wiki 5 - 0/20 no post for 11/6

 

wiki 4 - 20/20 - Good post. Actually, Flandermeyer has used videos several times... he used "The Passion of the Christ" once on a Good Friday chapel... and used "Luther" last year or the year before. You're right, though, it makes chapel interesting. I believe most of his "responders" were audience plants, however, so that might change your perception of it.

Week of October 26th:

     The Reformation Chapel-

     Although chapel on Friday mostly consisted of various musics, there was still a spoken message. Flandy's whole venture with Amazing Grace was an odd approach. Not that it was an odd topic, but the way he did it. I think before, Mr. Stec was the only person who chose to use videos for his chapel sermons, so it was a little odd seeing it from Flandy. I found it really interesting how he used the interactive part of his sermon, which has been done many times, but would be a little more concerning for some others in the audience in this case. I can't remember the phrase he used, exactly, but putting that in a speech would be difficult. You're not only expecting the audience to share a religious ideal, which is not a big deal when everyone in the school is Christian(except for me!), but also that people will have the courage to stand up and repeat it in front of everybody. You kind of have to make a gamble with that sort of thing in hopes that the students will respond. Had the teachers not gone before the students to give them a little courage boost, it might not have worked so well. Something like that in a speech is hard to do, because if it goes wrong it can break the speech entirely if the audience is unwilling to participate.

     I remembered my wiki this time! :D YAY! thanks!

 

wiki 3 - 0/20 - no post for Oct.23.

 

wiki 2 - 0/20 - due: 10/16 be sure to do your wikis!

 

Public speaking wiki 1 0/20 - Please be sure to show up each Friday!

 

 

Quod Orbis Terrarum Lacio Silens: The Refugee

            Haley stood at the edge with two feet placed firmly in the dirt. The desert wind blew her golden-brown hair with gentle fingers and the large morning sun crafted a yellow glow in the air. The earth had just begun to warm which would soon follow with the smell of bread being heated for breakfast. Haley slid her hand across a giant piece of metal shrapnel buried in the dirt. It was part of an American Battle Mech from what was presumably a recent fight. She drew back her hand on a sharp corner and walked off.

            “Come inside before the wind picks up, Haley, sweetie,” Haley’s mother called. It was true, the wind had begun to move faster amongst the barren hillsides, which would be dangerous if it started coming in from the north. So she ran back to her family’s jeep. Haley was only fifteen and was traumatized from war. Her father had been a part of the northernmost American Empire military, but after Black Dawn he was presumed to be either dead or among the infected. Her family and many other families following had to become nomads going around the southern part of the empire to find a place suitable for living. It wasn’t easy and her group had only been a few hundred miles south of the northern border. Quarantine zones were common at the borders, in order to try and keep the infection from spreading.

            “Are we leaving?” Haley asked her mother.

            “As soon as we finish breakfast, dear. Now hurry inside the jeep and eat.”

            It wasn’t going to be an easy day. Her tribe was closing in on a quarantine checkpoint and they had neither the money nor the clearance to get through. They were going to have to sneak through, somehow. Security is tight and very serious there, so the chances didn’t look good.

            Haley cried as she ate her bread. Her heart was heavy with grievances ever since the war had started. A spider crawled on her toes, exhausted.

            Six years. The war had been going on for six years, and it had only been getting worse. The American Empire (Composed of North America, South America, Africa, Greenland and the UK) had formed one hundred thirty years ago. It is natural law, and politicians hate to say it, but every governing system has a life-expectancy. The Age of Empires had been reborn and not but shortly afterward did the Asian Empire form (Composed of Eastern Asia, Australia, Malaysia, and most parts of Western Asia). Some parts of the world still pursued Democracy, the Democratic Unity (Composed of Europe and the non-empirical parts of Western Asia). It left the world divided into two superpowers, each gripping each other by the neck in hopes to gain power over the world. Haley thought about how it all began with tears dribbling down her sharp cheeks.

            The dust inside the hot, tarp covered jeep was acrid which made every bite of Haley’s breakfast taste grimy. As she swallowed her last bite, she sat still against the tarp and tried wiping away her tears. Her dirty hands only ended up making muddy smudges on her skin. When she started to clean her hands on her jeans the jeep’s engine rumbled and she fell to her side as the jeep trudged forward. She poked her head outside the back of the car and saw the earth moving in the opposite direction. They were finally heading out.

            “Momma, how far is it where we’re going?” Haley inquired, poking her head inside the front seat of the car.

            “Not far, dear,” her mother replied, sitting in the passenger seat. “Look… We’re already starting to see some grass.” Haley smiled. It had been a long time since she’d seen grass growing naturally. In the distance she could see a lot more, even a few trees. “Go rest, I’ll come get you when we arrive,” her mother finished. Haley had no idea how hard quarantine zones were to get through, so her instinct told her she was safe.

 

 

            Sounds and voices bustled about, machinery pounding and clanking in the background. Haley peeked out of the old jeep, astounded by the things she saw. There were hundreds of people running around in strange, white full-body suits. She could see barred walls damaged, destroyed, and scattered all around the ground. What was the most surprising to her were the giant machines; Battle Mechs. She heard of them before, but these were nothing like she’d seen. They were astounding, standing over nine meters tall, shaped like giant armed and legged behemoths, carrying massive machine guns twice as big as her, their feet had wheels and a large metal clamp on each heel that led to another wheel for movement. They appeared person-like, yet not. They were terrifying to her.

            With the chaos strewn all over, people running around in disorder, Haley’s prediction back at the barren wasteland was correct. There had been a battle recently. She climbed into the front seat of the jeep just in time to catch the end of her mother’s conversation with the driver.

            “With all this commotion it should be easier to get through the checkpoint,” the driver said.

            “Our truck is too obvious,” Haley’s mother responded.

            “We’ll just have to go through one of the breaks in the wall, fast.”

            “All of our other jeeps are stopping. They won’t go through. We need to stop!”

            “They’ll make it in after us.”

            “We can’t make it!”

            “We’re going through.”

            Haley felt her arm being grabbed by her mother’s hand. Her mother opened the door of the jeep and jumped out with Haley in her arms. Haley stood up, regaining her balance and looked in the direction of the jeep. As it passed the security line, a huge lumbering Mech moved directly in front of the jeep’s path. The jeep swerved not to hit and as it began to pass by, the Mech hefted its massive machine gun and poured bullets into the ground making it erupt with soil. When the bullets caught up with the jeep, they tore massive holes into its side before it exploded into an orange mass of fire. The mother covered her daughter’s eyes. With her hand still over her daughter’s eyes, she looked around. There were a dozen workers in those white suits, all staring at the two.

            Haley and her mother were guided through a long and winding hallway into a dark and windowless room. The room had only one light hanging in the center above a wooden desk and damp, unwelcoming cement walls. Haley paid special attention to the nametag on the desk. Lieutenant David Sherz. A man in a gray Navy uniform laced with gold-colored threading on the edges sat at the desk and motioned for Haley and her mother to have a seat in two chairs set out for them. He inquired, “What are you doing at this quarantine zone?”

            Her mother responded quickly, “We need to cross; we’ve been trying to escape the quarantine zone.”

            “Why did you attempt to drive through without screening?”

            “We didn’t. We jumped from our car before it went through. It was our-“

            “Randal Davisson. The body has already been identified.”

            “What about the rest of us? There were six other jeeps in our group.”

            “They’ve all been collected and placed in a sterile environment until further notice.”

            “Then can we get screened and decontaminated if we’ve done nothing wrong?”

            “I’m afraid not.”

            “Why not?!”

            “Due to a recent attack from the Asian Empire, a mass of the quarantine zone has been destroyed. It seems spies were found working for the Asian Empire to plant and set charges on the quarantine wall so they could distract us from the coming ambush. It worked. Because of that, I have my orders not to allow any workers or refugees past this wall.”

            “Then what will we do?”

            “We’ll prepare you a chopper to take you back up to the North American province and take you home.”

            “You can’t do that!”

            “Orders are orders.” Two men in decontamination suits walked in and dragged Haley and her mother to the room with the rest of the tribe. There were about twenty- make that nineteen, in total.

            “What’re we gonna do now?” Haley asked her mother.

            “I don’t think there’s much we can do, sweetheart.” Her mother replied. As she finished responding, a helicopter made its way onto a nearby landing pad. The force from the bleak blades overhanging terror atop the copter shook the vegetation around the landscape while Haley and her tribe were unwillingly boarding.

            Haley’s mother began to breathe heavily seeing her family and tribe forced to return to the infested wastelands from which they had spent so long escaping. Haley looked sadly at her face, seeing small tears start to dribble from the sockets of her eyes. Seeing her mother like this almost made Haley cry, too.

            “Take the cargo out,” interrupted Lieutenant Sherz.

            “No!” cried the mother, jumping out of the helicopter, breathing irregularly out of control. She lurched for the Lieutenant in hopes that she might somehow be able to stop him. With a swift side-step to the left, and a draw of his right arm, the Lieutenant pulled out his pistol and unloaded six rounds. Three into her back, one in the shoulder, one miss into the soil, and one final, straight into the side of her head. Blood spattered everywhere. No one covered Haley’s eyes this time.

            “Take the cargo out.” The chopper roared away.

 

 

            Haley’s eyes snapped awake at the sound of a thundering explosion. Someone had fired their gun, inside the base. She jumped up and grabbed her rifle, getting comfortably into her sniping position. “Who fired, and where?”

            “Gib saw a group of three zombies wandering this way,” replied a tall, scruffy man with messy hair dark as coal and bright green, shining eyes. Another shot was heard with three more following it. Mark was his name, but everyone called him Mok for his accent. Everyone in this group of survivors seemed to go by some form of a nickname.

            “And the surrounding?” asked Haley.

            “All clear,” replied Mok.

            “What abou-”

            “Relax, Hale, just stragglers.”

            Haley leaned back. Hale was an odd name for her, and at first she’d been reluctant in accepting a boy’s name as her own nickname. After a while, though, she hardly even noticed or cared that they called her that. She had been with the survivors for about a year in a half, finding them only weeks after she had been returned to the wastelands of the northwestern part of the empire. That made her eighteen years old now.

            Mok sat against the wall next to Haley and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He daintily pulled two out and put one in his mouth. The other he offered over to Haley. She grabbed it and inspected it carefully. “Where did you get these?”

            “Found a convenient store with about six crates of the things. It’s been nearly three months since I’ve had a smoke.”

            Haley propped the cigarette against her lips, and Mok drew his lighter and leaned over to give her a light. Mok was a strange character, had been in the survival group for about five months before Haley found them. He was about the age of thirty-four, scarred and scraped from the harsh wastelands, and couldn’t grow a beard further than a centimeter out. Mok had been only two hundred miles from the central area where Black Dawn had occurred and he swore he saw an endless line of fiery mushrooms expand on the horizon when it happened. She wasn’t sure how he found the survivors, or how he’d been able to survive on his own for seven years, but he managed to.

            Smoke filled Haley’s lungs as she breathed in. Three months without a smoke was a long time to wait, so that first breath hit her pretty hard. During a fit of coughing, Mok reached over to pat her on the back to hopefully get some smoke out.

            “Enjoy it while you can,” Mok told her. “Sans wants you to go out on a scouting mission. She wants you to get us all sommor supplies… Food and ammunition. You know the usual.” Haley was the group’s scout. She was more nimble then the others and an excellent climber to boot. They always sent her out for supplies, to mark hostile presences, or to go send certain supplies elsewhere needed.

            “Gotcha.” She took one deep inhale of her cigarette before tossing it to the ground and putting it out. She rubbed her eyes for a brief moment to keep herself awake before going inside to prepare for her mission.

            “G’luck,” Mok motioned to her by waving his hand in the air, cigarette lying loosely between his fingers.

            Haley walked into the garage, deciding what method of transportation would be best. After a few moments she decided on a motorcycle since it was just some small supplies. She checked the gas meter, grabbed the keys and started the engine. Gib was watching as she made her way to the garage and did the kindness of opening the garage door for her. The motorcycle revved twice before speeding out of the base and into the unforgiving wastelands.

            The atmosphere smelled rotten as usual, and like everyday, the sky was in a dark yellow mood with a green fog all around, which made it harder to find any hostiles. There were old, decayed buildings that had years ago become rubble; fallen, withered, and broken monuments to the day of Black Dawn scattered across half a continent.

            The first stop was Ruben’s, the old metal shop that always had some ammunition and weapons lying around. The supply was getting low which made Haley worried about finding a new shop to get them from. She wasn’t sure where the next nearest gun shop was. After the weapons, the next nearest stop was for food and water. Upon approaching the old abandoned mini mall, she heard a subtle moaning in the air. It had a sort of screech to it. She kept her arm at her side, hand gripped to her magnum.

            She parked out front of the grocery depot and snapped a suppressor to the end of her magnum so that if there were multiple zombies around, she could take them out without them hearing her. She stuck close to the wall and watched all points around her cautiously. She was right. There, all the way across the lot past a few broken down cars were two she could see. Two infected wandering, probably scavenging for food, hadn’t seen her yet, but if she didn’t move quickly they definitely would. She sprinted forward and ducked into the grocery depot before she could be seen. She made it, barely.

            The store stunk of old produce and long rotted meats from the freezer, but that was fine. She wasn’t going to dare to grab any of those. What she wanted was nonperishable foods. The air from nuclear fallout was kept well outside of packaged and canned goods, leaving them almost as fresh as when they were sealed. Picking up about two carts worth of food she strode back to her motorcycle and propped the food into a box next to the ammo then went back in for water. Thirty cases left, she thought while staring down the extra stock in the back of the store, grabbed two and went to put them with the supplies. She fastened them down with haste and quickly turned around, riddled with horror. There it was, one zombie, not ten meters from her, staring straight at her with empty eyes.

            The zombie howled and darted straight for Haley. She ran and ripped her magnum from her side, aiming directly behind her. Pfft-pfft-pfft. Three silenced shots fizzed into the air and the zombie fell straight to its knees then collapsed on the ground, dead once again. Haley made a mistake, though. She’d ran at least a good fifty meters in that fight, and now the two she’d seen when she came in were looking at her with that same dead stare. She’d misjudged earlier, there were now four looking at her. The other two must have been hidden behind piles of vehicular rubble. She pointed her magnum and shot one down just as they started sprinting for her. One made it too close to her and she kicked it hard in the gut, causing it to stumble backwards. She made a run and loaded four rounds into it, dropping the second. The other two were closing in fast. Haley lined her gun up and aimed dead center, loading two more rounds into the chest of one. It fell to the ground, but stumbled its way back to a standing position, moving towards her again in slow, limping pain. Good enough. The last one was closing in and was immediately targeted by her magnum. Click. Empty… “Shit!” she shouted and started sprinting. Before she could get her feet into a full run the behemoth toppled her to the ground, pinned her down, and bore its flat, rotting teeth, ready to eat its long awaited meal. Haley closed her eyes.

            No! I’m not being dinner! Haley gripped tight to her magnum and slammed the butt of it hard against the zombie’s face. The zombie slid off of her and fumbled around to regain its balance. Haley tried backing up, but the monster climbed right back on her and swung its head to tear its teeth into her flesh. She smacked it again, but it stayed steady. Frantically looking around, she seized a chunked of the curb with a slightly sharpened end and struck the zombie straight into its eye. It screamed in pain and blood spilled onto her shirt. It had a greenish tint to it and smelled awful. Haley jumped up and ran to the supply box, pulled a clip of ammunition out, loaded her magnum, and shot down the zombie that had attacked her, as well as the one still limping its way towards her. Whoa…

            Haley looked down, smelling the blood and seeing just how dirty her clothes were. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had a new set of clothes,” she said to herself. So sticking close to the shadows, she ran down to the clothes store to pick herself out something to replace hers. The store was clear. No wandering heads peering over racks of clothing. No sounds. Feeling safe she promptly looked around and found herself a nice pair of dark blue jeans; comfortable, yet fitting. She put on a slender blue t-shirt and a dark red jacket for the chilly nights.

            Feeling satisfied, she started making her way back to the front door. Then she saw something that made her jaw drop. Out the back window, in the far distance was a large building. Dark clouds were rising from multiple smokestacks. Lights were glowing from inside and outer machinery was moving and churning. Someone was in a factory, working. Someone was out there still alive.

            Haley ran to the motorcycle and sped off towards the mysterious factory. Closing in on it, she was now able to see just how big it really was, and everything was going. How did they manage to get power back after seven years? It must be a generator, she thought to herself. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and walked inside after finding a suitable place to hide her vehicle.

            “Hello?” she called.

            A voice mumbled in the distance.

            “Hello?” Haley repeated.

            “Have to work, have to finish,” the strange voice said, or so Haley thought.

            “What are you doing?”

            “Have to work, have to finish.” The voice came from a man frantically running mechanical parts back and forth.

            “How did you get the power to come back on?”

            “Have to work, the emperor needs me.”

            “What do you mean work? This whole place looks abandoned.”

            “Have to work, have to finish.”

            Haley stepped closer and could see him clearer. She was just a few steps behind him when she noticed. His coat covered him so she hadn’t noticed until she saw his hands clearly. They were decomposed and rotten. He wasn’t a survivor. It was dead, and it could talk! Haley gasped and it turned around to face her, skin on its face decayed and loose, eyes cold and dead. Haley shrieked as it lunged for her. She kneed it in the gut and unloaded three bullets into its chest. It slumped to the floor.

            Frightened, Haley turned to leave, but as she did she nearly fell backwards from what she saw. What the undead creature had been doing all this time. Working, finishing, for the emperor… Haley couldn’t believe it. Boasting a monstrous eleven meters in standing height, its deep green paint bathed in the flickering lights of the factory. It was somehow different from the models she had seen, but was most definitely what she through it was. The very unit used to guard the emperor and his capital city… Scotland produced, type six combat mech, Glasgow; a giant combat soldier more powerful than the average units. Haley stood there, the hair on her neck flying up while the behemoth lay dormant, kneeling before her as if awaiting for a new pilot to come find it. At that very moment the memory of her mother popped into her mind.

            Haley sprang around the factory and looked for energy packs to power it. She spent a good amount of time, but eventually she found a whole stock shelf loaded with them. She hefted one of the enormous packs back to the mech and managed get it safely in place. Feeling the force output of the pack, the machine’s hatch propped open. On the seat lay a large pilot’s manual and Haley dove straight in to read it. A few good hours of reading got her a comfortable feel for the controls. Now she had to try the real thing.

 

 

            “That is not what we sent you out for…” Mok said standing outside the base in astonishment.

            Sans stood next to Mok in disbelief of what she was seeing. “How did you find this, Hale?”

            Haley sat in the open hatch of the mech. One of its arms cradled the motorcycle and supplies. The other was carrying a huge crate of energy packs for the machine. “There was this old factory-“

            “Old factory? I sent you for supplies,” Mok retorted.

            “But-“

            “What if you had gotten yourself into something? You should know not to stray from the cleared route,” Sans chimed in.

            “The usual route wasn’t clear,” Haley said. “Some of the infected made their way into it.”

            “That doesn’t mean that it’s okay to go to some random factory.”

            “Sorry…”

            “What are we even going to do with that anyway?” Mok said, turning around to go back inside.

            “We can leave!” Haley shouted, stopping Mok immediately.

            “I’m listening.”

            “I found enough battery to keep us going for a full day at most. We can get past the checkpoints in this without even being questioned.”

            “I don’t know, Hale.” Mok continued to go back inside the base. Sans took the supplies and followed him in.

            Haley punched the power switch, pulled out the key, and raced inside with the other two. Haley grabbed Sans by the waist and chose her words carefully. “I was almost killed getting food! If we leave we can live. We don’t have to survive.”

            “Fine. We’ll go. If things look bad we turn around immediately, okay?”

            Haley didn’t say anything, but smiled.

            “Go rest. We’ll head out in the morning.”

            “I don’t think you’re making the right decision,” Mok told Sans.

            Haley went to bed, unable to sleep. Her eyes were still open when the sun began to rise a few hours later. She had spent longer than she thought on her scouting mission. It was fine for her, she wasn’t tired anyway.

            She jumped up and put on her new clothes and ran into the min hall. “Are we ready to go?” she asked the others, who were preparing a breakfast of canned peaches and canned ravioli.

            “Can we eat?” asked Gib.

            “Hurry!” Haley ran out to prepare her Glasgow for the long trip. No one knew why she really wanted to go.

            By the time everyone had finished eating, three of the survivors, including Haley, piled into the pilot seat. The other three set themselves on top of the Glasgow’s shoulders. “No shaky driving,” one called out.

            The drive was a long one, and the heat from the desert cost the Glasgow more energy than normal, so they had to swap the energy packs frequently. Combat Mechs really took a lot of energy to move. Packs often lasted an hour at most. They had about two packs left when they close to the checkpoint. Haley recognized the barren lands and the area the checkpoint was in. She knew this was where she wanted to be.

            Gib suddenly thought out loud, “How are we going to get through the checkpoint with three of us on top of the machine?”

            Just as he said that, the Glasgow’s comm. channel opened and a voice spoke up. “Type six Glasgow, you are coming from a restricted sector, confirm your ID.”

            Haley froze and didn’t know what to do. The voice asked again, “Type six Glasgow, confirm your ID and enter the battle.” In the distance the Glasgow’s visual array could indeed pick up the scene of a battle going on.

            Sans spoke up for her, “We’re here from the emperor’s command. We were dropped off-course.”

            “Affirmative, change your energy pack and enter battle.”

            Haley drove the rest of the group to a safe point past the checkpoint. “Get yourselves out of here. Go somewhere safe.”

            “You have to come with us. You can’t fight, you can barely drive that thing” Mok told her.

            “I won’t fight, but I have something else to do.”

            “Don’t be stupid!”

            Haley didn’t respond, but instead drove off towards the battle. Going in was suicidal. There were hundreds of combat Mechs, tanks, and foot soldiers, both American and Asian faction. The Asian empire even sported a massive air ship. The frigate was lined with cannons firing in all directions. Haley ignored all of these around her. The only thing on her mind was her mother and the man named David Sherz, the Lieutenant. The man who murdered her mother… All she wanted was to find him… To find him, and kill him.