This is not truly a fictional piece, but a predictive one. It is meant to steel you for the possibility of this unfolding as I have written. Get prepared and stay frosty.
Matt, I will ping you on the other thread where you commented to me, and also send you the work by other electronic vectors.
Where is the second chapter where the bus arrives in Las Vegas and you are given a big bag of chips and escorted into the Casino where you are greeted by beautiful women with Chanpagne?
From Adm. James Bond Stockdale, who knew something of possibilities that had to be steeled for:
This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be."
If you modify the story, since it’s early and nothing is chiseled in stone on the internet, I’d drop the AR-15, since he has to give it up anyway. I’d either make him take something liberally useless like a baseball bat, or “my father’s old shotgun.”