Beginnings

A man peered through a boarded window at the frozen street, chewing on a smoldering cigar. He tightened the strap of his assault rifle across his large frame, and checked the gun’s safety. Aloud, he wondered:

“Brooks should be here by now.”

The man stood in his home, waiting for his only friend in the city of ashes.  His room held a small fire and darkness. Old newspaper articles draped the walls, one of which had fallen to the floor. It read:

Chancellor Questioned Over Study Abroad Catastrophe
Washington (AP) | January 27^th, 2009
The congressional investigation continued Monday morning over the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s alleged mishandling of the Spring 2009 semester, where the vast majority of UW students were accidentally allowed to study abroad, leaving Madison’s economy crippled and streets subject to riots…

The page flew into the fire as the door to the room burst open. A bearded figure stood, panting.

“We’ve got company!” Brooks said. “Hipsters!”

The cigar man moved with Brooks to the front door, grabbing a backpack and several grenades.

“Sweet Fucking Christ,” he growled at the scene in front of them.

Several hundred fix-geared bicycles thundered down the street towards the house, a howling tribe of tight-jeaned youth seeking Madison’s remnants of PBR and parliament cigarettes. Brooks dodged a hurdling MacBook before blowing off the frontrunner’s head with a blast from his shotgun.

“What do we do?! There are too many of them!”

The cigar man rolled a grenade into the hoard. “We have to head for the Frats!”

“Impossible!” Said Brooks, punching a hipster off his bike. “The Great Brother hasn’t contacted you in weeks, what makes you think he will help us?”

“It’s our only choice, the Greeks are all we have left.”

The two friends mounted discarded fixed-gears and headed north. Brooks turned to see the first hipsters breaking windows of his old home. The cigar man kept his eyes forward. They were filled with tears.

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