SEVERUSMAX
Benevolent Master
- Joined
- Apr 1, 2004
- Posts
- 28,995
Burbank, California, October 31, 2018:
Otto Paganini grabbed his Glock 9 mm., and poured himself a Scotch to steady his nerves, as he waited for those street thugs to locate his house. Not even gated communities like his were safe anymore, and with the collapse of all civil government, even at the city level, there were no police to patrol the streets and keep them safe.
That wasn't the worst part, however. No, one of Paganini's neighbors, who hated the Italian history professor for some unknown reason, had enough barter or hard money of some kind to hire these vicious criminals to terrorize and possibly even harm him. They had been following him around lately, making it dangerous to get back and forth from Fremont Academy, the private prep school where he taught.
Oddly enough, his own job was not in trouble. Even with the disintegration of social order, there were enough rich parents to pay for a nice prep education for their sons and daughters (Fremont was co-ed), that so far the Academy was still in business. He guessed that it was true that the rich man was never an endangered species....he would survive in some form and adapt to do so, no matter what.
Of course, none of those parents, adolescents (and young adults in some rare cases), or fellow teachers, nor even the headmaster knew about Paganini's past. He had gotten in four years ago, because the NSA owed him a few favors, from his days in Bosnia, fighting the Serbs in a secret proxy war for NATO. Paganini was an ex-mercenary, who had been on the payroll of the U.S. and its allies for some 16 years. At 40, he was still well preserved, if one didn't count all of his scar from various battle wounds.
Even now, with all of those flashbacks in his head, he was very alert and careful, and now he wondered if perhaps his neighbor with an axe to grind was a former combat foe of his....a Serb, perhaps. He didn't know much about "Brian ******t", except that he never looked like a Brian to Otto. There was a vaguely Slavic appearance to the man....what was he up to, anyway?
On a smaller, pettier level, Paganini's sex life had been grossly interrupted by all of this mess, since his affairs with two widows whose children attended, not to mention a fellow professor, would have put them in danger from this lunatic.
And none of them knew that he was also attracted to Nina Santos, the 18-year old former student who had been set to start college this fall, but was delayed by these events, since the college in question was a community one, which had closed when City Hall became vacant. She had visited now and then, though he didn't know how she felt about him. It was ethically a grey area and might cost him his job, but that didn't make him less interested in her.
He just hoped that she didn't show up at the moment, since her life would be in serious jeopardy.
Otto Paganini grabbed his Glock 9 mm., and poured himself a Scotch to steady his nerves, as he waited for those street thugs to locate his house. Not even gated communities like his were safe anymore, and with the collapse of all civil government, even at the city level, there were no police to patrol the streets and keep them safe.
That wasn't the worst part, however. No, one of Paganini's neighbors, who hated the Italian history professor for some unknown reason, had enough barter or hard money of some kind to hire these vicious criminals to terrorize and possibly even harm him. They had been following him around lately, making it dangerous to get back and forth from Fremont Academy, the private prep school where he taught.
Oddly enough, his own job was not in trouble. Even with the disintegration of social order, there were enough rich parents to pay for a nice prep education for their sons and daughters (Fremont was co-ed), that so far the Academy was still in business. He guessed that it was true that the rich man was never an endangered species....he would survive in some form and adapt to do so, no matter what.
Of course, none of those parents, adolescents (and young adults in some rare cases), or fellow teachers, nor even the headmaster knew about Paganini's past. He had gotten in four years ago, because the NSA owed him a few favors, from his days in Bosnia, fighting the Serbs in a secret proxy war for NATO. Paganini was an ex-mercenary, who had been on the payroll of the U.S. and its allies for some 16 years. At 40, he was still well preserved, if one didn't count all of his scar from various battle wounds.
Even now, with all of those flashbacks in his head, he was very alert and careful, and now he wondered if perhaps his neighbor with an axe to grind was a former combat foe of his....a Serb, perhaps. He didn't know much about "Brian ******t", except that he never looked like a Brian to Otto. There was a vaguely Slavic appearance to the man....what was he up to, anyway?
On a smaller, pettier level, Paganini's sex life had been grossly interrupted by all of this mess, since his affairs with two widows whose children attended, not to mention a fellow professor, would have put them in danger from this lunatic.
And none of them knew that he was also attracted to Nina Santos, the 18-year old former student who had been set to start college this fall, but was delayed by these events, since the college in question was a community one, which had closed when City Hall became vacant. She had visited now and then, though he didn't know how she felt about him. It was ethically a grey area and might cost him his job, but that didn't make him less interested in her.
He just hoped that she didn't show up at the moment, since her life would be in serious jeopardy.
