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May 16th, 2004
Chapter 3
Ethan and his son walked home late that night after the meeting. “So what do you think Roshan’s first move will be?” Gordon asked his father.
“Well, we’ll have to see. He’s already established Waterfall City as the capital. I suspect now he’ll fund the building of an Army. Tomorrow we will meet to plan a site for a secret military base.” Ethan responded.
“That will take too long won’t it? The armies of the enemy will have already captured the cities on the outskirts with no walls.”
“Roshan knows what he is doing. Even if we were to muster a small army, we have insufficient guns and armor.”
“That’s not true! Where do you think the gangs get their guns? What about the Rebellion? Where do they get their guns?”
“True…”
“I have an idea. Maybe we can hold a ‘weapons drive’ of some sort. Anybody who has a gun can donate them to the cause.”
“Not a bad idea!”
The two arrived at the house around midnight. They stopped at the door.
“I’ll stay until tomorrow morning. Then I got to go home.” Gordon said. Ethan nodded and they went inside.
**********
The next morning Gordon said goodbye to his parents and went back to his house in Tusirus. He told C.J of his adventure, and the boy was in awe of Gordon.
The next few days passed normally for Gordon. He got word from his father that Roshan and the council have decided on a location for the military base, but was not allowed to tell the location. Already workers were laboring on the task of building it.
Things about the new country popped up on T.V {Yes, they still had T.V} and in the newspaper {Yes, they had those too}. Nationalism spread like wildfire.
A week later however, things for Gordon got exciting. When Gordon was reading in the courtyard of the University, a huge burly man approached him. He had brown messy hair and a messier beard. The man was wearing plain blue jeans and a black T-shirt. Gordon recognized him as Roshan’s old bodyguard.
“Meet me behind The Black Tavern tonight at eleven. Bring friends…don’t ask why.” He said. And as quick as he came, he left.
Gordon told C.J of the man. Being adventurous, C.J volunteered to come with Gordon. “I’ll go…as long as we bring Akala.” He had said. So Gordon contacted Akala and at eleven o’ clock they were off to The Black Tavern.
All wore dark clothing to avoid being seen by suspicious eyes. Together they walked down the ramp to the lower level and walked silently to the well-known tavern. Just outside the entrance, C.J heard a noise, followed by two bodies bumping into all of them. Akala shone a flashlight on them. It was Mike and Leo, two boys who attended the University. “What are you two doing here?” C.J asked Mike.
“I don’t know! Some shady character at school told me to come here tonight. I brought Leo with me.” Mike said shakily.
Two more figures approached out of the darkness. They said a guard on the wall top told them to come here. Several more groups followed giving some account or another about who told them to come here: A guard, a shopkeeper, a professor…whoever. And now they were about to find out why.
Gordon remembered that the guy told him to go to the back of the Tavern. Slowly he gestured for everyone to follow. In the back he found nothing. Then he looked at the back wall. An arrow pointing downward was spray painted on it. “What’s this?” Asked Akala. He was pointing at a small handle right under the arrow. He pulled on it, opening a large opening 8 yards wide and long. In the opening was a stairway leading downward. Bare light bulbs lit the corridor. Everyone filed down the stairs. At the bottom, Roshan’s bodyguard greeted Gordon. “Welcome to the Centurian Army Secret Headquarters. CASH if you will.” He said to Gordon.
Gordon looked around. He appeared to be in a large basement, probably used to store wine in at one point. But now it was a state of the art military headquarters. Along every wall was either a map or poster of some political figure. The air was all a buzz with activity. Several tables with radios on and important documents on them were set up all along the room. There were even a few computers. Along these tables sat Tusirus Guard members, talking on the radio or checking the documents. Some were even regular looking civilians. The place was very dim, for it was lighted with only bare bulbs.
One thing Gordon noticed particularly was a large sign in the corner of the room that read: WEOPONS DRIVE. Underneath the sign were boxes full of assorted guns and knives. Gordon smiled.
“So…what do you want with us here at CASH?” Asked C.J.
“Well,” Replied the bodyguard. “Roshan called upon me to build an army. I hope some of you will join. Right now we have very few recruits…So! Anyone who wants to join, say ‘I’ or forever hold your peace.”
Every single person shouted ‘I’. That was about eighty persons.
The bodyguard clapped his hands. “Good!” He exclaimed. “My name is Chad Oliver. I am commander of this base. Now, I want you all to do what you can to help our cause. It will be dangerous. You could get killed. But it is for freedom! Bring weapons here! Gather intelligence! Do anything you can. We must hold off the Russians from the west whilst high command builds us a real HQ and gives us real weapons and armor!” He paused, then continued. “Everyone…Report back here tomorrow at noon. That is all. Move out!”
**********
Gordon, Akala and C.J reported to CASH around noon the following day. Already almost the whole army was there. The “army” was a group of about eighty college boys with no experience.
But one sight encouraged Gordon. Adam was standing next to Chad at the bottom of the stairs greeting the boys.
Once all were assembled and accounted for, Chad began to speak.
“Boys, we are going to have to train you up at least a little bit for us to be able to go into combat the first time.” He said. Chad then tossed Akala a semi-automatic machine gun.
“This…” Chad began. “Is commonly referred to as the SAM in these parts.” At this point Chad tossed out four more to members of the army. “Adam here underwent a top secret mission to smuggle these out of Viraxia with the help of our friends in the underground. He also got out a rocket launcher, assorted rifles, and a few state of the art pistols. We are going to teach you to use these properly. Now follow me.” Chad gestured them to follow. He led them through all of the tables and chairs that were still occupied by busy civilians helping the cause. Finally they stopped at a door. He opened it, revealing a shooting range. “Go on in. I want to see how you do.” Said Chad.
And so Gordon, C.J and a few other soldiers went in and began shooting their SAMs at targets. All the other soldiers filed in and began shooting too.
Gordon found that it was not at all like shooting a pistol. The gun shook as he fired, but he managed to get most of his shots on target. He looked over at C.J. He was having less luck. He couldn’t control the gun as he shot, and his electron-bullets flew to the left and the right of the target. Adam approached and gave him a new gun. This one was a rifle. C.J fired it off a couple times, hitting the target with pinpoint accuracy. “I like this gun…” Murmured C.J.
And so they continued on shooting for several minutes. Then Chad spoke to them again. “Very good. I see most of you at least know how to use a gun! Follow me.” He said. The army followed him out of the CASH headquarters and into one of the many fields that surrounded the city. Several dummies were set up to shoot at. Chad then instructed for all them men with rifles to move about three hundred yards away from the targets, while the men holding SAMs were placed about a hundred yards away, scattered throughout the grass. They were to commence fire on the dummies, and when a whistle blew, they would rapidly switch positions. They did this for about an hour, reloading every now and then under the instruction of Chad or Adam.
After all this, Adam organized them into a large group and began to lecture them on how to commit an organized ambush. They then tried this out on the dummies. Chad was impressed at how well they did.
**********
As Gordon was walking out of CASH headquarters that evening, he passed by a door, which he recognized as Chad’s office door. Voices from the inside could be easily heard. Gordon began to eavesdrop, listening intently.
“We need to do something! The Russians captured two unguarded cities yesterday! Before we know it, they will be here in Tusirus.” A voice said that Gordon did not recognized.
“We will be getting the shipments from Earth soon. That should help. And now we have recruits. We can use these to cause the Russians problems until the base is built and we can launch a full counter attack.” This voice was Adam’s.
“It will be too late then!” Exclaimed the unfamiliar voice.
“Today the boys showed their stuff. Another week or so of hard training and they may be ready for a mission.” This voice was Chad’s.
“But this is no army. We must get more troops!” Argued the unfamiliar voice.
“So we will. After we carry through with the first plan, we can travel to Ugong and get more recruits. Besides, I already sent out a radio transmission to all other major cities to amass troops for defense, and so they can be called up for some real training at the new base. When the time is right.” Chad again.
“Right. Another few days of training and we go through with the first mission. Dismissed.” This was Adam’s voice again.
Gordon casually walked away just before three men burst out of the room. Gordon looked at the unfamiliar man and recognized him as Roshan’s other bodyguard.
Gordon ran off to tell C.J what he heard.
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