It was the rarest and peculiar sight that Thomas with an h had ever seen when he walked into the top floor-the gym-and found the others galloping around, each hands gripping strange, black metal stuff and two giant white boxes aligned on the floor along the walls. He knew that it would be useless to swear, and out of curiosity himself, walked over to one of the boxes and pulled out one of those metal stuff, and by pushing a button on the side with it pointing toward his face, nearly cut off his own nose with a straight beam of white laser light, if he hadn't had Prod-speed.
"Fuck. Is this Martian gizmo?" He finally asked Miles, who was trying to wrestle Melanie down to the floor, one hand holding the same laser gun.
"Hell, yeah. Aren't the Martians geniuses to develop these? Tom, come on, join us," he then used the momentum to hit Melanie down to the floor, making a horrible slapping sound on the floor with her back that would have killed or injured normal people. "Like hell he would," She groaned from below him.
Yeah, what had we expected? Thinking the Martians were total crazy lads, Thomas left, wiping his hands on his pants like crazy as if the gun was contagious.
Meanwhile, Alex Mars was also practicing, but he had heard it all.
"Shit, what's wrong with Thomas?" He asked Lyra Cannes, who was on the bench, still glaring at the laser of the gun as if it was a newly found 100 billion-old animal species. "I don't know. He never told us about his past life before getting here. Maybe it was such a nightmare that made him despise anything new," "But when i had just gotten here, he had treated me quite well, as if I was some old lad of his," he said, slicing the air-alright, that's literally impossible, so let's rephrase it to 'trying to slice the air'-, thus creating a white flash of light float in the air for half a second before vanishing after the laser gun in his eyes-even for Prodigies, optical illusions were unavoidable. Though for a second, he felt a bit dizzy and clumsy after the quick movement, the feeling of the wind felt so cool and awesome to him that for another moment, he decided to discard Thomas inside his brain for now. "Come on-try to get me, slice me...um, kill me," Lyra frowned straight at him. "That wasn't a beautiful set of vocabulary, Al," She said, gripping the gun in her hands.
-But whatever she felt at his words, it didn't matter-for, a single second later, she was lightly charging at him and, yes and literally trying to kill him.
At first, as if she was playing some game with him deliberately, the attacks were just random and hilarious to spend time with-it came to his head, neck, to his ankle, waist, then, somehow, his butt, and he just wriggled out of range at the last second-anyway, Michael the local Martyr had taught how to do just such a thing.
But then, as if she had waited, she started to take things seriously.
She poked around, the started clicking on and off her gun as if using the time to get used to the weapon, making both of their eyes flash spots in their vision-but she managed to stay on her feet and kept poking steadily-to be exact, steadily faster, while Alex Mars' eyes were barely staying on track and he just dodged at everything that came to him. Sometimes, she would brush right next to him and they shared two breathes together-and other times, the majority, she was far away, usually to quickly calculate how to win, how to 'kill' him.
Then, along with his eyes, his legs started to feel number and number with each movement from all the extreme pressure applied to them after the toiling in the desert.
Soon, after a few minutes, spots swam in his vision in a slow undulating motion, and then, the floor also started to sway steadily. We have had enough, his eyes and sore muscles from all the lifting at the desert and exercise right then, muttered before closing their eyes to doze off.
This all happened in a single second.
His legs buckled right after that single second and he could only feel himself falling straight to the ground(since vision wasn't an option for him anymore). But, he was human enough and had 'instinct'-his eyes flew open soon and he watched in horror as, just as Thomas had nearly done to himself a few moments ago, the tip of the gun plunged after him through the air.
And the funny thing with instinct is that, though it is meant to protect your life, it also makes you stupid.
And it was so damned stupid for instinct to make his hands get in front of his face and push away the tip-yes, the tiny metal point that was surrounded by the 8 strings of laser-of the laser gun away from his eyes.
During the last zero-point seconds of the fall, his hands realized the true stupidity of instinct.
Then quite a lot of things happened at once.
First, his head hit the floor of the gym like a small apple that had just been detached somehow from a tree miles away from the ground. Second, his hands felt warm, then numb, then boiling, then stinging all around as if they were going to detach themselves from his hand as if they were the apples of the tree. Thrid, Lyra had dropped her gun and had run to him. And lastly, two words escaped his mouth- and it was "Goddam, shit." And these four stuff all went in slow-motion.
And after that, everything was happening so fast, at a normal pace.
"Hell-Alex, you fine? Shit shit shit, I was a complete, motherfucking fool. Al, can you hear me?" Lyra was -wow, she is shrieking-and for the first time in front of my eyes! (Alright, it was impossible for her to be shrieking in front of his eyes, for they were closed, though). He marveled inside his blinding pain, which had placed itself right at his hands and was slicing through all his nerves like lightning-yes, shrieking-, and unfortunately, for he had turned on his Muter after his task at the desert, every one of the sounds at the gym flowed into his ears, which only helped in adding to his pain, now at his worn-out muscles, eyes, hands, and ears.
-He heard a heavy guy(Miles) racing towards him and Lyra, Lyra kneeling beside him and still asking if he was fine(of course he wasn't, didn't she know that?) and holding his hand as if he was on his death bed(gee, her hands were warm, he realized)and Melanie hovering over all of them, pacing(she seemed to be frustrated). Then, Alex heard Miles also kneel down, then, unexpectedly, grab his wrists quickly and sling his slack body onto his back.
It all felt weird and giddy during the crazy pig-back ride on Miles, who ran down the stairs to Alex Mars' bedroom, so he decided to bonk out for a while, for bonking out seemed like a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious thing to do by then.

It was just like when he had endured his best in the desert and had been transported to the Rebels and dreamed inside the hospital. He had dreamed of seeing the movie of his life at the time. And now, he simply felt as if he was walking on wispy clouds. All the parts of his body except his hands felt cool and fluffy as he waded up an entire river composed of clouds, which bobbed up and down slightly as if welcoming him. Simply curious about where these clouds had come from or how he had arrived at such a bizarre place, he raised his hands to push the clouds to the ground like a small boy trying to conquer and defeat the buoyancy of a red balloon. Alright, to be exact, even before he could test it out, his hands wouldn't rise easily and even felt... very heavy, if it had been encased in water-logged clothe. From that moment, he realized with horror, that he was in a dream(obviously) and his hands were still a mess.
Disappointed, he let go of his mind on purpose this time, and watched as the clouds rose and swished away from him, and, knowing that it was useless to fell back into the cloudy dream, just lazily hoped that he would get conscious soon.

Consequently, it took him only 30 minutes to wake up.

It was an awful process, getting the hell up. His head buzzed with the sound of his own head hitting the floor even now and he shivered inevitably when he thought how his hands had wrapped around the laser of the gun, probably making some huge injury in his palms. Jesus, he had been stupid...
At least his eyes worked well, so he opened them-to his own room, and oh, how grateful he was. He craned his neck and with extreme horror, found his hands wrapped in thick, brick-colored bandages, just he had predicted in his dream. And it wasn't even the worst part-the instance he tried to move his hands, they stung like crazy, and, though this might sound a bit horrible(at least it did to Alex), he felt as if his hands had been gauged deep with some kind of knife and the knife hadn't been pulled out, now instilled in his hand, matted along with the blood...
He knew that the only way to get out of such situations was to just do it quickly. It was gonna be disastrous, but still, quick was to be the way...
So he jolted up and feeling his hands reprimand his action, he rather ignored them and jumped out of his bed, sheets spilling onto the floor. For a second, standing on two legs, he felt like the first Homo Sapiens who had ever stood on 'his' two furry legs, for his legs also tried to tumbled himself out of balance, but he persevered-gripping everything in sight, he managed to stumble out of his room, realizing how difficult it would be for disabled people to get around the world in their lives.
The stairs were hard, but not impossible-he made his descending the stairs into a rhythm-he limped in beat, one step at a time, sweat trickling down his spine and everything, but too breathless to even speak. By the time the sofa on the first floor got ins sight, he was freaking out and ready to bonk out again, sure, but the sight of it made him desperate and his animal instincts rose to the surface and he leaped for the sofa-though his legs were weak, he managed to cling onto the leather and then lie down flat on the thing, breathing like a man about to die(maybe, he was going to die, after all....)
It was 2 minutes and 29 seconds after all of that when he realized that he wasn't alone in the house-no, to be exact, wasn't alone... on the sofa itself. The feeling had come through instinct-a strange chill had run down from his hair to his toes and yessiree, Lyra Cannes sat, silently, staring at him on the far side.
He tried to say something to her, to fill the void between them before it got awkward like it always managed to do, but his voice wouldn't come out, nor did he knew what he himself was going to speak. Remembering that he was ripped off of any normal human capabilities at the moment, Lyra suddenly got up and sat next to him, the empty air next to him on the sofa suddenly pushed away and replaced by her air.
"Gee, you're up, Al-I'm... so sorry. I don't know why I do such things to you, only you-and somehow, it always manages to happen in the gym," She pleaded, eyes never leaving his awful hands wrapped in their individual, soft cages of bandages. Alex has no choice but to laugh-and though, at first, it came out as repeating and short croaks, it soon became his real voice and he was very relieved for that.
"You're right. Well, nah. You did nothing wrong,"
"Oh, but I didn't know how to handle that thing and I was swinging it at you-"
"Jesus, Lyra. You were the best person who handled new weapons so easily I have ever seen. Yeah, you were great-except, you were too good for me, once more making you better than me," For emphasis, he raised his bruised hands. Lyra groaned, shaking her head. "I don't want to be the best. I don't want much in life for now. I don't know. Jesus, everything seems unclear to me," "That's what I love-logic," Alex breathed weakly, and this time, Lyra was the one to laugh. "Right, right," She had started to turn her head around, looking away, when something occurred in Mars' mind, and he froze. "Wait, where are the others?" Well, the stranger thing was, the air next to him-Lyra-seemed to have also frozen too suddenly, and he knew that something strange had been going on as he slept, wading through clouds.
"The headquarters called us-the U.S. military had done something so dramatic, Al. They... said that the president was dead now. Yeah. Well, at least, that's what Lewis said-he told us that he would tell us in detail once we got there," "But what're you doing here, then?" He yelped, jumping up onto his feet once more, then swaying a bit from dizziness. Lyra jumped up after him, trying to steady him. "I couldn't leave you behind-I had stabbed you and could I just leave you to just satiate my own curiosity? No, Al. But it is an emergency going on in America and the Rebels. We have to go,"
He nodded his stiff neck and without further talking, they both were quickly pacing to the front door.
"Whose car?" Lyra asked. "Mine-it's an old van-fast and-" They had reached the door and he reached out for the knob, but the thing was, his bandaged hands would only half turn it around and then the springs would make it go back around to its original position. He tried four times and even Lyra watched him do it. Finally, not able, he yelled: "Shit!" Lyra sighed. "Let's go in mine that you gave me-we'd die if you drive with those hands, Alex-I'm sorry," She yanked open the door, and for the first time in his life, Alex Mars envied another person for being so capable of opening a door.
They slipped into the seats of Lyra's Bentz(it was at least 10 years old, though it was, still, a rare edition), and in seconds, she brought it to life and they were speeding down the road easily. Lyra let the window down half, making the wind flowing in be just enough to flush out some dust and give Alex some cool air to breathe. He could just forget that they were going to headquarters once more, this time to get a report on how the president had suddenly died and how prospects were going to be, with the breeze hitting him and Lyra driving.
Maybe he doused off, or maybe he just day-dreamed, for, soon, Lyra had parked in front of the building and was opening the door for him, for his fingers were still quite incapable. They stumbled down into the lift and onto the controlling floor and immediately found Lewis-and surpassingly, Ryan Marvick-leaning over a map of the U.S., and talking to the others, fingers pointing. Ryan noticed them first and gaped at Alex Mars' mangled fingers, but as if he had heard front he others stayed shut up nice and cozy about it, and took them to a corner.
"The U.S. president is dead," He said.
"We know," Lyra replied. "Yeah. But we think he didn't die of suicide or natural causes. It just has to be the military," "State all the reasons," Lyra demanded, crossing her arms. Ryan frowned. "1. They have been uniquely active unnecessarily. 2. The president was 45 and he didn't have any issues going on around him-no illness, no political enemy, et cetera. Why would he have killed himself? 3. The country's new name. Number three is the best reason," Ryan rapped out, hand twitching at a corner. "Shit, it ain't the 'United States of America' anymore?"
While Lyra questioned Ryan one by one to catch up, Alex Mars just lagged behind, too tired to focus and having decided that he already knew that the military had been a bit too strong even from the time when he had gotten in there-expect a tiny signing of a document by the government, the rest of his expatriating procedures had been undertaken by the military, after all...
But the next information that Ryan Marvick spewed out caught his attention easily, for it was unrelated to anything he had known in his life.
"Of course. It has been changed to-" The guy took a deep breath.
"-the Allied Statocracy of America," He finished.

Yes, Alex had known the intense power of the military, but as everyone knows, experiencing something for real is much more depressing or pressuring than just hearing or thinking about it. And this worked out the same for him in this situation.
It hit him so hard and instantly filled him with rage and a will to kill, to see blood, to make the so-called 'generals' die, but, even stronger than that feeling, came the thought that his America was no longer his America-the military had taken over completely.
-And, he just had to launch the Revolution straight away to restore it back to his America he had known for his entire life.
Also, he had never been so eager before like this.