Shamar Dove, “The Rat System”

THE RAT SYSTEM

Shamar Dove

In 3596 . . . “EVERYONE STAND UP, SALUTE!” “WE HAVE MILITARY SOLDIER TYRONE ROBBINSON TODAY THAT IS RETIRING DUE TO HIS ARMS AND LEGS BEING AMPUTATED. Are there any last words that y’all wanna say to Tyrone?” The whole military base was silent until one soldier named Harold stomped his foot on the ground for everyone to hear. I knew Harold for a while now. He’s been my best friend ever since we were kids. He used to be an officer and now he’s a military soldier. The crazy thing that happens in society these days is that when something happens to someone, it happens the same way to a family member or best friend in two days. “YES I WOULD LIKE TO SAY SOMETHING SIR.” “Go ahead, you only have a moment.” Harold walks up to me and says the most interesting message ever said before, “See you in two days.” After he said that, I got escorted out of the military base and taken to the highest hospital on the planet, NYC healer cycle. Once I made it to the hospital they brought me to the nearest room. The room looked… AMAZING. It had medicine that could heal me and most importantly my arms and legs. The doctors took the stitches out of my arms and legs. “We need to give you this medicine immediately. It’s only going to hurt a little.” When they said it was going to hurt a little, it was the total opposite of what they told me. But I heard something. The room was silent for a minute. No one was moving at all. “This is going to hurt a lot,” I heard from one of the doctors in the room while the room was silent for a minute. It was like time just stopped. Then I thought to myself, Could I read minds

and stop time at the same time? Then it hit me… When they took out the stitches, everything stopped. Then I heard another voice that sounded like Harold’s. Although Harold was at the military base, he was still communicating with me somehow. “Tyrone.” “Harold is that you?” It was kinda creepy how he was talking to me through my mind but it was way scarier when there was no one to talk to when time stopped. “Yeah, bro it’s me. I’m here to tell you that the military base put something in your arm before you got your arms stitched closed, which is probably why time stopped completely.” “CAPTAIN HAS PUT A TIME STOPPING DEVICE INSIDE MY ARM?!” The excitement inside of me was rising but I still couldn’t move. “Wait, if time has stopped, how are you talking to me right now?” “Oh yeah about that… Captain told me not to tell nobody, but when we were sleeping a few weeks ago before you got your arms and legs amputated, he put a device in our ears that no one could see but us. The device in our ears are also immune to time stop so only we could talk to each other when time is stopped.” It was kinda upsetting knowing that Harold knew all of this the whole time and didn’t tell me before but it was kinda cool knowing what happened to me when I was unconscious. But why would the captain choose us for? “Why us bro?” “Remember the day before you got your arms and legs amputated?” “Yes? What about it?” “Well he gave us a trophy and told me the only way to unfreeze time is if you talk to me.”

“I’m talking to you right now. Why hasn’t time unfreezed yet?” “Oh yeah I wasn’t specific when I said that all you have to do is talk to me, I forgot to say five minutes.” “Are you serious?” “Yup, speaking of five minutes, we are on our last second. Well bye for now!” I saw everything start to move again including the doctors in the room. Everything… went back to normal! After a few hours went by I felt normal, so the doctor told me to go to the mirror to see my new arms and legs and they looked amazing. One arm had a gun and the other had a button that affects my eyes in a good way. The legs had a defense mechanism to protect me from anything. It looked cool and now that I can see where my next job is going to be, I decided to sleep in the hospital bed and the doctors let me, which is cool. Two days later . . . I have never slept like that before in my life. I wonder if it’s because of the new arms and legs that I just got. I look at the time, and it’s 4am. The doctors said that it was my time to go. So I walked out of the hospital and went to my new job. By the time I got to my job it was 7:45 AM and then time stopped again. But this time felt like the last time the doctors were in the room with me taking off the stitches. Then something popped up in front of me that said “call Harold.” I chose the yes option with my eyes by blinking, somehow my eyes were able to move. This new technology is crazy nowadays. “Yo, Harold.” “Tyrone?” “Yeah…” “Why is time stopped again? What’s going on?” “I lost both my arms and legs.” “WHAT?! WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME EARLIER!” “Bro, for the past two days I was trying to get in contact with

you and you didn’t answer.” “Oh damn, my fault bro. For the past two days, I was asleep.” “Wow, bro.” Why does this moment feel so familiar? It feels like this happened before but now I’m calling Harold this time. Then I saw something else that appeared in front of me unexpectedly. *Incoming call from Captain. Captain, a leader of the area 51 military base, very dangerous to visit.* I accepted it with my eyes, and the captain was just screaming. I don’t know why he was screaming because I think he was so used to doing that. Me and Harold still don’t know Captain’s name. We just call him Captain because he refused to tell us his name and he only wants us to call him Captain till everybody dies in millions of years. Then I heard the audio start breaking up due to the Captain screaming. I forgot that the technology is very sensitive when you yell. It affects tech a lot now it might even turn on you. Then Captain disconnected from the call and time unfroze once again. It was kinda weird and kinda obvious that was going to happen. Due to the Captain’s yelling that possibly causes a fatal error in the call or the system with no notification showing that it’s an error. After that I decided to go to my new job. The orb was huge, bigger than a skyscraper. Once I entered the weird military looking contraption I was greeted by a dude with sunglasses and a military techno outfit on. My eyes automatically read the description of the dude. “Wanderson Convoy, the leader of the rat system, very serious when it comes to protecting the rats from escaping that could destroy all of New York.” “Hello Tyrone, Welcome to The Rat System.” “Hello, Mr. Wanderson.” “Let me show you your new office, also known as the watch place.” So we went to my new office in the rat system. It was so cool and there is a regenerating pineapple on the table that I’ve

wanted ever since I was five years old. “This is your office.” “Wow this is so cool.” “I know right.” “What does this button do?” “STOP DON’T PRESS THE BUTTON YOU IDIOT!” “Why not?” “If you press this button . . . You’ll kill us all!” “Oh.” “There are a bunch of rats in this orb that are very deadly if all of them get out of the orb. I’m counting on you to not let anyone, including yourself, press this button at all. You’ll be on the lookout day and night due to you being half human and half robot.” “Okay I’ll do my best.” “Alright, don’t let me down.” The button looks satisfying but I’m going to stick to my word and not press the button at all. 1 week later . . . Two flying cars pulled up out of nowhere. I thought to myself, were they new to the rat system? I was confused when two people got out of the car. They walked inside of the building then got kicked out. My boss told me that Danny and Kimmie have been trying to press the button ever since last year. Two days later at midnight . . . I was watching the orb with my best friend Harold that joined a day ago, then Danny and Kimmie broke in and almost pressed the button. So me and Harold punched both of them, then Kimmie pulled out a taser, then got killed by Harold. It hurt to watch that happen. Then I got hit so hard I almost passed out, and my arm raised for some reason and shot and killed Danny due to him pulling out a gun then

running to get the gun after the fact that I knocked the gun out of his hand then he tried to shoot me. I looked at the dead body and the cops were called and I didn’t get no time for the murder. One year later . . . Me and Harold are now safe after that day, and we are not bothered ever again, and we are the most deadliest duo ever.

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