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Deja Vu's Beginning Part 1
Posted By: Psycho-Monkey<Chimpywashere@gmail.com>
Date: 19 November 2006, 10:54 pm
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Part 1: The Beginning
Jack Durant woke with a start, he found himself in his room. His body ached from the battle yesterday. Durant tried to move, he failed. He drifted back to sleep two minutes later. Half an hour later he woke up again, this time with the strength to get up. Out of his bed he went into his restroom and splashed water on his face. The water was ice cold but refreshing. How he could sleep on Earth with the Covenant overhead and periodic land attacks, calmly no one knew. And when they didn't know they asked Jack why. He never answers them. Just being on his own planet, his home made he relaxed.
Jack exited his cabin, said 'hello' to the guard stationed at the gate and went into town. This was his time off, he aimed to make it last like it was his last. Durant walked down the street and saw crowds of people surrounding a horizontal poster with a Spartan on it. The poster showed a group of Marines behind a makeshift barricade on the left. The marines were shooting at scrambling Grunts and Jackals on the right. In the middle was a Spartan holding a beat-up Elite by his neck, the other hand was waving towards the marines saying, "All clear!" Under the poster was the famous phrase used by civilians and UNSC personnel alike, "Spartans never die!" Jack put his head down, nodded and walked away. He felt like telling everyone that they could, and that he saw one die. No MIA crap, they were human just like everyone else… just something more.
Durant stopped in front of a café. All his friends recommended this particular café, Jack couldn't figure out way. However, when he had a tried one of their coffees he found out why. The minute the liquid entered his stomach he felt a jolt of energy. He bought another cup, this time with some pastries. Eh, so this isn't exactly the way I intended to live the 'last' day of my life, he thought. At least- An old man sat in front of Jack. He had wrinkles all over his face, his eyebrows drooped to give him a sad look and the same went for his mouth. His was pale with "on-the border" nice clothes. Every time he reached for his bagel his hands shook. Jack continued eating his pastry in awkward silence. When the old man finally finished his bagel, he cleaned his side of the table and said, "Hello, there!"
Jack found it hard to respond without it sounding freaked, "Hello to you, too."
"You're a Marine…aren't you?" The old man suddenly shot that question so quick that Jack pulled his head back, as if he got hit by a bat.
"Er… yea… I-I am a Marine…" Jack said awkwardly, and then added. "How did you know?"
"Ohh lets just say that if you were as old as I am, you could tell too." The man responded with a smile.
The two suddenly were engaged in a conversation as if they were long lost friends that just met up. This old man has great social skills, Jack thought. Jack finally learned that the old man's name was Daryl, after ten minutes into the conversation. Daryl asked all kinds of questions: What are the Covenant up to? Have the UNSC finally decided to on Project Terra? Any new advancements in fighting the Covenant?
All these questions were asked as if Daryl never knew that the Covenant were here… on Earth. Jack was even more surprised that Daryl knew about Project Terra. Project Terra was originally proposed as a new colonization project. Selected individuals would be transported to a new planet far, far away from the Milky Way galaxy in hopes of preventing Mankind's extinction by the Covenant. The project was held into political limbo. That's about as far as the story Jack heard from his friend. Jack answered most of them to the edge of classified information, but made sure he wasn't too close that the old man could trap him. The two talked, seemingly forever, after Daryl asked military questions. The whole conversation completely changed subjects to riddles. The old man said he loved riddles. Jack felt obliged to say he did too; after all he did like riddles. This period of asking riddles and answering them continued until Daryl finally said, "Well, it's getting late. I better get going. But…" The old man's face turned very serious and sad, he then added. "I have one last question to ask you, but you have to answer it correctly."
"All right," Jack said with a little suspicion. "Ask away!"
"If you were hypothetically in a situation where, no matter what you did you would die? What would you do? Would you let fate grab you and end your existence? Or would you try to fight back anyway? Choose to live or die trying?"
Jack was stunned, he never liked talking about his past nor did he like talking about the future. He pondered for a minute before answering, "Well- er- in a situation like that…" He stopped, thought a little more and responded with more confident that this was the right answer. "No matter what I could do I might die…" He whispered that line, he didn't know why, but this question was very easy but difficult to answer. "So I wouldn't do anything," Jack said that last bit with a tense and scared tone.
"But," The old man shot back, almost as if he expected that answer. "What if, if you fought you might be that very, very small percentage of people that manage to survive? Would you try then, to fight back?"
Jack thought more. "Well even if I did, there is still that small percentage. And I'm pretty sure that I'm not that lucky to be in that small percentage."
Daryl sighed and nodded his head disappointingly. The old man got up, defeated that he didn't get that answer he wanted to hear and left the café quietly. Jack felt guilty for some reason. Maybe that wasn't the right answer…, he thought. Jerry burst thought the café door. "Jack!" he yelled with anger. "There you are! God Damnit! We were looking everywhere for you!"
Jack quickly got up and said, "What's going on?"
"You were supposed to be back at base two hours ago, we're being briefed on our next mission! And when they founded out you were missing guess which the poor victim had to get sent to find you!"
"What!?" Jack sounded really surprised. Two hours!? He exclaimed in his mind. I completely lost track of time because of that old man! "Why didn't they start the meeting without me?"
"Well, they were gonna but I guess they remembered that you are sergeant of our squad. Now let's go!"
"All right," Jack turned around to look at the table, the old man was still gone. "Let's go!"
"You owe me a beer for this Jackass."
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