows, sectors do not
ever intermingle.
Bane assumes that the reason he has a class in Sector 5 is because of a conspiracy. As far
as he knows, sectors do not ever intermingle. He plans on telling this to Troi later, and maybe
they can come up with some crazy idea as for why his class is there, but after a few minutes,
Sector 5 is at the very back of his mind.
In every room, a screen constitutes a large proportion of the front wall. Any commander
can plug his Notebook into the thin, stainless steel desk at the front and do whatever he wants to
the screen. Bane’s eyes wander around the screen, waiting for something to appear so that he can
decide wether to take a nap or not. He’s had this commander before, a year back. He thinks the
class might be math, but he’s not sure. His Notebook probably says, but he doesn’t feel like
looking yet. Let at at least something be a surprise.
Instead of starting with the screen, the commander steps behind the desk and begins to
give a short speech on how this last semester at the school is going to be the most important one
of their lives. The voice of the commander comes out with forced energy. “This generation of
the war will be different,” he says. “You will WIN!”
“We will win!” the forced energetic voices of the students bark back. Bane pays no
attention to them. His eyes wander up to the speakers at the top of the screen. These speakers
can be overridden by the High Commander of Sector 2. More than once a class has been
interrupted for the High Commander to shout, “Baneon Venati to the office please!” If Bane has
to go to the office today, it will be because of his transaction this morning. If he doesn’t have to
go to the office today, then the threesome will be back again for more pranking equipment from
him.
The device he made for them fits into the port where a commander’s Notebook goes into
the desk. In fact, Bane created the device from an old Notebook he stole from the trash. This
modified Notebook uploads a file automatically that is stored along with the software for the
screen. This simple file blocks any new input from a commander’s Notebook to the screen, and
instead displays the words, “Fuck you Jason.”
Bane has no idea what this is all about or who Jason is, but making the device for the
bullies has earned him some cash and some reputation. He feels grateful that the bullies are from
Sector 3. If this comes back to him at all, it will take some time, unless someone rats on him.
The only people who would rat on him are the bullies, who would only do so if the device
doesn’t work. Bane knows it works, but he’s still slightly nervous. Even if he doesn’t caught, he
could get the shit beat out of him if one of his customers gets called down to the office.
When the commander hasn’t stopped talking for a full ten minutes, Bane decides it is
time for a nap.
If you really read all that, email me at Iernan@aol.com and tell me to put up more for you!! Sorry for the hassle, I just have this feeling no one's going to read this, and I'd rather not put up the effort for nothing.