Fiction: Afterlife (Volume 2 Preview)

We are the International Anarchy Organization, and as of this moment, the world belongs to us.

In a living room in New Atlantis, Evan McMichael knelt on the floor while his parents sat on the comfy brown leather couch, watching the news as it was being displayed by the three dimensional hologram projector.  The pretty blonde reporter was droning on and on, appearing as if she were in the actual room with them, while Evan played with his toy robot.  He pushed the button to make it talk.  “I’m Leveler 3000,” the robot said.  “Prepare to be destroyed.”  It flashed a beam of red light out of its left hand and there were some laser noises.

“Can you keep it down, Evan?” his dad asked, turning up the volume on the hologram projector.  “We can’t hear.”

“And in other news,” the reporter said, “the results from last night’s lightball game between the New Atlantis Cowboys and the Iron Town Miners are in…”

The hiss of static filled the room as Evan’s dad pointed the remote at the projector violently.  “What’s this?”  The nanobots that formed the three dimensional image became a jumbled black and white mess of snow.

“Is the projector broken?” Evan’s mom asked.

Suddenly, the image of a skull and crossbones with the letters “IAO” scrawled across the middle of it appeared.  The image was red, yellow, and blue on a black background.  “Do not adjust your projectors,” a voice said.  “There is nothing wrong with your system.  There is, however, a problem with your world’s system.”

The three dimensional projector depicted a dark room as Evan and his parents watched silently.  Four figures stepped forward from the darkness.  In the back stood a very handsome white man who was wearing a fur coat, a tall Hispanic man who was wearing a gray cowboy hat, and a short, stubbly-faced black man who was wearing a bandana on his head and an eye patch over his right eye.  The man standing in front had messy gray hair and glasses and he was wearing a rumpled black suit.  His gray eyes had a craziness about them as they stared out at millions of viewers across the world.  “We are the International Anarchy Organization, and we’re the ones who are destroying your system.”  He grinned.  “In this world, those who have power take from those who don’t.  There have been many paths to power throughout history.  There’s money, religion, politics, government.  We take all of that out of the equation and make things what they truly are.”  He waved his hand in a wiping motion as the three men standing behind him looked on.  “No more rich and poor.  No more my side and your side.  Now it’s just we’ve got the guns and you don’t.  You do what we say and we don’t kill you.  It’s very simple, really.  No more hypocrisy.  No more us pretending to help you while we secretly stab you in the back.  We’re not helping anyone but ourselves.  We’re stabbing you in the front, and we’re telling you about it beforehand.”

He laughed as the tall man with the cowboy hat walked away and the projector followed him.  Evan could see that the tall man was wearing patchwork clothes made from dirty brown leather and dull metal plates.  He looked like a bandit.  The other three men were soon out of the picture and the tall man was standing over a kneeling man who looked scared and confused.  The kneeling man was wearing a gray suit and had short, brown hair and a cleanly shaven face.

The man standing above him smiled and looked out at the viewers.  Evan saw that he was holding a laser pistol.  “Say your name,” the tall man with the cowboy hat ordered.

“I’m Martin Greenwood,” the kneeling man said nervously.

“Now,” the voice of the gray-haired man said from off-screen, “we’re going to demonstrate that we mean business.  This is Martin Greenwood, the wealthy owner of Greenwood Nanotech.  He’s widely considered to be one of the most powerful men in the world.”

The tall bandit fired the laser pistol at Martin Greenwood’s head and blood shot out at millions of viewers around the world.  “We are the International Anarchy Organization,” the gray haired man’s voice said, “and as of this moment, the world belongs to us.”

If you’ve never read Afterlife before or want to reread Volume 1:
Read Afterlife Volume 1 Chapter 1 here.

Click here to start with Volume 2:

Read Afterlife Volume 2 Chapter 1 here.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1tj2zJ2Wvg]

Afterlife will return on June 15 with Volume 2, Chapter 1.
Stay tuned.

For news on upcoming installments:
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Check out Afterlife on Goodreads and don’t forget to rate it.

Check out Michael Monroe’s page on Amazon to find other stuff he’s written.

Mike Monroe

Michael Monroe was born in Baltimore, MD and has lived there most of his life. He’s a poet and fiction writer whose preferred genres are Science Fiction and Fantasy, and he’s always had a thing for Allen Ginsberg and the Beats. His poetry has been published in Gargoyle Magazine, nthposition, the Lyric, Scribble, the Loch Raven Review, Foliate Oak, Primalzine, and various other publications.

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