(Just as reference, these dashed lines (---) indicate a perspective change. Don’t worry, you’ll understand once you get to those parts. Probably. :) )
A gentle breeze hit Rob Cultus’ shoulder. Late again…, he thought to himself, annoyed. He’d been trying to keep his schedule neat and tidy to get a promotion for his job at Kheiser Business Firm. Hastily, he jumped out of bed and put some clothes on, uncaring of how “nice” he looked. He got in his car and drove to work. Unfortunately for him, traffic would not be his friend today.
Damn! I thought I could’ve at least got there by 8, he thought, when an idea arose. He knew how reckless this was, and how he probably be fined for it, Rob sped through traffic illegally. Though it pains him, it will, hopefully, pay off in the long run.
And, lucky enough, Rob was able to meet his goal of 8 A.M. . He was then confronted by his boss, Mr. Gable, obviously angered by his tardiness. Rob apologized and went to his work station, which was next to his two best friends, Bob and Renee.
“Late again, I see?” Bob remarked with a smirk on his goody two-shoes face.
“Hey! I’ve been trying to be better with whole “on-time” thing, and you’re not being very supportive about this,” Rob replied.
“Hmph, whatever,” Bob said, and sunk back into his chair, eyes glued to the computer.
“So, everything’s good with you, Renee,” Rob said softly. Renee wasn’t exactly the outgoing type of person like Bob and he were.
“Yeah… fine,” Renee whimpered.
“Well that’s good to hear. But what’s not good to hear is what’s happening on the news,” Rob said, trying to get a conversation started.
“Oh, that? I can’t believe the government thinks they get away with those types of things. You know what I’d do? I’d, I’d… ,” Bob immediately ranted.
“Y-yeah, those poor people, given death for something simple as… ,” Renee stopped. Rob could tell she didn’t want to talk about this, so he tried to start a different conversation.
“So, either of you going to the office party next Saturday?” Rob asked.
“I-I hadn’t planned to, no. Are you going, Rob?” Renee asked.
“Not sure yet. How about you Bob? Bob?” he asked Bob, but to no reply.
“Huh? What? Sorry, I’m trying to work,” Bob said, obviously taunting both of them. But they didn’t give into his empty threats.
Everyone by this point sunk back into their chairs, with the “bangs” on the keyboard and “clicks” on the mouse becoming the only form of noise. Rob tries to work, but his mind dozes off about the meeting today. Need 3…
“Cultus!! Why are you sleeping in my office?!” Mr. Gable yelled in his ear, causing him to raise my head up.
“You were late to work, and even when you are at work, you’re not even working?! That’s it! Get out of my sight, Mr. Cultus, you’re fired!” His face was a boiling red and his hand was pointing out the door. Rob got his things and made his way out, head ducked in shame.
But that left Rob with one question. Where to now?
---
Renee gasped at the incident. She’d never thought Rob would slack off so bad, even sleep in the office! The whole event scared her so much, she kept her eyes locked on the computer and hands on the keyboard, as to not get caught like Rob did.
“And that there folks, is how fast your job can go ‘Poof!’. So take my suggestion: Get to work,” said Mr. Gable as he strolled away to his office.
The eerie silence only fueled Renee’s horror of being possibly fired. But the others, from what she could tell by the banging of keyboards, act unfazed by the catastrophe. How?, she wondered. Certainly someone felt the same as her…
“Boop. New message!” The computer notified Renee. She clicked it and brought her to a message from Bob:
“U scared?”
“Of course not. You?”
“No, always knew that Rob character was no good.”
She couldn’t deny Rob’s behavior, it was unnecessary in the workplace. Then again, Bob’s no better than him, besides the fact that he’s a huge kiss up to Mr. Gable. That’s really the only reason he hasn’t got his ass kicked clear across Sunday.
Renee closed the messages tab and began to doze off, but not to where she wouldn’t hear Mr. Gable’s “clunky clown shoes”. Seriously, half of the time she sees him, he’s putting his shoes back on because it flung right off his foot. We’ve had a tragic incident where the shoe hit an employee in the neck. The employee didn’t die or anything, just fractured a bone.
Yet Bob still doesn’t know that Rob and Renee actually will meet each other again, soon. It was an important time for their group, so everyone’s supposed to be there at about the time where most work shifts ended. “Will You Be One of the Three Brave Volunteers?”, the pamphlet said. And Renee plans to be one of those few.
Nothing to worry about… hopefully. She’d never been to one of these… “meetings”, as they call them. So she has no idea of how they operate, or even what they do.
“You should join Renee, it’ll be fun,” Rob had told her. And that’s how she was introduced to this club of sorts. The one last “Boop!” went off from Renee’s computer.
“Dnt cm 2 mtng. ur in dngr. -Rob”
What?, Renee thought, but pieced “Don’t come to meeting. You’re in danger.” Not quite sure what he meant, she decided to ask for more information.
“In danger of what?”
“Me.”
This flabbergasted Renee. She’d known Rob as a friend for nearly four years, yet he’s still hiding secrets. Why he… doesn’t warrant his warning! And once work shift hours were finally over, Renee got in her car and went toward the address conveniently placed on the back of the flyer: 4610 Ranch Road 620 North.
Renee drove through time-consuming traffic to find the location, with a small gathering of small vehicles. She suspected this was the place. Renee got out of the car to find a circle of black-robed men and women, cowls covering their heads.
“Umm… is this the ‘Black Eye dé Cultus’?” Renee asked. The “robed people” awkwardly shuffled to her.
“Mmm… yes, this is the one he spoke of?” One of them said, though, Renee was unable to make out who was saying the words.
“Who are you talking about?” Renee asked, confused.
“Yes, she doesn’t look like ‘One’,” another muttered aloud.
“But she could possibly…,” another brought up.
“Be ‘One’,” the man in front said as he removed his cowl. It was Rob.
“Rob!”, Renee said ecstatically, coming in for a hug, but pushed away.
“I told you not to come,” Rob said to her.
“Why shouldn’t I!? Because of you?” Renee asked sternly for the truth.
“No… No… too late… must join,” the other robed men began chanting hypnotically as they also removed their cowls. All unfamiliar faces to Renee. Rob sighed.
“There isn’t any more time to talk about this, Renee. You’ve made your choice, now come along, don’t a laggard,” Rob said. They moved into a thicket of trees where an even larger group stood. Unlike their “group”, they still had their cowls on.
“‘Black Eye dé Cultus’, ‘bout time you guys showed up!” another man unknown man said to Renee and company. But, from the looks of it, he looked like the guy in power.
“Sorry sir, just inoculating a new recruit,” Rob spoke up.
“Oh, well then, who is this new member you speak of?” the man asked.
“Renee Salzovich, sir,” Rob replied in military-like fashion.
“Rene- I mean, yes, Renee, welcome. Sorry, we weren’t expecting you.”
“T-that’s fine, sir…” Renee responded, as to not be rude.
“Moving onwards, I think everyone of us knows what this proceeding meeting is about. Yes, it’s been about the recent government’s choices,” the man began his speech. Renee could tell where this was going. After all, everyone besides the government hates these bills.
“Ones that takes away our rights, the public’s rights!” The crowd roared in applause. Renee was confused, though. She didn’t like these laws being passed, but she didn’t feel it stole anything.
“A country founded on overthrowing tyranny, yet these bills and laws are passed without second thought on what the citizens think,” the man professed. That’s not true!, Renee thought. Given, it wasn’t the public’s choice, but public-chosen officials voted on it! That’s something… right?
“I’ll be the first of us to say these mistakes… cannot be forgiven,” the man said with almost evil demeanor to it. Renee hadn’t expected for such a harsh tone…
“Now what will the public do? Stay in their homes and hope something will change, or go and do something about it!?”, the man proposed. Renee shockingly agreed to this idea of people being proactive about what they want to change. I think it was about, what, 2 million people voted in the last presidential election, and half of those were via electronics? Completely pitiable.
“Stand with us today! Let the sparks of revolution light a fire that will re-ignite this nation!” Cheer was heard, his speech was undeniably successful. The man stepped off the podium, and another man of a smaller stature walked on.
“Now onto the moment you’ve been waiting for!” What could this be?, Renee thought.
“As a sign of this ‘revolution to be’, we need to cause an uproar of controversy. And you guys know what makes the government tick,” the man said with a grin looking off into the distance. He was up to something, Renee just didn’t know what.
“‘The use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims’, yes, we the public, fight with terrorism!” The crowd had an expected mixed reaction, but most were cheering with praise and cheer. Renee didn’t know why’d people cheer for such a diabolical vision of “vengeance”. Renee edged up to Rob to ask questions about this meeting.
“What’s going on here, Rob?” Renee whispered to Rob. Rob then made a subtle, yet apparent, movement of his lips.
“Move back. Where they can’t see you,” he said quietly as she did before. Renee was puzzled as to why. Then the man began to speak again.
“Okay, so now that you all know the plan, you may be asking, ‘What’s next?’,” he says as he tilts his head toward the convenience store, “I think we need a ‘budget’ for our grand scheme, don’t you?” He couldn’t possibly be thinking of…
“While it seems like only a petty theft, this will get us publicity for any future members and a nice amount of cash. But the thing is… we’re going to need some volunteers to do the dirty job,” The man said. Suddenly, Renee finally let go all of the bottled up feeling she had about this meeting.
“Are you crazy? Why would we want publicity? We’d just end up getting caught! I-I just can’t… no!” Renee screamed and curled into a ball. The whole meeting had overwhelmed her with terrible thoughts. The man turned to the Black Eye dé Cultus group with a face of disgust.
“You there, lady. Would you care to volunte-,” the man began to say, mockingly.
“Stop it! I’ll go!” A stone-faced Rob intervened to stop Renee’s torture.
“Right this way, then,” the hooded man lead Rob to the store. Renee, wallowed in tears, then fell into a deep sleep.
---
Rob felt good about what he did, protecting Renee like he had done. His reluctance to follow the hooded man was very great, however, but what can he do about it? Rob remembered a time when these cults weren’t about “World Revolution” and politics, but ever since the day he came… well, it hasn’t been quite the same.
“Bob, there’s no need to keep up the hood. I know it’s you,” Rob said as the made it to the edges of the store.
“Whatever you say, ‘Mr. Hero’. Why are you trying so hard to protect her?” Bob said, removing his hood to reveal a devious smirk. Rob ignored his comments.
“How’s your ‘stunt double’, doing at home? We can both do this all day, but it’ll get us nowhere,” Rob said with a voice of reason. Bob hit him in the head, leaving a dark bruise.
“Just get in there and do the job,” Bob said as he handed him a pistol, loaded.
Rob gripped the cold, metallic gun and made an attempt to hide it in his hand. But not before he took off his robe, he didn’t want to look like a complete imbecile!
“Hello! Welcome to-” the cashier said. *BANG!* The man fell down with a single thud. Rob moved over to the body to see a paled corpse. Is it that easy? To take a life…
Rob shook his head, he unfortunately had to focus on the mission. He took the keys and opened the register. Inside lay 100’s of bills of all sorts. Rob took the highest value bills first, obviously, and as much else he could carry. He then proceeded to run out of the building, dollars flying into the wind. This isn’t right…, Rob thought to himself as he exited. Now to see if Renee’s alrig-
“STOP!! Put your hands in the air! You’re under arrest!” Rob was shocked. How…
And as Rob made his thought, an officer tased him. And as it all faded to black, the last sounds he heard were of sirens and someone chuckling in the background of all this…
---
Renee returned to her home after all the interrogation by the police. When she returned, tears running down her face, thinking about what had happened to Rob. Then her phone buzzed, it was a message from Bob:
“Sorry about Rob. ;(“
It was a nice consolation from Bob, but that wouldn’t bring him back. Then, Renee thought, How does Bob know about Rob? She began to interrogate him about this.
“How do you know about Rob?”
“The News.” Renee checked each of the news channels, none of them were on this late.
“That’s a lie.”
“It is.”
“So how do you know about Rob?”
“I’m Sorry.”
And that’s where the conversation was left at, as Renee did not want to waste her time getting the same apology and not answers. But it was late at midnight, and she had to get sleep. So she went to bed, mind full of worry for Rob’s well-being. Please, be okay…
The next morning, Renee woke up as usual: showered, dressed, cleaned, and ate a healthy breakfast. As she ate said healthy breakfast, she tuned into the news, aware of what could be on there. But instead a rather strange occurrence, the news channel went to black, and was replaced by a commercial with all too many familiar faces:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So this is the classic story of Bob. Bob was your average man, living in your average town of Normal-ville. Bob then went to his regularly scheduled job which went accordingly Monday from Friday, 6 A.M to 4 P.M. . He meets with his two co-workers, Rob and Renee. They talk about what goes on in the news, their lives, maybe even an exciting upcoming local trash day. (“Friday 26!!!”, was shown on screen.)
Once Bob’s work shift was over, he says his goodbyes and drives back home to meet his wife, Diane, and son and daughters, Bobby, Sal, and Dee. They eat a family dinner at the table and tune in to the news, where they learn about things in the government, politics and foreign affairs. REMEMBER: “Terr” Up Terrorism!
Eventually night would commence and everyone would go to sleep, ready for tomorrow. By now you may be wondering, “Why are you telling me this story? What is the point?”. Well before we get to that, let’s go through another person’s story.
The man you learned of earlier, Rob, was much unlike the the man known as Bob. Despite their friendship, Rob here has been quite bad.
His day of misconduct begins waking up… two hours late to work! He shows no signs of emotions such as worry or despair, but rather, mellow. He eventually gets to work, that is, by speeding through traffic, a dangerous gamble that will never pay off in his favor. But nonetheless, he makes his way to his untidied workstation, where in the end, only ends up talking to his co-workers, who are being badly influenced by him.
When the office’s boss, Ryan Gable, recognized Rob’s unnecessary behavior, he had no choice to fire the employee. Rob understood he was no longer needed and packed his bags and left. About the same time Bob and Renee’s work shifts ended, Rob headed to a remote location, somewhat close to a convenience store. At this location, Rob met with a large group, a cult, if you will. They talked for a while and shared a few chuckles here and there, but then they got to business.
The robbery was plain and simple theft, no bother to be suave or stealthy about the operation. The cashier in charge and cameras were shot, except for the once hidden inside the register, which got enough footage to get the three men convicted. The heist, while maybe minor in some cases, was not for this one.
A high amount of $10,000 was found in that rather compact register, and now stuffed in their bags. This was of course a high felony in any state or country. On top of that, the felony murder of the cashier was not yet put into account. So the charge would be rather dire, maybe even a life or death type of situation.
“And this brings us to our conclusion. I just have one question for you viewers, ‘Who are you more like: Bob, or Rob?’” The speaker blankly stared at the viewers for the next 2 minutes or so.
“Well did you get your answer? Good! As a special bonus, here’s an example of what might happen to you if chose Rob.” The speaker then moves across into a not-so-well lit room. It was distorted, but you could clearly see a man tied to a chair, Rob. His eyes were bloodshot and bruises on his arms and face. From the opposite camera blind spots, two men emerged in suits that protected them from head to toe appeared in the room with a large, sharp, but unidentifiable object.
The first man restrained Rob of any movement, and the other moved in to use the metal instrument. The object was placed on his neck, when Rob began to squirm and shout for help. But Rob’s struggle was in vain, as the man pressed a gash straight through Rob’s trachea, dismembering his head from his body. The other man grabbed the head from its hairs and placed it directly in the camera. His head hung in pain, blood splattered on his face. His jaw hung, but his facial expressions something akin to a plea for someone to save him. The head was dropped and the speaker moved back into focus.
“In the end, you see the gruesome fate of one who tried to not be part of the system.The consequences, as you can see are quite, hehehe...dire. I suggest you change your path… before we have to.”
(This public broadcast has been brought to you by governing officials. REMEMBER: “Don’t be a Rob, be a Bob!”)
Steel 04:07, March 24, 2015 (UTC)