“Tell me, officer,” Jacob calmly spoke, “does anyone know you’re out here?”

The sentry blinked. A smirk ventured halfway across his mouth.

“Why?” he asked, “are you planning on doing something?”

“Maybe,” replied Jacob.

The sentry filled his chest with a lungful of fresh air. Enticed, but amused, he dismounted from his black horse and landed with an audible thud upon the ground. Immediately, his right hand went for the nightstick on his hip. The smirk playing across his mouth expanded into a sadistic smile. He took a step toward Jacob.

Jacob wasted little time in putting the handgun to use. He had heard stories about how they functioned—something about a trigger—but that was the extent of it. Retrieving the weapon from its spot along his backside, he aimed it at the horseman and fumbled for the mythological firing mechanism. The trigger did not move. The sentry, who had stopped in surprise at the sight of the pistol, started to laugh. He then raised his nightstick and prepared to strike.

Jacob fumbled backwards, and in doing so, he stumbled over the box and the hole in the ground behind him. His ankle twisted, and he fell. Landing hard on his back, he felt the air rush out of his lungs. Panic flooded his mind. The primal urge to fight was no longer there. A more basic instinct replaced it. He wanted to flee. He wanted to run for the safety of his home, but the towering figure of the sentry loomed over him like a paralyzing force of nature. He could not move.

The safety, fool! He felt a voice inside him instruct. The safety!

The sentry dropped a knee hard onto Jacob’s stomach. It pinned him to the ground. With the nightstick still raised above his head, the sentry swung his first blow. 

Before the strike could connect, Jacob found the safety. He pushed it forward, and in one swift movement, he planted the barrel of the handgun against the sentry’s throat. The sound that followed next brought the world to a screaming halt. It was a wet and wild explosion of human debris. It splattered violently across Jacob’s face and chest. The sentry dropped his nightstick and grabbed his neck. Squealing like a pig as his shattered trachea reflexively sucked for air, the horseman toppled over and thrashed across the ground for several seconds before expiring with a gurgle.

“Jacob!” Emily screamed.

Rushing to her husband’s side, she fell beside him and wept. Jacob stared distantly at the twitching body beside him.

“What are we going to do!” Emily cried. “They’re going to send others now! They'll kill us!”

Jacob felt an unnatural calm come over him. At first, he didn't respond to Emily's outburst. Instead, he looked at the horse standing in their midst and a thought crossed his mind: there's a lot of meat on that. When his senses returned to him, he slowly sat up. He took a breath. He knew he should feel bad for killing a man, but the sentry had threatened his family. So he didn't feel bad at all. In fact, he felt quite right with himself.

“We'll kill the horse or put it to use somehow,” said Jacob as his free hand reached up to wipe away the dead matter on his face. “As for the man—bury him. We’ll use him for fertilizer. But don’t worry about the city. There's too much red tape and bureaucracy there to take notice of this. This will all go away. What we really need to worry about is this...” 

Jacob gestured to the pistol in his hand.

Emily turned her attention to it.

“Why?” she asked. "What is it?"

“It's a weapon,” answered Jacob, “and it changes everything. No one has anything like this. Not even the city.”

Emily’s eyes moved to the gun in her husband’s hands. Her head tilted to the side with intrigue. But when her gaze drifted to the reflective metal of the box, she caught sight of her reflection. She gasped. Her soft pink lips parted in awe. Without thinking, she drew closer and peered intently at herself. Her hands went to the edges of her face and cheek bones and for awhile she studied herself.

Afterwards, Emily decided to open the lid to the case. When she did, she stuck a hand inside and, to her surprise, she found a folded piece of paper. She withdrew the piece of parchment and spread its ends apart. A single sentence rested on the page.

“Use me to start the counterrevolution,” Emily read aloud.

Emily and Jacob exchanged looks. A mixture of confusion and fear filled their eyes. In the background, their Labrador pounced on a mole and tore it from the ground.

Proceed to Chapter 2