Minako's Search, work in progress

[Airowynn]

The sun was blinding and if not for her polarized sunglasses the glare off the hot sands below would be unbearable. Minako, shifted slightly, causing her craft to gently change to a more north eastern course. She was an hour's fleight away from the outpost she jokingly called home.

Someone with a good sense of humor had founded the outpost and named it Paradise. It was one of those jokes that was funny for the first few times, but then became annoying. The name wasn't why people lived their, though. The government of Tokyo, the closest major city, had seen no worthy reason to have much to do with Paradise. There was no worthy tax base and it was just easier not having to deal with the locals. Aside from the gun battles ever so often between drug runners or other shady people, Paradise was at least welcoming on the surface. There were stores and markets, although if you didn't know how to bargan you would have better luck growing your own food in one of the several small community greenhouses. Most buildings seemed to be tacked together like collages of materials, their owners barely making enough to keep them from completely collapsing.

Minako's favorite spot, or at least the place she seemed to haunt the most, was the local eatery. It was open 24 hours and if she wasn't flying or sleeping your best bet to find her was there. Like Paradise, Lucky's Diner had seemed like a good name at first. After a year or two of hanging on by the skin of his teeth, Lucky had gone from a wide-eyed ambitious man with a dream to a rather gruesome looking grey figure who looked like he'd been rode hard and put away wet a few too many times. He seemed rather nice enough, always offering a gruff welcome to Minako before fishing for any news from her. The weekly fleights to and from Tokyo she'd taken on in order to deliver mail made ends meet, but it also made her the only source of juicy information about the place referred to as The Kingdom by the citizens of Paradise.

Minako roughly wiped the sweat from her brow. When she got back, she'd have to repair the AC on this thing. For the last few months, since she'd heard hints of a possible uprising by the group known only as The Rebels, she'd been hunting their leader. No one knew his real name, and he probably rather liked it that way. She did, though, know what he looked like or at least had a general idea. There'd been enough stories about them raiding outher outposts to gather supplies. She really had no patience for people like that. As far as she was concearned, anyone willing to kill others instead of finding a way to earn their supplies wasn't worth the air the breathed.

[Ljethan]

Doki closed his natural eye as the wind began to blow the sand around. He was hiding among the rough rocks along with a small pocket of his army. The rest of his men and officers was hiding across the plaines and dunes all over the desert, yet they had a fien network of communication going on thanks to the most primitive form of sending information; Pigeons. It was the most safest he could offer his men. Surely people with normal wit would wonder about what a bird like that did out in the desert, but he didn't care. Most people wouldn't think twice about it, just as they wouldn't think twice about the goverment taking away their freedom.

"I shall have me revenge and save those mindless sheeps." Doki said to himself in an unhead tone. He finished the small letter he was writnig, read it once more to make sure that it couldn't be misleading and placed it on a pigeon. Then he sent it to its desicnation: Paradise. A small shithole that bared the propaganda upon its wery name! It would be liberated soon enough, just like the other outposts. But he wasn't an evil man, oh no ne wasn't. He always tried to trade to the goods he wanted, and asked the young people if they wanted to join his caurse. If they wanted to make a better work. Too often he had been meet with gunfire, and too often he had had to react to it.

Admitted, the last attack that was lead by his officer Harazi Tamoshi on the outpost Evergreen and been too bloody for his taste. The officer had been punished proberly. Prehabs a little too much, but no harm was on the man in Doki's eyes. Tamoshi was now a low ranking officer, but Doki had been generous enough to replace the arm he crushed with a new one. He was a revelutionary after all, not a madman. Not a politican.

he turned arounf and looked at another officer, a young man with black hair, and ordered him to select ten of his best men for the job of finding new followers in Paradise. "Same procedure as before," Doki ordered, "They are to recrut for three days, then the army will go to the city and claim what it needs." His eyes followed the horizon toward where Paradise lied behinf the dunes. "I think I'll go with them this time and see for myself how they do the job." He let a mechanical had point toward the soldiers taht sat that the foot of a hill and ate. "You will be in charge of this part of the army while I'm gone. Don't dissapoint me..."
"I.. I won't" The young officer said as he felt cold sweat running down his back. He ahd been there when Tamoshi had been punished. A sight that still haunted the young man."

"Good. Dissmiss." Doki said as he turned his back to the officer and looked over the desert. "This will once more be a green and good world for people to live in, even if I have to force every last man and woman in this land with a gun for them to realize it!" He said to himself.

*****

Meanwhile the Pigeon was above Paradise and was serching for its place of origion. it soon found him, and old man in blue clothes that quckly got his hands on the bird as it landed and want inside his house.