Things hadn't turned out quite as Dark had planned. It was meant to be simple. Wait, get to the train station, get off, get to the safe. Things were never that simple.

He'd been walking towards the train station when he'd seen the news on a TV through a shop window. Some kind of crazy military unti going nuts in the USA, working their way up towards Canada. They were being described as terrorists and worse, as Protagonists. It was just the kind of attention they didn't need. He didn't know how much was true, the news wasn't about facts, it was about propaganda and control so it said whatever served the government best, so in this case they were blood-thirsty killers out to destroy our way of life.

It was just the excuse they needed to inact whatever measures they wanted, something that Dark had learned very quickly. He'd been standing there, watching the TV when he suddenly noticed the street was nearly empty, LitPol roaming around. One had come up to him, tapped him hard on the shoulder.

"Oi! You're out after curfew, explain yourself!"

"Curfew? It's barely noon!" He exclaimed, but when he saw the loko on the LitPol's face, he knew he'd made a mistake.

"The one we enacted just now, because of those filthy terrorists, for people like you, for your protection." He growled, pushing Dark back.

Dark stumbled, his cap coming loose and falling to the floor, his hair spilling out over his shoulders. He didn't stay around to hear the mans reaction.

So now he was here, his leg broken, laying in a ditch. he'd ran like crazy, jumped a fence onto the railway lines and fell badly, twisting his ankle. Hobbled as he was, shots raining from behind him, he dived for a passing train and grabbed the door handle, pulling himself up. The train sped up, pulling him away but the pain in his ankle was too much, the effort to hold on to hard and he slipped, falling down an embankment, narrowly avoiding falling under the train.

He rolled over and over propelled by the momentum of the train until he landed in a ditch. There was a loud snap and he had passed out. Now he was awake, slowly coming to terms with what had happened.

He was in a field, somewhere between cities. He shook his head and sighed. At least there aren't any LitPols aroound here. He tried moving his leg and winced as pain shot right through him, gritting his teeth. Let's not try that again.

Instead, he pulled out his netbook. It seemed to have survived the train ride. He opened it up but there was hardly any signal in the area. He was not in the best of shape, he couldn't just call for help, not from anyone, he'd end up with a quick trip to the Tower or worse, the Furnace. He needed to get a message out there to another Protagonist, or at least someone friendly to the cause.

As signal randomly returned as the winds blew in the right direction he tapped a few keys and sent out a few web spiders. He had some programs distributed on a few botnets that scanned internet content for signs and clues, secret messages and the like. There was a way of doing things any of the techs in the cause used to hide information in plain sight, hopefully he'd find someone. Nobody talked directly over the 'net any more, too easy to monitor, to trace. Indirect message passing was the best they could do until you could meet in person. It was the only safe way.

As he began to lose consciousness again, the netbook beeped, having found it's first match. He quickly sent an info packet out, masked as a classic IM question - age/sex/location. The location was the important info. 16, male and his GPS coordinates. 16, for the 16th letter of the alphabet - P. Hopefully the person on the other end would get the clue and get help.

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Author guidance for This story

This Author's Guidance is updated continuously... please take the time to read it as there is VITAL information there. Who is who, who is where, that sort of thing.

********BEFORE POSTING*********
**READ THE PREVIOUS CHAPTERS**

This helps you get a feel for the story. I know there's a lot, but if you don't you're going to miss stuff and we will loose the flow of the story. Until now we've done a good job and there haven't been too many glaring errors and they've generally been fixed quickly.

The basic premise is similar, creative/artistic minds are the outcasts of society. They're shunned, even hunted by the rest. And we, a literary society known as the Protagonizers, have formed a resistance movement.

Come as you, come as your protag-self, and let's stick it to the man!

********SOME SUGGESTIONS********
---> Mark all the posts relevant to your particular storyline as you go along.
IE: Asheyna and Afroferret are travelling together, I've (Asheyna) marked all posts written by us so I can find them easily and refer to them when writing.
---> If you're going to write and include other characters in your chapter there's two great options:
* Leave the ending open, allow them to respond to what you've introduced
* Confer with them before committing them to a course of action
* Neither of these are necessary, just something to consider when writing as you may be unaware of an ongoing plot-line that is developing behind the scenes between other authors
---> Last but not least, aim for continuity, whether it's character personality or events in the story.

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The Story So Far (July 2)

Sly - on the move with Pvt Addams

*Unknown Hideout - New Safe?*
Darkliquid, Robyn, Kai, Gwen, Archi, Druidx
-Dru appears unable to speak... is she having a change of heart?

Raven - formerly Bluejay, met up with her father, heading to Eastern Canada to get new ID?

Asheyna and Afro - trapped by LitPol on a train
-Afro just revealed to be former agent, has be betrayed them?

*Bard's Hidout*
Brenden, Spockeh and crew
-the Bard has been helping Spockeh et al? can he be trusted? is he really the Bard?

*In a hospital*
Faltarego - unclear as to what's going on around him... no ID to tell the hospital staff who he is.

*RIP*
Bluejay's guard
Eloosive
"Bluejay"
Jack

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Further Guidance:
The Protagonists are a non-violent group. They stand for creativity and free expression. While they have no clear set "mission" they are attempting to remind people what it used to be like. Showing people beauty in art, literature and music.

After their main meeting place, The Safe, was compromised by Spockeh he was instructed to blow it up (taking a few LitPol with it). A new building is now needed for the Safe, as well as a method to alert other Protagonists as to it's location.

updated Jul 2 '09 by Asheyna