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| I. We call ourselves the Musketeers. About one hundred years after the end of the American Century, around the end of the Century of Fear, America is no more. China had taken over all former Soviet states, including the whole of Russia. To make sure there was no other power to stand in the way of China�s dominance, China dropped three atomic bombs: one on Washington, D.C., one on New York City, and one on Paris. The Parisian Empire survived and moved its historic capitol to Avignon. The United States did not fair as well. In a sense of patriotism, every state but New York called up militias to fight China on Chinese soil. (Under the Powers Restriction treaty that ended the War on Terror, America gave up its military for fifty years�a time that would have ended a year from the day the bombs dropped.) One buy one, all 48 militias were decimated. China never invaded American soil, they knew better then to. The country was no longer. The once mighty nation was now divided into nineteen separate sovereign countries. (The newly formed countries were: New England, New York, Ohio-Atlantic Territory, Southern Confederacy of America, Michigan, Land of Lakes, United Lands of the Union, Kingdom of Dakotas, Heartland Country, Kansas State, Republic of Texas, New Mexico Country, Nevada, Freedom Republic, American Republic, Districts of Washington, Californian Republic, and Porto Rico. Hawaii was given to Japan, Alaska was given to Canada, and the US islands in the Caribbean were given to England.) Our story began in the country of Michigan, my home. Michigan was the only country that kept everything as it was before the bombing: same government, same way of life, same everything. One day, a Michigan State Trooper killed a whole family of what they called �instigators.� All hell broke loose in the Detroit district, and law and order were abandoned for rebel law. Five years had past sense then and Michigan had turned its back on Detroit. The people of Detroit broke off from Michigan and made there own Rebel State. They called their rebel state Detroit, named after their beloved city. A year after the creation of the rebel state of Detroit, the brother of the man called D'Artagnan was killed by gang gunmen. Three days latter, a man called Athos lost his family to another gang. There was no law, no one for them to turn to for help. They hid in an abandoned library for protection. When they were tired of hiding, they decided to be the law in Detroit. I am the one they called D�Artagnan. My friend and I choose the names, after forsaking our original names, from a book we found at the library that changed our lives and showed us our destinies. The book was called The Three Musketeers. We read and understood what the Musketeers stood for and fought for and we knew that we were to be the law, the Musketeers, in this land of lawless until a true ruler can rule this land we called Detroit. We called ourselves Musketeers. |
| IV. Coming Soon! |
| II. We call ourselves the Musketeers. They call me D'Artagnan. I forsake my Christian name the day my brother died. He did not die in a blaze of glory like the story book heroes did; he did not die in war for king or country�he died in the streets saving me. My brother was a good man. Never did he ask for a fight or rob and steal in the Rebel land; he dedicated his life to protect me. I was unworthy of such love. I was a hoodlum that, as soon as I could, I joined the All the King�s Men gang. My brother wanted me out of the gang so much that he forced me to leave. The first rule all members learned was the rule of life: �no one leaves the gang alive, you never know who may sell out his king.� All gangs had such rules. They came after me. For days we were on the run, my brother and I. We went as far as Lansing, the �Jewel of the State,� to hide from them. Three years latter we returned to our Detroit. We were no more then one hundred yards from the city when one of the gang�s pimps saw us. A trademark of a �King�s Man� is a single shot gun. The pimp shot at me, but my brother took the bullet and it got him in the stomach. The gunman ran and I stood there stunned. My brother was screaming out in pain and it seemed like an eternity of pain before he finally died. To the gunman and to the gang, I was dead. I was the one screaming in pain and finally fell to death. The gang prided themselves for always getting the job done. They really thought that, without a shadow of doubt, I was dead. I was not dead, but I wish I were. My brother did not deserve such an end. I ran and I ran, back to the one place that I could hide in, the abandon library on Old Five Mile. This was me and my brother lived before we ran away. There I found comfort in pictures and books. After weeks of fear, consoling myself in the memories of the past, I found someone�a boy a year younger then me that had lost everything. He heard my cries and knew he could comfort himself in me. We both lost all we had, and now we both had each other to console in. I asked him his name and he said he had not one. He forsakes his name and himself because of the wrongs that had been done. As we walked towards the fire, he stumbled over a book�a book that would guide us on our way. The book was titles The Man in the Iron Mask. It took about a week to read it, and we knew that we found this book for a reason. We got new clothes and took upon new names, names of characters in the book. We were born anew as modern day Musketeers. Justice, not remorse, would be our cause now. No longer would the Rebel land live in fear of the evils that had tormented it. Our losses shall be consoled. And we called ourselves the Musketeers. |
| III. We call ourselves Musketeers I was fourteen when the district fell. I was seventeen when I lost all I had to the Gangs. I was lost until I found another just like me. He was a year older then me and had lost all he had too. We found peace with each other and we found a greater meaning for our broken lives. We each forsake our names and took upon new names. I took the name Athos. My family was part of the �Michigan blue bloods,� and I was their eldest son. I had a brother and two sisters and together with my mother and father, we lived comfortably. When Detroit fell, Michigan had very little sympathy for my family and would not offer any help. My father was the first to be killed by stopping would-be rapist from touching my two sisters. We were devastated at the loss of my father. He held the family together. He was the provider and protector of the family. With him dead, we were no longer entitled to his inheritance and so I assumed the responsibility my father once had and quickly found a job at the bridge. As hard as I tried keeping my family together, I was not the man my father was. For �protection,� my brother enlisted in the local gang, the Fox Gang. The Fox Gang was the second most powerful gang in Detroit�controlling half of the capital city�and their name came from their headquarters, the historic Fox Theater. My mom, as well as I, hated the fact that Jimmy, my little brother, was in a gang, especially one as savage as the Fox Gang was. One day, both my sisters were separately rapped and killed�one by the Detroit Americans (the top gang in Detroit), and the other by the Dearborn Family. My mother was beside herself. She had lost her husband and her two angles in less then three years. It was a frigid March morning when we buried my two sister�s bodies. My brother had nothing but vengeance on his mind the day after the funeral when he barged into Dearborn, shooting any black hat he saw. You see the black hats were a trademark of the Family, no one else dared to wear a black hat in Detroit out of fear they would be thought a Family member. He came out of the city untouched that day, but he went back the next day. When he entered the city gates he was ambushed and killed. His head, and his heart, were sent to his mother compliments of the Family. I cried when I came home to find my mother lying on the ground with my brother�s severed head lying next to her. I cried out her name, hoping to hear a response; I whaled out her name twenty-some-odd times but there was no answer. The shock of loosing her two angels and her baby boy must have been too much for her heart to bear. I was going in and out of convulsive fits; screaming and crying, cutting myself in dissolution to see if this was a dream or if it was reality. Morning came, the sun shined through the window. I had calmed myself down and found myself walking down Old Seven Mile road, turning and cutting through, wherever my feet were bringing me. I walked until for the life of my I could no longer walk and I ended up in front of the abandoned library in Livonia. As I walked up closer to the door, I heard crying. He looked my age. I began to talk to him and found that he too lost his family to the gangs. We swore to bring justice to our dead on that night. On that fateful night I was reborn Athos. And we called ourselves Musketeers. |