We were trying to escape. I had followed the plan. But instead, I had managed to screw the whole plan. How had I managed to get into this mess? It had been a good day up until now.
Ok, let’s step back here a lil bit. My name is Santino Rizzi, and I am from the greatest country in the world, Italy. I stand at about 5’ 8”, but don’t go around telling anyone. I have dark curly, stereotypical Italian hair. I am strong for a little man, and if there is anything that history will remember about Santino Rizzi, it’s that he had his pride. I don’t take kindly to other men insulting me, and that will probably bring about my end, considering what has happened to America.
You see, the Americans were bragging and flaunting their freedom about to and fro, and well, as I understand it, the Russians got angry. Russians don’t like to be reminded of all of the losses that they have suffered at the hands of the United States. So they came up with a plan. The Russians slowly tore down the walls of the borders, soaked the treasury dry, and they sent all of the ex-cons and the poor, fat, insolent people into that all powerful beacon of hope that everyone despised. So they crumbled. The Russians were happy. They had discreetly managed to bring down one of their greatest enemies. The greatest economy ever to exist on the face of the Earth had fallen. The European and African countries suffered. As America went down, it skyrocketed the oil prices. This made all of the motor pools and the airports shut down, because the countries who were rich enough to have cars and airplanes couldn’t afford the fuel. The whole world was in a shambles, and I am the only hope of overthrowing the regime in hopes of reestablishing Uncle Sam. A short Italian. It could be worse. It could be raining.
Apparently all that technology has to offer in the “future” are enhanced super-Russians and rich people, who are stronger, faster, and have better reflexes than anything nature could produce. That is, except me.
I happen to be, shall we say, an anomaly. Something about the circumstances of my birth have granted me certain leniencies with the laws of natural human athletic ability. I’ve heard people say I’m built like a truck. My left arm is about as big as your thigh, ok? I could have arm wrestled with Superman. So I happen to be the only one on the planet who can razzle dazzle with these enhanced Russian buffoons. That’s why I’m being shipped out. I am that great nation’s savior, if all goes well.
Ah! I cried out as one of those nasty lead demons caught me in the shoulder. I must be slowin’ down, I thought as I turned and emptied my submachine gun into the robot of doom. He buzzed and did that sluggish movement thing they do right before they explode. Boom! The explosion rocketed me back into the boat. Already inside with the bullet-removal kit, was Rebecca Durant.
Rebecca Durant was taller than me by about three inches, and there was no mystery to why this was, as she wasn’t Italian. Her ethnicity is a hard one to pinpoint. She is tall with brown hair. But the thing that always got me was the eyes. She has dark soulless eyes, like a shark. I have often wondered how she found me, but it is a trivial matter now. She was extraordinary, and I’m glad she’s on my side.
I sat there with a bullet in my shoulder, as she started the boat. It was a little cigarette boat that had way more power than you would expect. It had been specially made so that it ran without electricity, so they’re unable to sabotage it without getting their hands dirty. They were trying to stop us from leaving the harbor, so they put up an EMP shield around the bay. To stop the electricity from getting through. Not a problem. We watched as the Russians fumed in anger as we sped away in our mechanical boat. We were now on our way to America.
My bullet wound had started to fester as we sped across the waves of the Atlantic. After the Russians took control, they decided that they would turn the entire Atlantic into a garbage dump, as it never touches “The Motherland”. It was a mess. This is what was running through my mind when Rebecca walked over and touched my bullet hole.
“Ahh!” I screamed.
“Don’t be a baby,” she said, sounding very annoyed, “It’s not going to get better until we get that bullet out.”
“I’m done with you,” I said as she tried to wedge a pair of tweezers down into my shoulder.
“Don’t be a baby.”
That was the last thing I heard before the pain knocked me out.

I woke up to the sound of gunfire, which, sadly, isn’t the first time this has happened. I looked up over the side of the boat, and saw something that would have been a beautiful sight, if it hadn’t been totally destroyed.
New York City used to be the trademark of the land of opportunity, but the Russians have no respect for glorious architecture. They were savages. If this city was a pizza, it would be a soggy delivery from across town. All of the skyscrapers had big holes in the windows, broken glass littered the streets, and the Statue of Liberty was covered in red spray paint. I don’t even want to know how they got it up there. There was smoke coming from various parts of the city, as if one barrel wasn’t enough to contain the flames.
Rebecca kicked me in the stomach.
“Ow! Why did you do that?”
“Because we’re here.”
“Yeah, I know that! I was just looking at the city.”
“I just wanted to kick you.”
“Where did those bullets come from?”
“How should I know? I don’t think the Gitmos know we’re here yet.”
Gitmos was the name that we had assigned the Russian super soldiers. I remember in the old world, this stood for a prison where the U.S. kept terrorists. Go figure.
As we approached the harbor, I started to reassemble my weapon. To bypass the weapon filter that lies in America for everyone who isn’t a Russian, we had reengineered a Tommy gun. These things were mad powerful. They were small, light, and can be put together at a moment’s notice. I keep mine in perfect condition. Rebecca had brought a flamethrower. That’s classy, right? After my weapon assembly was complete, we docked our little cigarette boat on the shore. From there, we made our way to the old U.N. building.
The Russian leaders had decided to make the United Nations building their headquarters. The audacity of those ingrates! We were sent to “deal” with them. As we walked down the suspiciously quiet street, we realized that we were not alone. They were all around us. The fallout from the Russians had been hard, but no city had been hit with more force than New York. These people once symbolized what it meant to be free, they were proud to just exist, and didn’t care what anyone else said. They were strong. Now it really was true, I realized as we walked down that black asphalt; if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.
If New York was a labyrinth, and the U.N. building was the way out, then the Gitmos must be the Minotaur. I never really described what they looked like, did I? The Gitmos were about six foot six inches, and had the ugliest face that I have ever seen. If you have ever seen anyone with robotic enhancements that look good, you let me know. Their chests were these steel strips that look like what you would roof a house with. Their feet are big and oily, like they work in a monkey machine shop. Different Gitmos have different weaponry attached to each of their scrawny robot arms. Some have the advanced stuff, like a machine gun or a rocket launcher, and the poor Gitmos have workshop materials, like wrenches, chainsaws, hooks. You name it.
We were stickin’ to the shadows, trying to remain unseen. We had left a fake radio transmission that said we were fleeing to Cuba, as it would be safer. The Russian leaders are oblivious what was about to hit them. We were trying to maintain silence, when I heard Rebecca say a word in a French I had never heard before. She rushed me into the door of a building. Before I could ask what was going on, I saw it.
Standing about sixteen feet tall, and looking fierce, was the largest Gitmo I had ever seen. Most of them have their original face, but this one had two dark red eyes that could disintegrate you from one hundred feet. It had giant arms that would have looked alright except he was carrying these giant missiles. I had never seen anything like it. They had to be huge, but they looked like darts in his enormous hands. We waited until he had passed us by, Rebecca let out a rush of relief.
“Whoo, that was close.”
“What was that thing?”
“Remember how the president of the United States used to carry the suitcase with the codes to launch the nuclear warheads?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do you remember what the codename was for that little black suitcase?”
“I think it was the Nuclear Football, something like that.”
“Well, that was the Nuclear Quarterback.”

We continued on our way to the U.N. building, watching carefully for the Nuclear QB. The Gitmos were surprisingly few and far between. The last one we had seen had been a piece of work, let me tell ya.
He was this crazy poor Gitmo. When they turn in their freedom for the suit of solitude, the amount of money that they make influences the build of the suit. This guy got stuck with a wrench on one arm and a shovel on the other. The poor guy was like an extra on the show Star Trek that never speaks and gets killed off in a two-part episode. You had to feel sorry for the guy. We were walking along, trying to stay below the radar, when this poor little pathetic Gitmo emerges from the shadows. He clearly had nothing better to do than to harass a few poor, innocent immigrants, with guns. He tries to stop us. He made a very slow charge, buzzing and flashing like he could burst at any second. We didn’t want to waste any slugs on this little basket case, so I carefully set my gun down, got up real slow, and then pounced at him. He looked really surprised. He tried to hit me with his shovel, but I grabbed his arm and pulled until it popped right out of his metal suit. He let out a shriek of terror. I took this arm that had to be at least ten pounds, and started to slam his face in with it. Over and over again I heard the sound of metal scraping on metal, the clang of the shovel, and suddenly, the crack of bone. I had made a mistake. He sputtered and looked up at me. Then I threw him about thirty feet. He hit the ground hard, so hard that he exploded. Rebecca shot into me like a bullet and I knew we were going down. I hit the pavement and made a little crater in the street.
“They know we’re here now,” Rebecca stated in the silence.
“Uh-huh,” I said, knowing it was all my fault.
It took me a little while to get up. Don’t laugh, you haven’t ever been stuck in a crater that was made to fit your body. When I was up again, Rebecca threw me my gun, and we made our way to the HQ.
The U.N. building had been totally redone. All the flags that were flown were the Russian flag, and on the glass was a big picture of their fearless leader, Nikolai Vlasderkof.
Nikolai Vlasderkof had taken over Russia by winning a bet. He supposedly challenged the former leader to a wrestling competition, with a bear. Vlasderkof went first. He wrestled that bear to the ground. After that, he reinstituted communism and decided to destroy America.
He was tall, around six foot eight inches, with a crew cut on his thick black hair. There were rumors that when he was in the Soviet army, he had carried a machine gun that tended to be mounted on a Humvee. The one thing that spooked me were his eyes. He had dark, soulless eyes. Eyes like a shark’s. Eyes that would have made you pee your pants if forced to look directly into them. He was dangerous, and someone had hired us to murder him.
We walked into the lobby, and immediately we started shooting. We gunned down the entire room. All of these people were waiting to see Vlasderkof. That appointment would have to wait. After all of them were lying on the ground, I walked toward the elevator.
“What are you doing?” Rebecca called after me.
“What? You got a problem with elevators?” I retorted.
“Think for a second. What is going to happen the minute we step into that elevator?”
I thought about it. Ah!
“I see your point.” I said.
“Hit the stairs.”
We started walking up the long stairs. His office was at the top, so we had to walk up thirty-nine flights of stairs. After all that had happened, this was, incidentally, the worst part.
Back down on the lobby floor, a man who had at least four bullets in his back, put his phone back down. The QB was on his way.
We were on the thirty-eighth floor, and I was tired. Rebecca was fine, but she didn’t have a super strength nature frame to move up forty flights of stairs! I was just about recovered when I heard the most gut-wrenching noise I had ever heard. It sounded like… steel being wrenched from a building. I suddenly realized what had happened, when a monster paw of metal and electricity came in and tore steel and drywall out of the building, with us along with it.
The Nuclear Quarterback had climbed the building to the top, and plucked us out. It looked like one of those King Kong movies, where the gorilla swings back and forth, knocking down the planes. I was slowly being squeezed to death, and Rebecca had already passed out. I used all my strength and bust out of the giant metal paw. I was now freefalling with giant pieces of metal debris in the air next to me. I grabbed hold of the giant middle finger of the robot and spun around and threw it at his face, to show him how I really feel. It hit the Gitmo square in the face, and stabbed through his metal exterior into the processing unit. He shut down. Which meant that the Gitmo was no longer holding onto the building. He began to fall.
My only priority right now was to save Rebecca. She dropped like a rock after the robot had been put out of commission. Then I saw the missiles he had been carrying earlier. They were falling. I had two choices, save my partner, or save the shell of a once great city. I had been tested before, and I would survive a nuclear explosion. Something about my molecules readjusting to the increased radiation faster than normal people. I could shield Rebecca, saving her and destroying New York. I had already made my decision. I launched off the building toward the missiles.
The missiles were heavy. I was in a position that would have killed a normal man. I was sitting under two gigantic nuclear warheads that were falling a truck. Then I saw Rebecca recover; ten feet below me.
I screamed at her, “Grab hold!” as I reached out with one of the missiles in my hands. The weight of the missiles wouldn’t take effect until we hit the ground, so this was legit.
“Ok!” she yelled, the wind tearing the words into something barely audible.
She grabbed hold of the missile, and I could see the ground start to come closer, and I had to pull up the missile.
“Yah!” I shrieked at the effort of lifting a nuclear warhead with one arm.
She had started to climb the missile. If there had been more time, she would have made it. But there wasn’t enough. I smashed into the ground, holding the missiles above my head. The crater was deep. I slipped out of reality.
For the second time today, I woke up with the feeling that my arms would be better if they had been sawed off. It hurt too much to move. I was laying on my back, staring up at the sky. I had never noticed that the sky was black and the sun was a fluorescent white. Before I knew what was going on, I was being dragged away. They had about six guys with ropes wrapped around me to obtain the movement.
“Ugh…” I groaned.
“He’s awake!” I heard someone shout.
I felt a needle pierce my skin, and I fell back to sleep.
This time I was in a chair crafted from stone and steel. There was an aching pain in my forehead and a man standing in front of me. He looked familiar.
“Hello,” the strange man said, “I was wondering if you were ever going to wake up.”
I struggled against my restraints, “WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME!” I screamed, sticking my head toward the man, “Let me out!”
“You see, that is not in my best interest. As I am Nikolai Vlasderkof.”
“What?” I gasped.
“I am glad you saved that girl. She was one of my best agents.”
“Rebecca?” I inquired.
“Yes. Saving the city was also very productive. My plan wouldn’t have worked without you.”
“You were trying to knock me off,” I fumed.
“Right on. And now I have succeeded,” he said as he pulled out an old Soviet pistol.
I struggled as he aimed the old thing right between my eyes.
“Goodbye, Santino.”
He pulled the trigger.