There is God in these Hills [MT, Open]

[Iythagoras]

Arcwrack Mountain Range, Maegus Prime Cemetery,
SideWinder.

The long treks of the those with guns were loud here. They didn't care. They did not care. They did not. All they wanted was to do it. It was a loyalty, they reasoned. A loyalty they believed to be right. But always what was right could be perverse. A chilling thought that it had come to this. Nothing left.

That was what remained of Jordan Fennerman. Nothing. A husk of a shell, pieces. Charcoal glory, burnt and destroyed. Skin torn apart and flaming, the stench of death a gaseous and putrid smell.

Long halls up with cobblestone steps made the noise possible from a pair of diamond heels. These boots clicked even in winter. Winter: the snow was falling softly, as God made His descent from Heaven in the flakes that kissed the lips of this old woman. Oh, what was left for this woman? Her eyes were soft and red, like her lips. So very red.

Yet she gripped the handle of her umbrella in the softness of the snowfall with the tightest grip any woman her age could hold.

She prickled the softness of the fur on her coat, carrying the sharp feeling in her chest. Her powdered face was a thin sheet on her face. Wonderful and smooth, flawless. A small bill, a five dollar bill, was placed as custom on the shut tomb of a coffin brought just yesterday. Pressed with her lips amidst older hundred dollar bills, she bowed to nothing.

Just a vast and unlivable landscape, the smokestacks of Sidewinder far off as the ocean plates of ice crackled with amusement. Winter was already here, and she looked down at the empty tomb. No, he wasn't here yet. Nobody stood in front of her; all arms laid down, standing on the edge of safety to impress. A great mound of a cemetery standing atop a dead volcano - is there no life here? Even the blades of glass were morose and lifeless, and the trees hanging bare and without strength.

"Good night, honey." She whispered to the open hearth, the noise of her heels clacking as she took her old self down the steps of the tall cemetery mounds to a troop carrier waiting at the foot of the mountain.

Felthia Forest, Town of Saint Ithaca,
120 miles west of Sidewinder.

You're a rich girl, and you've gone too far
Cause you know it don't matter anyway

That was the best song on the radio, the cut lip of a young man, barely older than fifteen, nodded as he looked at the makeshift checkpoint. It was young and unsure of make, but it was without a doubt soon to be old. Soon to be indeed, with all the harnesses and bulldozers, the barbed wire and the small wooden fence. There was no sudden noise, just the squeak of windows as the young man pressed the blade of glass down.

"Sector A8, Lieutenant." The young man said to the guard, as young as he. They were young. Young men, with guns bigger than them. Big, big guns on small and young men as the truck spat its way through the barrier, into a forested but largely flat area. Large sections were heaved up. More men, too young with guns older than them. Many of them smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol; already they had become pressured by the touch of adulthood.

And the crackling of the radio from the songs playing from inside the truck and along the gray world played softly.

You can rely on the old man's money
You can rely on the old man's money

But they couldn't. Not anymore. Not them.

Shovels were spare and rationed between workers. Talk is cheap, but bullets were not. Much of the supplies came from the village. Most of the villagers did not want to give it up, but it was necessary. They don't need supplies the army needs anymore. That was what they were, the army.

Or at least, one of them.

And with every hole made bigger and every house burned down, even the snowfall could not stem the tide of the horrid stench. The young lieutenant stood at the foot of a large hole, and looked at the naked and face-down bodies of the women. He grabbed the center flap of his pants, straightening to see if his fly was up. It would be embarrassing if it wasn't. This wasn't the place to look at women. "I have a new shipment."

"How many?" One of the young men asked, looking at the scenery, shaking his head as he gripped his rifle lovingly.

"I don't count."

"Okay."

Messiah Range, Town of Saint Grace,
70 miles south of Sidewinder.

It's a bitch girl, but it's gone too far
Cause you know it don't matter anyway

She was out of her league here: she was good at interviews in the safety of the international scene at political balls and bombarding politicians. Never she had thought she would ever be hosting international news on the death of Prime Minister Jordan Fennerman, nor did she think she would be talking to a fourteen year old.

Never had she been talked down to so badly and been disregarded, but he had the gun, not her. Not her cameraman, not her guide. She had nothing other than talk.

And talk was cheap.

He knew. Bullets were not. They were never cheap here. "That's why we do it. Because they come in, and take everything from us. We want it back. But we can't take it back. They don't know displacement, they don't know loss. So we will show them. Brothers are getting to work. Sisters are getting to work. This is an Iythagoran conflict, for Iythagorans alone." He told the reporter. A beautiful singing voice, he would have. A shame, especially with those milky green eyes. Swimming with shades of emerald and gleams of icy silver.

"But this is wrong." The reporter snapped, her disgust getting to her as she looked at the carnage before her.

Bodies sorted by gender and age.

Possessions gone.

Huts looted.

Holes the size of homes carrying corpses as they were dumped in, the cold snow falling down gently. There was little breeze, but the air had chilled beyond the first flurry of winter's breath. Perhaps she was hallucinating. "This is wrong, Captain McIntyre."

"You think it's wrong. I know it's necessary. Don't speak like you know. I let you interview me and my men because we believe it is important for the world to see how important it is to reclaim who we are, away from oppressors. Don't give me a lecture of right and wrong: I have grown tired of such garbage." The young man replied, standing up from his dirty chair, grabbing his rifle as he left the reporter and her crew.

[Iythagoras]

Three men walked into the shade of an afternoon sun; it was a hot and humid day with a stench to rival the weather. They crossed their feet upon the pavement to an old house. Haunted, they said. ‘They’, those who lived here in this dank little neighbourhood: it was haunted. The dead lived here.

But when they opened the doors, there were no dead - just the living, huddled around in a corner. The floors were cracked, the place smelling with the overwhelming smell of gasoline. It smelled like gasoline. Terrible. Terrible gasoline, the fumes wafting and trickling about - horrendous. Disgusting. The cocking of rifles were heard, and stern faces looked at the entire brigade of people as they entered the fray.

People stood at them, blocking out the sunlight from the dusty banisters. A murky place, dirty and putrid. The smell of gasoline was still there, and the men with guns only looked at the people huddled in the corner. Insidious eyes; blue eyes. Those sitting with green. Emerald eyes. Unworthy and unwanted. Not here.

Not in Iythagoras. But the smell of gasoline was overwhelming and controlling. The stench was intoxicating and trance-like, engulfing people in the sifting stench of those around it. They lowered their rifles. They didn't want to risk it, not with the smell.

So they took out their knives. "Please, please, don't. Don't kill us." One of the men said, sitting at the front, his arms outstretched, as if shielding those behind him with his body did a damn. As if it did a damn. "Don't kill us." He pleaded again, tears welling from his eyes. "Don't kill - "

"I heard you the first time, you filthy Jak." The soldier in front, the only soldier of the men with guns, said as he hit the man with the butt of his rifle, the end caked in blood. "You don't need to repeat it."

But the man didn't stop. He persisted, groveling at their feet as he cried, those behind him crying as well. Tears welling up, their bodies shaking with uncertainty and anticipation. "Please Mark, your son went to my daughter's birthday party. We're friends, right? Friends."

"Shut up!" The soldier in front said again, a man in the back of the group shifting uneasily. "He's one of us, and Iythagorean, not a Jak. Don't clump him up together with you people, he's been through so much more than you people ever will." The rifle was raised again, and the man retracted reflexively. "Take them out. Get rid of them. Let's do our duty." He ordered, the machetes grasped, the kitchen knives grasped, the rusty blades raised up before screams bellowed into the air.

Most definitely, a haunted place.

[Damirez]

It was filthy.

He was filthy!

The precious morsels of food he forced himself to swallow were dirtier than the ground he stepped upon.

Water, precious water, the only thing he dared not allow himself to indulge in. No matter the thirst, he knew better than to drink from a poodle. All water, if not bottled, had to be boiled. A dangerous activity, but he'd seen what filthy water did to men. He'd seen how it emptied their bowels and brought them down, even the best of them. Strong, solid, good men damned by tiny, tiny bugs, only visible at a microscope. He didn't want that fate for himself. Better he risk the smoke of a fire than the slow, painful death of his own bowel's making.

The city around him was the stuff of nightmares. Torn pavement, charred cars and burnt houses were all around, smaller remains, purposefully ignored, littering the side walks in a grim arrangements.

He had to be fast. There was danger in moving on these streets, from guns and men, from animal and machine. He had known the area well, reason for which he had embarked on this trip for medicine. One of them was ill, deathly ill. Were it a man or woman, the risk would have outranked necessity, but it was a child. A young girl of barely seven, left orphaned like so many others. Oh, how many were left without mother or father, brother or sister.

Death made no distinction. Bullets killed everyone the same. That if you were lucky and the 'enemy' did not have other thoughts in mind. Yells of the captured often reached his own ears. There was no mercy.

He found the place he'd been looking for, shattered glass hint that others had searched in the same place before. He could only hope that he would find the needed medicine. He stepped over the shards and contorted metals, careful to avoid any jagged edges, one would enough to kill if left untreated, festering with infections long laughed upon in what was once civilization. The shelves were mostly empty, the cabinet locks all forces by madmen.

There was nothing! Nothing left to bring back! He couldn't return like this. He'd have to find another way. That's when the noise reached his ears. A machine! A vehicle.

Instinctively he hid behind the counter, praying to whatever God might have listened that he was not to be found.

The noise got louder and louder.

He couldn't be caught. Not now, not before he brought back the medicine the little girl so badly needed.

The vehicles stopped, voices could be heard.

He was tense, waiting to bolt, waiting for discovery at every second. But he understood the voices. It was not the foreign tongue that he so much hated. No, this was the tongue of his own people, thick with the accent of the mountains.

He dared lift his head and peek.

Instantly, eyes were upon him, soldiers in oh so familiar and glorious uniforms pointing their weapons at him.

He laughed.

It was almost an hysteric laugh, a laugh of relief and safety. All was to be well.

The DEF was finally here.

...

Once upon a time, the settlement had been beautiful, filled with gardens and laughter, joy and children.

They named it Ceres and nobody ever dreamt that it would have a need of a military. The small police, already over equipped according to the gossip in the cities, was more than enough to handle any disturbance that might have been. they were peaceful folks, eager to live in this Corporate Experiment, a life in luxury a small price to pay for displacement from their homes.

All of them, from the oldest to the youngest consenting adult were volunteers. there was no shortage of those. Of different races and cultures they felt attracted by this way of life the Corporation was offering, by the experiment of a new beginning and of the insight this was to offer for the rest of the world. Idealists, poor, benefit seeking people, they all found a place on this settlement, calling it home.

Ceres was the brainchild of one of the many Damiran companies. Rumours were, and most likely there was much truth in them, that the company was linked to one of the two families that had much to do with the economics of the region and those of the world; that the experiment was a way to prove, once and for all, that conflict need not be the ultimate solution to one's problems.

It was idyllic really, an attempt at utopia that was close to completion, the vast funds available covering all but the most elusive problems.

The architecture was clearly Damiran, bold lines in the building, hidden gardens across the cities, green battling concrete and steel in a most peculiar harmony, streets arranged with millimetre precision. And what was more, the entire settlement was much the same.

Already, be it by chance or design of fate, the settlement provided much financial gain for its owners, residents filling in for patents at almost an unnatural rate, many of the labours of their work marketed on the world marked for a handsome profit. It had perhaps quite a lot to do with the fact that many of the settlers were intellectuals finding a new playground, one the Corporation was only too glad to provide them with.

Families were formed, friendships established, communities knitted together. It was hard, laborious work to avoid the prejudices that had followed many a man from the homelands, but careful selection insured that it could be done. And once the project completed, the settlement was to house many more, millions more as it opened itself to the world at large.

For now, with so much secretive data to hide and sociological implications of the experiment, there was still an air of secrecy around. The company claimed the island as its own, and this made things easy. The state held no interest in such a far away holding, and besides, treatment for establishments such as these was lax. The nation was not into colonies, rarely the government daring to step outside said preference, memories still bitter in history.

Ceres, land of a new beginning.

[Iythagoras]

IS Apostate, International Waters, Nova,
Location Unknown.

Two by four rows. A room only twice the length of a jail cell. But there wasn't a damn lick of shit anywhere: just a cross at the ends. Two people were there - a room to be in His grace, without sunlight.

Far above the ocean's waves, far beneath heaven's rays.

"Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me." A deep voice rang out, his hands panning into open arms to an empty steel wall. "I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind but now I see." He softened his words, his voice ringing and vibrating on the last little sliver. Smooth and deep.

He gulped, grabbing the bottle on the podium, but he didn't open it. He stood in front of the crucifixion, and looked. He looked with a sigh. He didn't sigh. His eyes did. Like tears, he would say.

But they weren't, he'd argue. Not tears. Just sighs.

"You're taking this too hard on yourself." An older and deeper voice interjected. Almost a crackle, an earthquake. "The Canary and the Demagogue are in need of refuel. I'm sorry to interrupt, but we need to find a harbor, immediately."

The man who had sung sung no more. He talked. "I'll try and get us ready. What's the closest place?" Without beauty, his words. Rough, sturdy, and jagged. A tongue of experience and worry, saturated by the blood of time.

"I think we're finding alot of our things are in need to placement. It's been nearly two weeks on the waters. We can't hold out. We need land, General." The man at the door stressed. General, how interesting, that word. General. Not admiral.

Not admiral at all.

Town of Saint Margaret, 33 miles south of SideWinder.

"Thank you so much, so much!" She hugged him, arms wrapped lovingly around his neck, a slight tear of gratefulness running cold down his neck. "Thank you so much."

It's okay, it's okay, he said, trying to smile, but watching the doors with a wavering eye. He looked at her suitcase full of clothes, chuckling a bit at the size. That's alot, Mary.

"I know, I know, I'm sorry. It's not a problem, is it?" She asked, a thin and weak smile across her face. He shook his head, smiling back just as weakly. 'Oh thank God. Okay, uh, I can just sleep on the couch."

No, no. It's okay. You need the rest upstairs in the guestroom, he implored. It'll be hard, but you can stay, I won't turn down a friend.

"Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you." She said again. She grabbed the suitcase, the noise of the radio dabbling in the kitchen. "I promise I won't be a hindrance."

It's okay. Take a shower, it'll make you feel better.

"Oh, I will." She confirmed nodding at the frizzled hair in front of her. Usually it was long and golden. Now, just limp and weak. Unappealing, but he didn't mind. "I can't believe Fennerman would let this happen. I...I, I just can't." She shook her head, looking at the ground, tearing, "I-I can't believe it." She was beginning to bite her lip, her fingers grasped together as she whimpered.

Your dad didn't deserve it. Nobody does. Nobody deserves this. The man tried to comfort her. He walked to her with open arms, and she took them. She hugged him back, her head on his shoulder, wetting his shirt.

"I'm sorry. I don't know how to thank you."

There is.

"What?"

There is a way. If you could just, you know, give me a kiss.

"I-I'm sorry. That's not appropriate - "

Appropriate? Why not? I'm keeping you here, I'm holding you in, making sure you're safe from the authorities. If it weren't for me, you'd be dead or something. I'm sorry I didn't say this before, but I've liked you since I first met you. I mean, if there's nothing I can get, can I get a kiss? Just one?

"I-I can't. It's just not right."

Okay. Sorry. He gave up. He didn't fight it. He grabbed her by the waist, and pushed her down onto his couch. She was struck with a shock, and when she tried to get up, he forced his hands down upon her. She struggled, arms flailing up to meet his, but it wasn't strong enough. She couldn't fight back at such a strength he was exerting. And she tried to scream. And scream. And scream.

Hands into the front of her pants, and his leg kept her left arm down, her right arm trying to push him off before he raised his fist to hit her, and she recoiled in fear. There, he grabbed her. He pressed his fingers around her breasts, his tongue into her mouth. As quick as he got her pants off, tearing them hard by force, he had his off just as quick. Her screams were muffled by his mouth. But she kept trying to scream.

He had his hands around her neck and the heat of his body tearing her insides.

[Iythagoras]

Town of Saint Kedora,
96 miles south of Sidewinder.

Things are bad when a bar sells more soup than alcohol. Things are bad when a bar sells soup in the first place. Things get truly bad when most clients can't even afford it. Those that can usually just buy alcohol.

They come in packs, like animals. They come with shotguns and assault rifles, bearing golden satchels that were far from what they were meant to be, wrapped in paper-thin fabric. The owner's daughter, seven years old, were friends with alot of them. Those she weren't, they knew her. They understood her. One was particularly receptive to her, and she'd run up to him and jump at his waist, grasping him strongly without intending to let go. Snow was falling tonight - not a blizzard, but a storm was felt. "Freddie!" She shouted with a happy squeak, as the young mud-covered man smiled softly back to her.

"Hey." He said, grunting quietly as he caught her sudden tackle, a cigarette in his hand as he dabbed it out onto a nearby ashtray of an occupied table. Not his. "How's my little girl?" He asked. She wasn't his little girl - she was the barkeep's daughter, a young girl of seven who didn't know the world outside Saint Kedora. He was fifteen year old boy who did, older and much more weary than those his age. Eight years, oh how it can break a man.

"I don't know if they're yours, Captain McIntyre, but recently we've had a group come about half an hour before, bringing whores upstairs." The barkeep, a thickset and old man replied, with slick hair shining back to reveal an intimidating and large forehead. "I'm not -"

"Is that appropriate?" Freddie said with a worrisome tone, his hands clasped around the little girl's ears. "Your daughter's a bit young to hear that language, isn't she?" He had his cold hands on her ears, and she fidgeted with an amused giggle at the sudden tingle. The barkeep shook his head.

"She's used to the people who come in here, Captain. I don't need to worry about discussing things with her." He answered back, as Freddie raised his eyebrows.

"Okay, alright." He grabbed the little girl, raising her up onto the table, his head level with hers. "Uncle McIntyre has some work to do." He kissed her forehead. She wiped it and he chuckled. "Cute."

"Don't do it in the bar." The barkeep said, looking at the rustling of soldiers around, all of them under Freddie's command. A fifteen year old boy commanding around other young men. He shook his head as McIntyre ascended the stairs, footsteps heavy with decision and contempt, the pattering of his boots as the noise of an opening door was heard, almost in a distance. As if it happened far away, somewhere insignificant.

But, as an older man was dragged out by his jaw with a firm grip of a hand, he stumbled and staggered to the door as McIntyre swung it open, the frigid cold bellowing loyally, jeering. Laughing. "Back alley." Captain McIntyre said to the barkeep, who surrendered with a nod.

Thumping, thumping, thumping, thumping, crawling around the walls of the bar like termites in the infrastructure, eating away at them. Thumping, thumping, thumping, thumping.

"You don't bring whores on the job." Some could hear him say. Some, but not all. Only those hugging the wall. All others who could not hear cared not in the first place. They didn't care. They didn't care about who McIntyre disciplined.

Then a bang. A loud, sudden, quick, violent and gripping explosion of a bang, nothing hidden, nothing long and drawn out, no screams, nothing. Just a bang - a chortled chorus of bristled heat and the smell of smoke amidst the soup. Nobody bought alcohol here for the most part, just soup. A bar that really wasn't. Nor it's patrons being not as they were.

[Iythagoras]

Iythagoras Central Parliament, Legislation Chamber,
SideWinder.

"I don't know, Mrs. Fennerman, I don't know. We can't push for this proposal if nobody takes it well, and the given the nature of the state of emergency called with the rebels in Saint Fedora, we might not have enough backing. We need to make concessions with the others." One of the chambermen pressed. His hand slapped on the podium in front of him. A loud bang, like a gavel.

"I'm not Mrs. Fennerman anymore. Just Ms., Senator McCullen." She had wasted breath to remind him.

"That is irrelavent to the fact that you want to push for reformation of the system for this half-baked attempt at reducing the problems caused by the influx of refugees into SideWinder! We're not going to be able to manage this with more guns, Ms. Fennerman! Come to reason!" Another man yelled.

"But what is our alternative? Let me know!" Another one asked. The same tweedy mustaches, the same balding hair, the same thick and bulky build - not muscle, just fat. Not muscle at all. "Ms. Fennerman's solution to addressing the growing rates are the best scenario we can do right now!"

"They're coming in droves from the situation right now." Ms. Fennerman answered. "We can't do anything - "

"What we should be doing is moving the Fennerman and Parliamentary wealth from the Fennerman Family to redistributing it along the people and get our economy back up again!" The initial arguing man suggested.

"You filthy socialist! This isn't the time for your half-baked - "

"I am looking out for the best of the country, Senator Arthur, and you are continuously - "

"Enough!" A slap from Fennerman's soft and old hands slammed onto her own podium. Her palm turned red as she frowned. "Enough. We're not going to get anywhere with this. Let's try this out, let's try and see what happens. As for budget allocation, I can't do that. I've gone and lost enough already, from my family and my house. I...I don't want to talk about this."

"Of course. We'll try and get this underway for experimentation. Let's see if the policy is sound to combat growing rebels in the south." McCullen sighed, fingers running through his head.

Town of Saint Margaret,
33 miles south of SideWinder.

"Dear God, son, what made you do it?" The senior detective, an old and burly man with multiple chins asked, his thick hands pushing forwards a box of tissues as the boy across from him grabbed it, sobbing loudly. The concrete room made the echoes much more pronounced, the lights a pale orange hue. "Why did you do it?"

I. I don't know. He said. She tried to hurt me, and I guess I got overwhelmed and it just happened like that. He was pale; he was gaunt; he was ghostly. Soulless.

"Okay, okay. Calm down. Now," he flipped through pages, "dear God, we can barely make sense of what happened. I'm sorry, but even if she did - dismemberment, disposing of the body, lying to a Police Officer. This isn't a very good list for us to work with, Thomas." He sighed heavily. "Given the situation that's going down in the south, we might not be able to erase it as a hate crime either. I mean, her father was caught in Magellan when it happened. But you know this. It's in your report, so you know this. And so you know she has nowhere to go. You know nobody will miss her."

Are you insinuating I had something to do with it? That it was my fault?

"No, I'm not in - "

You are, aren't you?! He yelled, a great frown on his face, rising up as the detective leaned back in his chair to reach for his taser.

"Sit down, Mr. Lloyd, or I will have to resort to forcible action. Now." He stressed it heavily, as Thomas sat down, sniffing up snot into his face. "We are in a delicate situation, and well, the reason why I sent for you before any decision to put you to county, which, frankly, is going to be the situation. Too much evidence is stacked against you, even if your father is part of the Chair here." He shook his head.

Thomas hung his.

"But there's something that can be done." He suggested, as Thomas raised his head. "We're having a new policy that's testing out in the South towns. You can either go county and serve your sentence, or you enroll into the army, and station as defense against the rebels in the south." The detective had a look of surprise and disappointment, entirely negative. Nothing positive.

Thomas saw a way out. Okay, he said. I'll do it. I'll enroll.

"Alright, then. I'll have you shipped out to central. That's all."