Prologue
This story takes place in Eurtopia in the
year 2374.
Eurtopia was formed after years of constant
invasion and fighting amongst the countries of that made up Europe as we know today. Germany initially took claim to the country, or so
they thought. Germany came very close. That was until the outside forces of the United States and its allies suppressed Germany’s attempt at establishing an absolute power
once again.
Soon after that, France tried to take over. And soon after France’s attempt, Britain tried to state claim. None were successful
in law term rule.
In a last ditch effort by the United
European Countries, the U.N. decided to combine all of the countries of Europe under one democratic ruler and banner. They decided the country would
henceforth be called Eurtopia.
For many years Eurtopia thrived under its
democratic regime. But as population continued to grow at an alarming rate the
leniency of democracy was no longer authoritative enough to control the
population.
Slowing but surely Eurtopia became corrupt.
The populous began electing militant officials and undeserving leaders. And
soon after that, there were no elections at all.
With non-elected officials in office, the
population of Eurtopia became anarchists.
The non-elected officials did not care about
discipline the citizens. They cut funding for police, firemen and doctors, so
the government leaders could have a higher salary. And whatever policemen and
firemen there were, they were in the pocket of Eurtopia’s corrupt and negligent
leader.
With over crowded streets and a leader with
no direction, the people of Eurtopia started to become their own police force.
But once again, over time that too became
corrupt.
An honorable police force morphed into gangs
that rule the streets. And the gangs morphed into terror groups that desired
absolute power by any means necessary.
That used propaganda and brute force to take
what they wanted when they wanted. Eventually all the terror groups merged into
one.
And that is where this story begins.
It was a rainy day
as blood flowed through the cobble stone cracks on the streets of Eurtopia. The
immoveable force of the citizens met the unstoppable object of their oppressive
adversary once again.
The overcrowded
and malnourished masses of Eurtopia were once again unsuccessful in their
overtaking of the current regime. But much like before, a mission became an
excuse. An excuse to loot, to steal, to kill, to rape, to pillage.
The people of
Eurtopia indulged in all the excesses that were made accessible to them, and
the only time these were readily available were in times of revolt. And once
they got their hands on the alcohol or drugs they coveted, they revolt quickly
became a moment of liberation to a saga of intoxication.
Nobody exemplified
this more than McAvoy.
McAvoy was a brash
and outspoken musician who had gained popularity through his out spoken nature
against the government. He would educate the audience and on lookers at his
shows about tyranny that they were under. He was one of many who spoke out
against the government and their henchmen and mercenaries.
But, McAvoy had
one thing that the others did not.
He had a
microphone.
And because of
this people could hear his message. Not only that, but they could listen.
McAvoy knew that the most dangerous thing that a militant regime could face is
an educated populous.
But Eurtopia
needed something much stronger to bring down their opposition.
A terror
organization that was faceless.
A terror
organization that donned black masks as they made their way through the riotous
crowds. Who infiltrated secret meetings of rebellion. Who blended into society
like chameleons. Who served as the police force, the judicial system, and the
executioners.
No one could stand
up to their guns and brute force.
They incited riots
just to get people out in the streets, so they could kill the ones that they
deemed were in the way of their ‘cause”.
They were the
Machine.
***
The Machine had
been formed five years prior. As many terror groups were vying for the chance
to control Eurtopia.
The Machine either
took out the ones that were in their way, or the ones that were still left
consolidated into the Machine to spare their lives.
All the other
terror organizations were open with their identity. People knew who was apart
of which terror group. So citizens would seek out these people and kill them.
This was not the
case with the Machine.
Due to their infamous
black masks that they only wore in times of action, they were able to assimilate
into society. They were able to live normal lives. They held positions such as
lawyers, officers and judges. The Machine had access to documents that no other
terror group had access to.
The Machine could find
the occupations and addresses of people who spoke out against them. They could
seek out anybody anywhere and take them out.
They were
extraordinary at keeping their allegiance under wraps. Members of the Machine
could have very well been your next store neighbor and you would have never
known.
The Machine were
on every corner, on every street, on every block. They lived with you, they
laughed with you. They lied to you.
There was no
stopping them.
This fact did not
detour McAvoy, he still made it his mission to take down the Machine.
McAvoy’s concerts,
once a place of entertainment and release, became more and more like rallies.
His signature
guitar that precariously hung down from his left shoulder was soon replaced by
automatic machine gun that adorned his shoulder instead.
The crowd once
full of teenagers wanting to party and have a good time began to contain to
contain more and more people who did not want to hear rock and roll music.
They wanted to
hear how they could take down the Machine.
Due the ever
ominous presence of the Machine, McAvoy had every person in the audience swear
allegiance to his cause and detract the Machine’s oppressive nature. McAvoy did this, because he knew how
prideful the members of the Machine were. He knew that if the Machine was being
spat upon, the Machine would reveal itself.
No one got past
McAvoy without doing this. He checked and questioned everyone to make sure they
were clean and on his side.
He checked everyone
except the bartender.
***
One night as
McAvoy and his band, the Churchill’s were performing at another club, the
Machine in possession of his home address, decided to raid his house and
capture the outspoken rebel.
McAvoy was
obviously not there.
But his mother,
brother, and fiancé were. To send a message to McAvoy, the leader of the
Machine ordered for all three to be executed on the spot. The leader then also
called for the execution of the Machine who had falsely led them.
Four slain bodies
laid in the bedroom of McAvoy’s house. But much to the Machine’s chagrin, none
of them were McAvoy.
Word spread
quickly to the club where McAvoy was playing.
When word finally
reached him, they were in the middle of their set, when a roadie whispered into
his ear the news.
McAvoy immediately
collapsed to his knees and stayed there motionless for what felt like hours on
end, until he let loose a raucous yell.
The concert was
over.
And the meeting to
formulate a he plan for rebellion had begun. McAvoy was as passionate as ever
in his speech. The distraught on lookers and supporters could see that he was visibly
upset and shaking. His fellow band mates had to grab him and pull him off stage
before he did something that he would regret.
When he got
backstage, he again collapsed, and continuously mumbled the phrase, “The bloody
Machine... they… they took everything.”
As his band mates
consoled him, they reminded McAvoy that he could not go home. For the Machine
new where he lived and they would be waiting for him.
***
In the months
after the execution of his family, McAvoy became a squatter.
He lived in abandoned building and
on the streets, trying to evade the attention of the Machine. This was no easy
task, as the Machine had grown stronger during the time that McAvoy was on the
streets.
More
people were being captured and executed everyday by the Machine. It was a
miracle that none of those people were McAvoy, himself.
The
Machine had grown by hundreds or even thousands. No one person could tell. But
there power had grown immensely.
During
the Machine’s rise, Eurtopia’s militant leader had been assianated, and many
expected it was the Machine who pulled the trigger. Without a head of
government in place for Eurtopia, the Machine was one piece and step away from
absolute power, the only problem was they did not have a man for the job.
***
McAvoy
spent his time on the streets observing the oppression before him. He saw
mother’s with new born babies walking down the streets scared, he saw former
friends, teachers and students get captured. He saw old shops that he loved and
remembered as a child boarded up and closed.
Everything
in his life was just a distant memory.
McAvoy
knew now more than ever that something had to be done. The Machine had to come
down.
So,
McAvoy diligently and secretively began to form a coalition of people.
People who shared similar stories
to McAvoy’s. The too had families torn and friends murdered by the Machine, and
they too wanted nothing more to see the Machine meet the same fate as their
loved one’s did at the hands of the terrorist organization.
McAvoy
knew of the danger and sheer impossibility of taking out each member of the
Machine one by one. He decided that the best way to destroy the Machine was to
blow up their headquarters.
It
was revealed to McAvoy through one of his supporters that the Machine’s
headquarters had been compromised and revealed in a newscast the week prior.
This was the opportunity that McAvoy had been preaching about and preparing for
years.
He
was finally about to do what so many had tried to do before.
McAvoy
was about the kill the Machine.
McAvoy
and his group of rebels spent the next few weeks collecting the parts needed to
assemble a bomb capable of blowing up the headquarters. And this proved to be
no easy task, as the Machine’s headquarters was a twelve story skyscraper that
towered into the sky and was constructed with sleek and shiny metal, so when
the sun’s light would reflect on it, it produced a blinding reflection to the
passerby’s on the street.
But
after weeks of meticulous and deliberate planning, they had finally constructed
a bomb powerful enough to complete their task.
McAvoy
had one of his followers put on a black mask, so he could infiltrate the
headquarters and place the bomb in the lobby. Everything was moving smoothly
and as McAvoy had envisioned.
McAvoy and his
followers went to a safe location, and McAvoy with the detonator in hand, he was
one button push away from ending the tyranny of the Machine.
Before he pushed
the button, he addressed the coalition. He looked at all of them as he paced
back and forth and said, “This is the moment, this is our independence!” He
then smirked and continued, “Do you feel that?” The people looked at each other
confused. McAvoy then clarified, “That is the feeling of years of oppression
finally of our backs. For we no longer have a machine… to weigh us down!”
As McAvoy uttered
that final phrase, he pushed down the button on the detonator and
simultaneously, smoke and flames bellowed in the distance as the Machine had
finally met its demise.
***
McAvoy was a hero.
The citizens of Eurtopia made him their knight in shining armor. With no terrorist
groups to speak of, Eurtopia went back to its old ways, the ways that the U.N.
had once promised and envisioned.
The country of
Eurtopia held its first democratic election in more than 50 years, and McAvoy
won in a landslide.
He pledged to
restore the Eurtopia that he once knew and they all loved. And he did just
that. Eurtopia grew quickly in every single facet that a country could grow in.
Jobs were available everywhere, food production was at a surplus, Eurtopia
became a major player in global trade.
McAvoy was the
perfect leader, the leader that Eurtopia had wanted and needed for so many
years prior.
But that soon all
came to a screeching halt, as one night when McAvoy was going over some paper
work to develop a new government building, an inanimate object crashed through
his window. When McAvoy picked it up it exploded and gave of a thick fog that
quickly enveloped the entire room. Then he could hear a commotion outside his
door. He felt and heard the noise become louder and louder as it approached.
McAvoy’s door was then kicked and twenty masked men filled the room.
It was the
Machine.
As the fog
settled, one of the members approached McAvoy. He struck him in the back of the
leg with an assault rifle causing McAvoy to fall to his knees.
He then moved to
the front of McAvoy, where he stood arms crossed and laughing. He slowly moved
his hands toward his head and removed his mask to reveal his identity. Still
laughing, the leader of the Machine bent over with his hands behind his back,
and leaned in towards McAvoy’s ear and whispered, “Boo.”
He then put his
mask back on signaled towards one of the Machine members. He put a black bag
over McAvoy and struck him in the face with the back of his gun.
***
When McAvoy awoke,
the same man that had revealed his face to McAvoy was standing in the room.
“For such a
valiant hero, you sure put up quite the tussle.”
He continued to
mock and demean McAvoy. He only referred to and addressed McAvoy as, “Oh, hero”
and when he did, he clasped both of his hands and acted as if he was a teenager
girl talking of her celebrity crush.
His sarcastic face
quickly turned stern, as he slapped McAvoy across the face and yelled at him,
“We will recreate you in our image!”
McAvoy then spat
upon the leader of the Machine’s face. That only led to McAvoy getting slapped
again. The leader then called for some assistance and they began to torture
McAvoy.
The torturing went
on for weeks.
Until one day the
leader of the Machine approached McAvoy and asked him if he would like to see
the Machine’s true headquarters.
A broken and shell
of person that he once was McAvoy obliged.
The leader of the
Machine then took McAvoy to a dark empty room with just a desk and a chair.
McAvoy was confused until the leader of the Machine spoke to him, “There is no
headquarters, McAvoy. We are the Machine. You are the Machine. We are all the
Machine. Everyone just needs to realize their part… Realize your part McAvoy…
Join us.”
Confused and in
dismay, McAvoy did not know what to say. The leader of the Machine then
revealed his name, “Rommel, my name is Rommel, McAvoy.” He then continued, “I
was once like you, McAvoy, fatherless and with no direction. Then I realized my
part in the Machine.”
Rommel then took
McAvoy back into the torture room where he began to brainwash McAvoy with
propaganda. He pleaded for McAvoy to realize his part in the Machine. Rommel
started to tell McAvoy that his whole entire life was a lie, and that the
Machine always knew where he was and where he had been. Rommel told him hat his
band mates were the Machine, his mother was the Machine, his brother, his
fiancé, they were all the Machine.
After days of
this, McAvoy finally caved.
He became apart of
the Machine.
Rommel was pleased
with this and for the first time since McAvoy had been in his presence, he
cracked a smile and said, “Welcome to the Machine, McAvoy. Welcome to the
Machine.”
The Machine had
finally acquired the missing piece to their takeover of Eurtopia. It was their
biggest adversary all along. It was Eurtopia’s white knight, who they turned
black. Better yet, who they turned into the Machine.
With McAvoy now in
the pocket of the Machine, he did their bidding for them. Rommel had McAvoy
cover up and convince the citizens of Eurtopia that the Machine was actually
doing good for Eurtopia. But the people of Eurtopia were not buying it. And
after awhile, neither was McAvoy.
Fearing that the
Machine was going to loose its key piece to power, Rommel, who knew of McAvoy’s
past with drugs and alcohol, decided to suppress McAvoy’s second thoughts with
all the alcohol and drugs available.
McAvoy became a
heroin addict and was too strung out to ever doubt the Machine again.
After a couple of
years of this McAvoy became a non-factor in government. He just became a figure
head, as the Machine was back in power and in dominance of Eurtopia. He just
became the Machine’s pawn.
As Eurtopia began
to decline back into its dystopian ways, McAvoy began to slip further and
further into the Machine, to the point where he no longer served as the day to day
President of Eurtopia. But he instead donned a black mask and ran the day to
day terror operations of the Machine.
***
Ten years later,
another outspoken musician was garnering attention from the Machine. This time
it was not because of his outspokenness toward the operations of the Machine,
but for something that the Machine thought was far worse.
He was preaching a
message of peace.
The man was
thought of as a second coming of Eurtopia’s now cult of personality, McAvoy. Except
this time they knew there was no way he could become apart of the Machine.
And much like
McAvoy he was only referred to by his last name, Thatcher.
Thatcher was much
more open with the people than McAvoy, he accepted and was more receptive to
other’s ideas, unlike McAvoy who forced his ideas onto people and forced others
to do his bidding.
The people of
Eurtopia found Thatcher’s sincerity refreshing and much needed.
But Thatcher’s
chance for changing Eurtopia was short-lived as the Machine quickly broke into
Thatcher’s apartment as he was sleeping one night and captured him.
They took him
straight to McAvoy.
McAvoy revealed
himself, they same way as Rommel did a decade before. Except this time, no life
was going to be spared. McAvoy cocked his gun, and was about to execute Thatcher.
But he realized something.
Thatcher was a
spitting image of himself.
Bewildered, McAvoy
dropped his gun and ran out of the room. He ordered for Thatcher to be taken to
the torture, as that was what happened when McAvoy was captured.
But instead of
torturing Thatcher, McAvoy ran tests to see if what he feared was true.
That he could Thatcher’s
father.
After a few days
of testing, McAvoy’s fear became true. As the test results showed that he was
indeed the father of Eurtopia’s newest threat to the Machine. Instead of
executing Thatcher and have that be message to Eurtopia. McAvoy decided to be
what he never had and always wanted in life.
A father.
He decided it
would be his mission to initiate Thatcher into the Machine so he could develop
a relationship with him and mold Thatcher into their heir to power. McAvoy
found this task to be quite easy, as Thatcher was eager to belong to the
Machine. For McAvoy had brainwashed him the same way Rommel did.
After just merely
days of brainwashing, Thatcher accepted his role in the Machine. And McAvoy,
displaying a happiness he had never exuded before reached in his pocket and
offered a celebratory cigar to his son. As they both lit their cigars, McAvoy
put his arm around Thatcher and brought him near. He exclaimed, “Welcome my
son, welcome to the Machine.”
***
After just a month
as apart of the Machine, Thatcher quickly rose through the ranks of the terror
group. He embraced everything that the Machine stood for, much quicker than
McAvoy ever did.
He was able to
control fleets and carry out executions and captures with relative ease and no
effort at all. He understood how the Machine worked. He was able to use
propaganda and lies much better than McAvoy; he had the people of Eurtopia and
the terrorists of the Machine eating out of the palms of his hand.
McAvoy became
increasingly weary of this. He felt that Thatcher could either form a rebellion
with the people of Eurtopia, or even with the terrorists of the Machine usurp
all of his power.
Thatcher always
insisted McAvoy was being paranoid, and reassured him that the last thing he
wanted to do was damage the relationship between them. For Thatcher finally had
the father he always wanted. And McAvoy got to be the father he never had.
That was until
McAvoy and other top officials of the Machine went out to suppress a rally that
was going on in the capital of Eurtopia, a rally that was called in by an
anonymous source within the Machine.
As the jeep which
contained McAvoy and the officials left the hide out of the Machine, it
exploded high into the air.
McAvoy was dead.
***
In the days after
McAvoy’s assaination, Eurtopia celebrated once again. The streets were free.
They were free
from the Machine once more.
At a celebratory
rally, a man in a black mask similar to that of the Machine rushed the stage
and grabbed the microphone. In front of the masses he asked, “Do you remember
me?” The people of Eurtopia were puzzled and confused. Then the masked man
removed his mask, to reveal himself as Thatcher.
He then
reiterated, “Do you remember me, now?” The crowd roared, as their second savior
had returned and brought down the Machine.
Thatcher revealed
that he was never captured by the Machine and that he actually infiltrated the
Machine’s headquarters and brought them down by assassinating McAvoy. He
promised the people of Eurtopia something that McAvoy never did after seemingly
bringing down the Machine.
Thatcher promised
and assured the citizens of Eurtopia that the Machine was dead, that it seized
to be and was no more. That is was never coming back.
***
A couple years
later a rebuilding Eurtopia elected Thatcher as their new leader, their first
democratically elected leader since McAvoy.
Well aware of what
McAvoy did, the citizens of Eurtopia demanded that Thatcher implement a police
force.
And Thatcher
obliged.
Thatcher created
the ETF, the Eurtopian Task Force. He put them in charge in disciplining the
people of Eurtopia. And Thatcher did not stop there. He personally appointed
judges and lawyers and other government officials.
He created
specific job duties for each Eurtopian citizen and he had everyone contributing
to the re-birth of Eurtopia. This went on for years until the citizens became
disenchanted and dismayed. They no longer believed in the message and promises
that Thatcher once made to them.
Eurtopia began to
slip back into its dystopian past once more, but this time it was far worse.
Buildings were
decaying, families were going hungry, education was non-existent and jobs were
now only for specially trained people.
And one of
Eurtopia’s biggest fears was becoming more apparent.
Not the resurgence
of the Machine. That was one promise Thatcher had kept. The Machine never came
back under his watch they could not especially with his creation, the ETF.
Instead of being
fearful of the Machine the people of Eurtopia were fearful of the communist
nation they were becoming.
And one day this
fear became real, as Thatcher had cranes drape the buildings of Eurtopia with
red flags that had a blue circle on it. And within that blue circle was a white
lighting bolt.
This was the new
flag for the United Communist State of Eurtopia.
Thatcher had a
rally to introduce the citizens of Eurtopia to their new country and way of
life. He made the people remember that he had kept his promise about the
Machine. And he tried telling him that he created something better for them,
the UCSE.
As Thatcher
stepped down from the stage, he lit a cigar and reveled in the new regime he
had created. As he exhaled the smoke from his lungs he mocked the words that
his father had uttered upon him years before.
“Welcome my son…
Welcome to the Machine.”
