I Am Become War

This Means War

"So, uh, what's your name?"

"Man," he said."A lot of people have died. And a piece of me have died with every single one of them, along with my name. People around here call me Owl."

"Owl?"

"I only travel at night. And because I travel at night, my vision isn't as shitty at night."

"Nice name. Not the most creative one I've heard, but good to be called."

Owl looked around. He checked the Alley behind him.

"Cut to the chase. What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Just visiting the city."

He gave me unreadable through his gas mask. "You're here to take down someone aren't you?"

"How the fuck did you know that?"

"You would not believe how much six months can sharpen your skills. Especially the art of speech craft. Reading people's tone of voice is the easiest things I have been able to do so far."

"Fair enough."

"Now who you taking down?"

"A guy named Simon."

"Don't even try. The guy is too powerful to take down."

"You now what they say; what comes up, must come down."

"You know what I say; Those who survive, survive because of who they are. Those who are weak get killed fast. And those who are brave and ballsy get shot strait in the balls."

"Isn't that another version of Darwin's theory."

"Just, if you are going to take down a cult leader, try to do it quietly."

"Sure. By the way, do you know anything about these people?"

"Well I am sort of the local snitch, so sure. Lucky for you, Simon's at a weak spot. He lost quite a few scouts when trying to collect people. Some guy started a shooting among the group. Only about four people escaped out of thirty; including the scout leader Carlos. They were fired from their job. Never seen them again. I predict Carlos had made it but not the rest. They also plan on moving to another location. Someplace a little more remote."

"Why do they collect people?" I asked.

"That is the one thing that I don't know about them. The soldiers even let them through with the people who were obviously prisoners."

"See you later," I then walked walked away from Owl and the others followed me.

"Why did you just give our info away?" Bruno said.

"Because I think we can trust him."

"But what if he is one of them?"

"Jake, Caleb tell me, did you see any asshole with a gas mask when Frank got killed?"

"Nope," Jake replied.

"Didn't even remember when Frank was killed so I didn't see anything," Caleb said.

"And there is also the fact that he just announced information of Simon to us. A guy like Simon would kill a guy that snitched on him."

"We just can't tell many people about this."

"Just shut up and holster your weapon. We got a long walk to get to Captain's walk. It's on the other side of the city."

"We might make it there in two hours maybe. Might be dark by then."

Caleb checked his watch.

"It would be around five if that's true."

"Yeah but it's getting to the point where it is obvious winter is here, and the daylight we have is always smaller. So it'll be dark at the time," Bruno said.