Rock Partisans (Subject to change)

READ THIS: Oh yeah and the verb tense changes in some parts, all that will be corrected eventually, I hope, it all happened due to a long gap between writing sessions. Still, I hope this is not too "teeny" since I want to break away from those novels' stereotypes.

Ch 1


"Shit!" I heard Robert say behind us. Axl, Brian and me stopped on our tracks and looked at him puzzled. "What happened now?" inquired Axl impatient as always. "My foot got wet when I stepped on this water puddle." said Robert while pointing to his foot with his gun. "You had us stop for that? C'mon guys lets keep moving." Axl said as he motioned with his arm the path we were walking in. Steven and I just looked at each other confused and continued walking on the path, if i can call it that. It was more like narrow clearing in the middle of the ruins of the Hole. Debris covered most of it, moss and all sort of plants grow on the walls of the building we are in, and light filters through the cracks and openings that the building has due to erosion and explosions. The explosions. The path is barely wide enough for two persons, so Steven and I walk side by side. Axl and Robert are behind us covering our back, the four of us walk with our guns raised and ready to shoot. Every creak and squeak sends a rush of adrenaline through my body. I'm scared but at the same time excited. We arrive to a heavy metal door, its open and off its hinges. Its one of those emergency exit doors that the big office buildings used to have. Past the door we find ourselves with a staircase. Big, at least 6 floors big and not at all safe-looking. "What floor is it the thing we are looking for?" I ask Axl. "If my information is right, and it always is, we should be going to floor number 5." replied Axl while looking upward. "Oh shut up man, your information never right, last time we ended up in a dead end with no ammo no food and nowhere to hide!" shouted Robert, he sat down on the floor, laying his gun beside him. Axl moved closer to him. He kneeled down in front of him and looked Robert straight in the eye. "Alright, fine! I'll continue walking." said Robert annoyed. "Yeah I guessed so." said Axl smirking. Axl got up and offered his hand to Robert. Robert stared at his arm for some quick seconds and hesitantly took it and stood up. We started going up the stairs that made pretty alarming sounds with every step we took. They were made of solid concrete but they didn't look anywhere as stable as they might have been in the past. This staircase surely didn't meet government standards, or at least back then, today the government doesn't give a dime about this place. When we reached the second floor we discovered that half of the staircase had fallen off, only a tiny space for us to walk was formed on the right side, the part that came out of the wall. Our pace was a slow one, every few steps someone would find a loose piece of rock and almost slip down. We continued in this fashion for the second and third floor, when we reached the fourth one we couldn't advance anymore. Big rocks and pieces of concrete were blocking our way. We tried moving them but they were far too heavy for only four of us. "Lets go this way." I said as I moved towards the door that led into the fourth floor. "I bet this isn't the only staircase in this building, most of them had two sets for big emergencies. Lets take a look at the other one." I said while the rest of the group entered the room right outside the stairwell. "There isn't a second set of stairs here, I studied the blueprints thoroughly," said Steven while he adjusted the strap from which his rifle hung, "but there's an elevator, I bet that we can climb the last floor from the inside of the shaft." "Seems like a damn good idea to me" I replied to Steven.
"Perfect Steve, but where exactly is the elevator?" inquired Axl. Steven moved his hand towards the right pocket of his dirty pants and pulled out a piece of paper. He started unfolding cautiously and slowly the paper, it took sometime, the four of us waied impatiently. I knew this wait was getting on Robert's nerves, I could see it in the way his weary eyes twitched and his body rocked back and forth slightly. He couldn't stand it, I bet none of us could, being here was far too dangerous and even though Steven didn't take too long with the paper the wait was making putting us on the edge. Finally he finished unfolding the paper, the size of it was quite impressive. We looked at it but the only thing I could tell was that those were the blueprints for the building, but I didn't understand where we were on it. "Ok, so we are in this place," said Steven pointing with his finger at the lower right corner of the map, "the elevator shaft is right here." he was pointing his finger at the center of the building. "So all we have to do is to get out of the room we are right now, follow this hallway to what seems like an office area where lots of cubicles should be, right?" asked Robert a bit jumpy. "I guess so, I mean if we don't encounter any sort of obstacles in the way." responded Steve while he folded the blueprints back to their original state. "So why are we still here?!" exclaimed Robert, he was starting to get scared, his hands were trembling. "Yeah, I agree with Rob, we need to get the stuff and leave as quickly as possible," I told the group, "this place is starting to freak me out, its getting late." With that last statement we started moving towards the old wooden door on the back of the room that we were. This room curiously had no windows or anything, just some dusty shelves, and they were partially broken. I wouldn't place anything on them, they looked as if they would give up on the slightest touch. I w the first through the door, I came out aiming my gun st both sides of the hallway, making sure there was no one near. The hallway was clear. There were some pieces of broken glass on the floor, nothing to big I guess. I motioned the guys to come out of the room since it was clear, but I never lowered my gun, you must never lower your gun, not in these days. We walked down the hall trying not to step over the broken glass since we wanted to make as less noise as possible. "What exactly are we looking for?" whispered Robert to Axl who was walking behind me. "Well, we are looking for some supplies you know, ammo and guns, whatever we can find, you know the Partisans need it." said Axl, never looking back at Robert, always keeping his sight forward, examining every corner of the hallway. Looking for anything suspicious. "Why should there be any guns in this building, it seems like a normal office building, pre-Flame era?" doubtfully asked Robert. "Well, the owner or something of this was the head of a big company, this were just some of the offices, but he had bodyguards and special security in all of his properties, so they had a small armory in this place," Axl said, "lets just hope we are the first ones to find it." The hallway came to an end and we were standing in front of cubicle section of the floor. From afar they seemed intact, but as we moved closer and closer we could see the damage. Computer screens were broken, glass was everywhere. Most office chairs where down on the floor, some of the were not even in sight as we moved around the cubicles. Pencils and pens were scattered over the desks. We found a desk that seemed intact for some strange reason, that was until Steven looked under it and found that there were bloodstains on the underside of the wooden desk. "Where did those bloodstains came from?" asked Steven in a trembling voice, "They don't usually kill in spots other than camps." "I suppose it was a dissident, it didn't follow the orders given and tried to escape or hide, he was killed right on the spot." I said trying to imagine that gruesome scene. A man or a woman so helpless, so full of fear that didn't want to die or suffer and tried to hide. A horrible place to hide, he didn't stand a chance, he should have just surrendered like the rest at the moment. I feel its pain, I feel tje pain of the family that unlucky person left behind, if they are still alive. It consumes me, it brings back memories from that day, tje day in which the Flames turned the city into this hole, the day I lost everything, and won a reason to fight. "Freddie man, wake up, we need to keep moving towards the elevator thung." Robert said as he snapped his fingers in front of my eyes. Steven and Axl were aleady steps away from us. "Yeah, sorry, I was remembering stuff, you know from before all of this." I told Robert. My head was starting to hurt a bit, this was all too much.
"Yeah I know, but stop being a wuss, we need to keep moving, the elevator is just a few steps away." said Robert motioning towards the elevator. "Who are you calling a wuss, you are the one all scared and shit." I joked with Robert. "Shut up, you know everyone's scared in this place." he said accepting the joke. Thank God he took it as a joke, if Rob gets angry he can be a complete ass. Robert and I struggled not to step on any broken wooden planks or components inside computers as we made our way to were Steven and Axl were. They were already at the elevator doors. The doors seemed worn out full of dust, just like everything in this God damned place. But those were not the only peculiarities to the doors, there was another one, they had a large lump coming outwards. Big and rounded it was, the metal curved to give it its shape. It looked as if some sort of explosion had made it. "Wow, what the hell happened to the doors? They look as if they are about to give birth to a child." said Robert, too loud for comfort. He then proceeded to get near to the doors and rub his hands on the deformation, as if it were a pregnant woman. "Shhhhh! Do you want to get us caught!" whispered angrily Axl, "What are you doin'?" "I'm trying to feel if the baby kicks." Robert joked with a stupid grin in his face. I couldn't help but laugh, not at the joke, but at the sheer stupidity of his remark. "Cut the crap Rob, two minutes ago you were shitting your pants!" said Axl, authority filled every word he said. "And you, stop laughing and help open this doors." said Axl as he pointed at me. I took a few steps forward and watched the doors, sliding them would be impossible, they were jammed ny the deformation. "Ok so I guess we can't slide them," I said to myself, then I remembered the basic principles of physics,"Get me a lever and a place to stand and I'll move the world." "Haha, Archimedes, very clever Freddie." said Steven, I bet he was thinking the same thing, after all he is the smart one. "I think I saw a crowbar near the staircase we came up through, let me go get it." said Axl. He went off to get the crowbar, he had his gun pointing towards the floor, he wasn't holding it, he just let it hang loosely. That was a bad sign, we were growing too comfortable in this place, Rob was back to his joking mood, Axl was not aiming at every single thing that seemed to move, and I was laughing at Robs jokes and making some myself. We had lowered our guard, anything could take us by surprise now, and that was dangerous. Nothing had happened yet, but we can't stay here any longer, or something might happen.
"Here you go man, now open the doors." said Axl as he handed me the crowbar. Its length was about the size of my arm and its width was... well not a lot, but I hope it works. I took it and stepped back towards the doors with the crowbar in hand. I stick the crowbar between the two doors. It makes a thump noise when I insert it, I move it around to make sure its secure and it won't slide off. I start to push the crowbar with all my strength. The doors won't even budge. I continue trying for some moments without any success. Sweat drops start forming on my forehead, they slip down my face and drop to the floor. I release my grip on the crowbar and I raise both my arms as a sign of defeat. "Fuck it, I can't move this!" I said, "Robert, you are all ripped and stuff, come move the doors." Robert gives me one of his stupid looks and moves forward. He takes of his gun and leaves it leaning against the wall. I step back and watch him. Steven and Axl are watching all this too, but they got comfortable, they even got chairs to seat down. I just stare at Axl for some seconds waiting, after a while he catches my glance and says "What?! My abilities are not required a the moment, so I might as well get comfortable, besides this is sure going to be fun." He starts to rock his chair and he puts his hands behind his head. Robert is ready to start moving the doors. He starts pushing the crowbar. I can see he isn't putting his full strength on it, he stops pushing when he realizes it is not working. "What happened fatty, you can't do it?" says Axl mockingly. "I was just warming up, its time to kick it into high gear." says Robert. He spits on both of his hands and he rubs them together afterwards. Robert takes two steps back from the crowbar, then he charges at full speed towards it. He puts every muscle in his body to the maximum while doing this. The doors don't move, but Rob doesn't stop. "C'mon man!" shouts Steven. Robert starts pushing harder, his face is turning red, his knuckes are turning white as his grip on the growbar tightens. *squeeeeak* The doors start to bend outwards a bit. "Wow hahaha, he is really doing it!" I say, our excitement is rising, even Axl was paying attention. The door starts to bend even more now, enough for a small kid to pass through. "Almost there Rob!" I scream. Rob hears me and he starts to apply even more strength to thie crowbar. I can't believe how this is possible. "Agggh," grunts Robert as he pushes harder, that grunt turns into a scream as he reaches the desired opening of the doors. "Aaahhhhhhhhh!" shouts Robert at the top of his voice as he steps back from the doors with the crowbar in hand. He throws it to the ground. "Shhhhhh! Dude you are giving us away!" Steven tells Robert while approaching him. "Yeah, sorry man." says Robert, he then starts breathing heavily. "Guys... I'm going to sit down for a while, you continue, I'll meet... you up there... in a while..." says Robert in between exhalations. He sits down on Axl's chair and holds his head with both his hands. His veins are still popping up. "Ok, we'll see you there." I tell him. The rest of us start moving towards the elevator shaft. The opening that Rob made is barely big enough for us to squeeze through. As good as this is it has a price. Rob's screams were surely heard outside, in no time they will be on us like flies on sugar. We need to make this quick, I'm in no joking mood anymore. We are in serious business now, and I can feel the rest of the guys are also on their nerves trying to act faster than they can strike us.
"Alright, how do we climb up there?" asked Axl to Steven. We are already inside the elevator shaft, it is dark as hell and it was damp. It smell weird also. To our luck the elevator is a floor under ours, so its ceiling provided a place for us to stand while inside the shaft. "Ehm... Lets see, Freddie you can make a step with your hands for us and then we'll pull you over." says Steven. His plan seemed pretty possible except for one bit. "Yeah I can do that for sure, but hey, how are we opening the doors up there? This doors are barely open and Rob is almost knocked out." I said, "Right Rob?" I shouted at him. "Eh... sure" said Rob in a tired voice. Steven was thinking, but Axl came up with a solution "The doors here were hard to open because they were blown up or something along those lines. The doors up there seem fine, so I guess there won't be any problem in just sliding them." Axl's thought seems pretty logical and no more words are needed, Steven just nods at me. I step forward and kneel down near the wall. I place my hands together and make a step for the guys to climb on. Axl is the first to climb. He steps on my hands. Most of his weight rests on my fingers right now, and he is not that light so I try to hurry him. I give him a small impulse upwards and he grabs to a small ledge that's the floor of the 5th floor. He then pulls himself upwards and stands up on the ledge. I guess it is pretty small because I see him struggling to keep his balance as he opens the doors. The doors slide open pretty easily as he predicted. He steps into the 5th floor and disappears from my sight. "Clear, bring Steven up." said Axl. Steven steps forward and on my hands. This time is not as hard as with Axl since Axl grabbed Steven and took most of the weight from my hands. Axl helped Steven up. Steven stands up and re gains balance. Then both of them crouch and extend their hands to me. I stand up and grab their arms. As they start pulling me upward I use my feet to try to climb the wall and help them as much as possible. At last they pull me over the ledge. I lie on my stomach and my legs are still hangon, but now I can bring myself to a standing position. The room in which we find ourselves is really different than the one in the floor beneath us. This one has no cubicles at all, it has a large wooden desk at the back, and big windows behind it. This must be the office of the boss or whatever. "This is a bit too fancy for a simple office building." I say. I continue examining my surroundings carefully and I notice a door to our left. "Yeah, doesn't make much sense to me either, but hell we are not here to discuss the former use of this building." said Axl. "Yeah, for all I care this building could have been the base of some crazy crack dealer, or a blood thirsty pimp, as long as is provides us with the supplies we need." I say. Steven is already nearing the door at this point. It looks like a simple door wooden door. He opens it and behind is a small room. He enters and Axl and I catch up seconds after. It is a simple closet nothing to fancy. "Soooo, is this it?" I ask Axl. He ignores my question looking in disbelief around. He is as stunned as I am, all of our journey for nothing. "This can't be true!" Axl shouts. He starts throwing stuff to the ground, mops and shit fall off. "Oh oh oh, hahahaha, I can't wait to tell this to Rob, he is going to FREAK out!" I say as I wipe a tear of laughter off the corner of my eye. He continues to ignore me. Steven is doing some stuff besides me, touching the wall behind a shelf. I wonder what he must be doing. He is sometimes pretty weird, smart and all of that stuff, but weird. Still he is really cool, and understands most of my smart jokes. "Don't desperate my dearest colleagues for I have found relief in the midst of this storm of angst that has formed around us." Steven says, he is standing behind a shelve, one hand touching the wall. He starts to wrap his fingers around something in the wall, I can't see what it is, but he just pulls it. The wall starts to come off. As if it was made of cardboard. This opening reveals a small room, with some guns and ammo inside. "Wow, not exactly the best security system, or weapons, but anything is worth for the cause." I say. The three of us crouch and enter the hole in the wall. The room on the other side proves to be bigger than what I had imagined. There were boxes with ammunition, and tables with guns. It was a decent weapons stash, everything that your local beginning of century drug dealer might have needed. There were small sub machine guns, effective at close range but useless at long range, the Partisans don't use them as much but they might come in handy. There were also al kind of pistols, which we use a lot, specially for self defense, the government is not the only bad thing out there. We even found an assault rifle, pretty fucked up and with no rounds in it, but we surely had some back home. "Ok dudes, lets pack this up and get out of here, fast. Robert sure drew attention with his wails." Axl remarks. We put as much of the stuff into our backpacks. Not everything fits since we have small bags so we can move faster. Whatevernwe didn't take was surely going to be picked up by someone else as the rumor of this place spreads around. Lets hope that the finders are of our faction. "Guys, wasn't Robert going to meet us up here when he recovered?" that question that steven makes, causes my body to pump a shot of adrenaline through my veins.
Without realizing who asked the question I set off running to the elevator shaft. I crawl under the hole in the wall that lead to this secret armory. My backpack gets stuck as I cross the opening on the wall because of its full load of shit. I don't stop longer than a second, I pull it. Some pieces of the cardboard wall fall off but I don't really care. I stand up and continue making my way to the doors of the elevator. I get out of the small closet and start running. Although the elevator isn't that far I still try to run with all my might. Still, my speed is hindered by the weight of the supplies inside my backpack. It is uncomfortable to run like this, i can feel the guns swinging against my back with every step I take. Someone could argue that this is not the safest way to treat guns, and they will be right, but right now that is not my concern. I get to the elevator doors, they are open as we left them when we got up to this floor. I take a look down, the fall isn't to big, I might make it without much damage, but i have two problems, my backpack is way too heavy for me to jump with it without seriously injuring myself, and although the fall isn't that big, I don't have a lot of space to absorb the impact when I reach the ground. Well I'll leave the backpack here and Axl and Steven can take it. "Hey guys I'm leaving the bag here, you take care of it." I shout to them, I realize that they are just getting out of the storage room. Shit, either I'm really fast or they are pretty slow, I guess none of those,they probably stayed trying to get more stuff. "Alright, we'll get it." Steven shouts back. I turn away from them and I face the elevator shaft again. I guess if I just jump it won't hurt me as much. I take a step back and then I lung forward into the shaft. I hit the floor directly with my feet. They absorb all of the impact, until they can't take it anymore and the pain grows unbearable and I loose my balance and fall to the floor. "Ouch, I was wrong." I say while rubbing my feet. Seconds pass and I remember the urgency in which I needed to see Rob, I spring to my feet and get ready for whatever might be waiting for me in the other room. I squeeze my self through the opening on the elevator doors. In the room I find Robert standing up, gun in hand and really alert. Besides him, laying unconciously on the floor is a body. I know who the body is, it is a government agent, you can tell by its uniform. They are gray with red linings on the edges. They also wore the symbol of the state, (no encuentro uno todavia) on the left side of their chest, almost on the same place were the heart is. "A scout, you can tell by his badge," Robert tells me, "I bet more are coming, now that they see his vital signs stopped." "You killed him! You know the rules, you never kill scouts." I say to him angry. I get closer to the body and notice that on his right temple he has a large splotch of blood, surely done by Robert. "I'm sorry, he took me by surprise. He suddenly appeared behind me, he was ready to kill me, it was either him or me, and you know I prefer me." he answers regretfully. *THUMP* "Agh, shit, its higher than I thought" Rob and I hear coming from inside the elevator shaft. "Ah, alright Steve, throw me the backpacks, no no, better just give them to me, lower them as much as you can." Axl says from the elevator shaft. A sound of shuffling bags comes from inside the doors and then another thump, followed by two other thumps. "Ok, I got them, now you jump." Axl told Steve. "How high is it?" Steven asks, his tone is anxious, I bet it would, the jump isn't that small and the landing spot isn't that good either. "Don't know man, just jump, either way its going to hurt." answers Axl, he is hurrying Steven. "Aaaaah!" shouts Steven as he jumps, or that's what I suppose since I can't actually see him. Rob and I hear another thump and a complain from Steven, he is already on our floor. We wait some seconds and then we can see Axl's arm coming through the opening in the doors followed by his head and the rest of his body and two back packs. "Holy... What happened here?!" Axl asks as he drops the backpacks to the ground in amazement. Rob starts to explain "Well I was sitting here alone when..." "Shiiiiiiit Rob, what the hell did you do?!" Steven interrupts as he comes out of the elevator with the backpack I used to carry. His eyes watch the body in surprising amazement, almost a sort of happiness. "As I was saying I was here alone and then this little creep sneaked through the stairway door. I bet he has been following our trail, and after hearing me shout he found me." Rob explains Axl and Steven. He now lowers his gun, surprisingly he had not done that since I got here. "You do realize that this is a scout, and since he is dead his signal is no longer transmitting so a squad must be coming our way," Steve adds, he then proceeds to wak towards the emergency exit where the stairs are, "we need to leave, now." He continues moving over there. Rob follows him a few steps behind. I start to move behind them, as soon as I start walking Axl says "Hey, take your backpack, I ain't your slave." I nod and he throws it to me. I catch it, but its weight gave it to much inertia and causes me to stumble and fall on one of the desks of a cubicle. It didn't hurt that much, so I just turn around to use my hands to help me stand up. I can hear Axl laughing, and the other guys telling me to hurry. Their voices leave my head as I notice a small object on the desk. It is a black rectangle, about the size of the palm of my hand, its surface is made of glass, and it has a small circle on the lowerpart of the surface. I press it and notice it is a button, nothing happens. "Hey Freddie, come on! Don't tell me you also died" Axl shouts from behind me. "Nah, I'm ok, lets leave." I say as I stand up. I adjust the backpack on my back, and just before I leave I take this device and slip it in my pocket.

Ch 2


We are back home, but our return took a lot longer than what it should, mainly because we had to be extremely cautious since our existance there was known. All of our safety measures were worth it because we encountered a small enemy patrol, some six or seven soldiers armed to their teeth with all sorts of high tech weapons. When that happened we had to hide inside an old fire department building, luckily they didn't find us and the fire department was not occupied. Aside from that the trip back was easy, but tedious. Axl moves near to an intercom besides the gate of the Rock and says "Hey Izz, we are back, let us in man." It takes a while for Izz to respond, but the intercom buzzes and he says "twas 'bout time 'ou has arrived, I was 'bout tolock up this 'itch" His accent is really funny, 3 years from knowing him and I can't tell where it is from, and he won't tell, he says he has lived here all his life. A short buzzing sound comes out from the intercom followed by a squeak from the door. The locks slide into their opening position. The door starts to move backwards opening, it moves really slow. Well you can guess that since it is fucking huge, made of thick iron and completely sealed. It had no holes or openings of some sort, it didn't open with keys so it did not have a keyhole, and it could only be opened from inside all of these were safety measures we adopted in the early days. The door finishes its opening movement and we can see inside the base, we are greeted by a smiling Izzy on the other side. His foolish eyes and crazy smile, his lanky body and dumb body movements, but he is cool. When the four of us cross the door it starts to close and Izz says "I is 'appy 'ou mates returned back from the mission safely and it looks like your trippity trip wasn't a waste of time after all as they are most of the time." he points to our backpacks full of supplies. "Hey!" says Axl offended. Izzy just ignores him and continues, "I'll take your 'ackpacks to the command room, or well not actually me since I can't leave this place, but I'll tell someone." It was true he can't leave the area of the gate, never, or well almost never. His room is here and it has an intercom there too, but he can only open the door from the small control room that is on a corner of the room. Not a fancy control room, it just has a chair and a button that opens the door, but it works, besides Izzy was the one who designed it years ago so he isn't as stupid as he looks. He also has someone that brings him food and shit everyday. He takes our back packs and then he stops for a moment and starts to look at the backpacks and then at us. I can see where he is going with this. "Wait a 'econd I am counting three 'ackpacks here and there is four of 'ou." says Izzy puzzled. Steven, Axl and me simultaneously turn to look at Rob who takes several seconds to realize what's going on. He says astonished "You can't be blaming me, you know it wasn't my fault, I was attacked and we couldn't spare time." we keep staring at him scornfully, not that we are seriously angry but it is fun to mess with him. Rob's eyes are moving from face to face desperately trying to find an expression of understanding, but we gave none, until Axl broke the tension "Haha we are joking Rob we know that, just remember, in our next objective you need to do double work." Rob made an expression of distaste at that last remark. That ends our conversation with Izzy as he then returns to his spot in the control room, and we see a guy going towards him, probably to pick up the weapons. Sometimes I feel sad for Izzy since he is alone most of the time, it must be hard. We walk through the narrow corridor that leads to the common room where people hang out. I like this corridor, its a pretty good choke point. Seconds later we are standong in the middle of the common room, it is a pretty decent place. It has a pool table we salvaged from an old and God forsaken bar, it has some tables and couches, pretty decent as I said, considering our times. "Well I gotta file a report on today's mission since no one else will care to do it, so I guess I'll see you later." Axl says in his dutyful manner. That attitude got him fast through the ranks here in the Partisans, I mean he is squad leader and he is younger than Rob, Steve and I, that's quite an accomplishment here. So he leaves pretty fast to the command center or something, I've never been much into paperwork or following those types of rules. Steve says he is pretty tired so he also leaves to his room. Only Rob and I are left from the squad, but the room has other people too. There are two guys playing pool and a third one watching them, they seem to be cracking jokes since they laugh a lot. On the table area there are some adults discussing some stuff I don't actually care about, stuff about the "correctness" of the things the Partisans do. Finally on another table some girls are talking, I can't hear quite well about what. "I bet I can beat those guys in a match." Rob tells me and almost as immediately and randomly as that statement was he leaves before I can answer. So here I am, in the middle of the common room alone. "Freddie!" I hear a voice shout. I lookmaround trying to identify the owner of that voice. "Over here!" I hear the voice again, but this time I notice who is shouting. It is Paige, she is sitting in the table where the girls are. She motions me to go over there, and I do. As I am moving towards her I have time to see her, she is looking good as usual, her white as snow skin, the tiny and perfectly circled freckles on her face that concentrate over her nose, her long and gracious light brown hair falling over her shoulders, and the most beautiful pair of eyes I've seen. Big and round and of a dark blueish color, they can see into your soul. Ok too detailed, but I arrive at the table and she scoots over to let me seat besides her, I sit down and she says "Sooo how was today's mission? Did you comply with your duty to the Partisans? Hahaha." she says this last part laughing with irony because it soumds too serious and it is the way important Partisans refer to missions, as our duty to everything that we stand for. There's a whole damn oath, but no one really cares enough to learn it. "Yeah, or I sure hope so, I mean we reallybusted our asses today." I say. "Haha, how so?" Paige asks. I tell her all about today, the staircase, the blood under the desk, opening the doors, the elevator shaft climb, the secret weaponry, Rob's little fight, and as I'm getting towards the end of the story I get to the part of the small device and I say " Oh yeah, and I found this." I reach into to my pocket and pull out the small rectangle. As I hold it in the air I notice it is dirty as shit, covered in dust and stuff, the back specially. "Wow, what's that?" she asks, her eyes never loosing focus on the small device as I place it on the table. "Don't you see, it is obviously a rectangle to catch dust." I say in a matter of factly tone. "Ooooh." Paige says. She obviously got my lame joke and didn't find it funny. "Oh c'mon you know me, I like to make stupid jokes." I say smiling. She stares at me with a stern look, just like we had done to Rob earlier, except that I know this trick and I keep smiling. She smiles too and laughs, "Well if I were you I'd try to find more about this thing," she says, she picks up the rectangle from the table and looks at it disgusted, "but first you're going to need to clean it, it is really dirty." she grabs a piece of cloth from her pocket and pours some water from her water bottle and starts to clean the thing. She wioed the dirt of the device and it took quite longer than one could expect, it was almost fully covered by dust. When she was done cleaning it she held it triumphantly and we could see what it actually was. The front I had gotten right the first time it is a screen with a button on the lower part, but a thing ai could not notice in the building was that there was a small circle in the center of the top part, almost parallel to the button but it was quite smallee and it wasn't a button. That is the the front, but was is more surprising is the back, I realize as I take it from her. The back is al ost flat, it has a small curve but almost unnoticeable, it also has the drawing of an apple with a bite on it. That's quite strange, it also has a button, not in a circle form, more like a line that can be pushed. Lastly I notice that it has two buttons on the edge of the right side, one on top of the other. I don't know anything about what any of the buttons here do. "Looks fancy, still I have no idea what it does." I say putting down the device on the table. "Yeah, it is pretty cool, except we have no idea what it even is." Paige says disappointedly. We sit there with no purpose,just trying to decipher what it is. All of a sudden I look towards the place where I had laid down the device moments ago and it wasn't there anymore. I look all over the place trying to see who took it or where is it. "Hey Freddie, what's an iPod?" a voice behind me asks. That takes me by surprise since I forgot that there are other girls sitting on the table with us. Happens all the time, I focus on one thing only and the rest disappears. It can be a good thing sometimes and others not so much. "Huh? Why should I know?" I ask the girl, I have seen her before, I think. If my memory doesn't fail me her name is Joan. "Well, that's what it says here." says Joan as she points at the lower part of the backof the device. I look at it and it does say that, in grayish letters, it says iPod, and directly underneath there's a number 32 written. "I'm as clueless as you." I tell her as I grab the iPod back. "What a weird name, right?" says Paige, "I mean, iPod, doesn't sound that cool." I ignore her question; this iPod thing puzzles me a lot. It doesn’t quite look like anything I’ve seen before, yet I feel like I should know what it is. “Freddie…” Paige pokes my shoulder to get my attention “Freddie, did you hear me?” Did I hear her? I don‘t think so, my mind wasn’t in the conversation. “Ehm… yeah sure, why not?” I tell her. She just stares at me, as if waiting for me to answer something else. “I’ll take that as a no,” she says with some disdain in her voice, “I said that you should take it with Steve, he’s the one that knows about technology; if we can consider this technology.” Paige adds, her eyes fixed on the device. She has a good point, I bet Steve might know what it is, or at least he’ll be able to make it work. “Yeah, I’ll do that,” I answer, “in fact; I’ll take it to him right now. Doubt he’s got anything more interesting to do, I know I don’t.” Paige looks at me in a disgraced manner and says “What?! You have nothing more interesting to do! You are talking to me, which should be good enough.” She’s obviously joking, I mean she has to. “You’re joking right?” I ask her, you can never be too sure in these sorts of situations, especially when it comes to girls. “Of course I am haha, now go with Steve to figure what’s this.” She pushes me backwards from the bench. Before I stand up I grab the iPod and slide it into my pocket. “Rest assured that you’ll be the first to know about this when we figure it out.” I tell her while standing up. “Of course I will, or else.” She threatens. I smile at her little joke and leave the place. As I’m crossing the room towards the exit I noticed some of the people that were here have left.