Tubmann ©

Our story takes place in a 21st century dystopian city, where slavery and forced labor have become commonplace. One family works to escape the death sentence that awaits them for turning against their communes tyrannical leader. With no where to turn, they find a savior to help guide them to the promise land, but can they make it out alive?!

TUBMANN
(The first 5000 words only)

   “My world used to be a world of abundance and prosperity. But greed and selfishness went unchecked, so when the world that we knew quickly evolved into a world of corporate growth, limited resources and anarchy, I tried to prepare my family for what was to come.

Many people tried to rely on the government...and were sorely let down.
Many people took resources from the weak. Those street wars raged on about a year.

Many groups formed gangs...and the corporations pitted the gangs against each other and let them wipe themselves out.

Many people paid for protection and the remaining gangs grew into militias. Many militias conscripted help. Slavery was reborn. Militias, now under corporate sponsorship became profitable and grew into armies, creating chaos on one hand and selling us the promise of peace on the other.

From this chaos was born a new military government on the eve of a Global pandemic.

This is the 18th year of the Global Pandemic known as Chr-7/Rhesus virus, in a city that was known as Sacramento, in a state barely clinging onto the name of California.

(From “The Journal of Matthew Joyner: Time before Tubmann.”)

~ SAVAGE CITY ~

   In and around a barely running Ford Explorer is where they lived. Parked in two spaces in the Orange quarter of the parking lot that surrounds the old WalMart and Home Depot on one side, and a Biker bar and Theater on the other side of a North Sacramento shopping mall. They moved to the Wal-Mart several years ago, renting two parking spaces for $10.00 a month. Matthew and Roxanne found what work where could with the skills they had, but some months were harder than others. The “administrators” of the lot were more tyrants than businessmen. Unfortunately, with very little space and too much time on their hands, Matthew and Roxanne’s sons often found their way into trouble. Minor issues became serious when Wal-Mart administrators held more sway than local Law enforcement. Besides, the local police salaries were supplemented by corporatesponsorship. Matthew and Roxanne Joyner knew that if I didn’t get their family out of Savage City, they would lose them, one by one.

   People spoke stories of promised lands...a safe zone in Idaho, a commune in Puerto Vallarta, an underground city in Seattle, a free man's land in Arizona...but with no way of traveling for long distances, and street gangs and Highwaymen making the roads impassable, The Joyner family felt as if they were doomed to a fate of indentured servitude, incarceration, squalor and death.

North Ogden, Utah. 

   Matthew had never heard of this place. All he'd ever heard about Utah was Salt Lake City, and Mormons. But all that changed when his youngest son, Ronald, was suspected of shoplifting. As far as the Wal-Mart admins were concerned, suspicion and guilt were the same thing. And the punishment for stealing from the Company Store was five years of servitude in the work camp, which was a death sentence for all but the strongest. Matthew kept his son Ronald hid in the back of the Biker bar while the Militias scoured the Orange Quarter for him. The Biker bar was no picnic either...if there was a violent center of their world, the old Hooters bar and grill was it. Motorcycle gangs gathered there, drank, fought and killed each other there. Not since the "Night of the Gunfights" where 17 bikers, 22 police and militiamen and over 40 civilians were killed in a bloody gun battle that lasted almost two days, there has been no law enforcement presence in the Bar or the connected theater-slash-whorehouse. The gangs ran that side of the shopping center, and whatever they did over there; the Militias turned a blind eye to it. But Matthew had heard through the grapevine that he needed to get over to the Biker bar right now.

   Matthew entered the bar, trying too hard to look cool and hard, but looking more like a fish out of water, and most of the locals gave Matthew the impression that they knew it too. One of the Biker Bar waitresses was a street hardened woman named "Donna". Donna was a friend of Matthew's wife's in a past life. Donna was hiding Ronald in a storage shed behind the bar, knowing the militias wouldn't go anywhere near the bar. Ronald was safe for now, but not forever. Donna introduced Matthew to the hard looking black woman sitting at the bar in a dirty black duster and a bandanna covering her thick mane of red dreadlocks. He pulled up a seat next to her and extended his hand to introduce himself.

"- that your boy?" the mysterious woman inquired. 

"...what?" Matthew asked nervously. 

"Your boy...” she stated “...the one hiding from the militias? You know they're all looking for him."

"...I don't know what you're talkin’ about." Matthew protested. 

   Matthew grew uncomfortable with the tone of this conversation and not knowing who this woman was, he had no choice but to play it cool while he attempted to read her and the situation.

"I'm not going to play word games with you, stranger. I'm getting up from the table and I’m leaving."

He was headed away from the table and out of the bar when she grabbed his arm.

"...Plenty of people here would sell him out, collect the reward and see his hand cut off..." she murmured.

"Watch your mouth. If you’re talking about snitching, then you're talkin about dying." And Matthew placed his right hand inside the front pocket of his hoodie and wrapped it around the butt of a small 38-caliber revolver he had stashed there.

"Snitchin' and bounty huntin' are two different things. A snitch rats out a partner to save his own ass, a bounty hunter is merely turning in a prize, like a lottery ticket. And there's plenty of assholes in here, wouldn't think twice about turnin’ his little shiny black ass in for a little bit of coin...Like that guy..." pointing at a huge hairy white biker with his chair leaned up against a wall towards the back of the club, trying to watch them without getting noticed "...or that skinhead motherfucker over there..." pointing to a wiry young bald man with an unbroken mural of tattoos that seemed to stretch from his wrists, under his black t-shirt all the way up to his chin line. The tattooed skinhead caught Matthew’s glance and he stopped in the middle of his conversation with another skinhead, and proceeded to eyeball Matthew back in a threatening manner.

"Where are you at?" the dreadlocked woman asked "...where is your home?" "Orange Quarter, spaces 47 and 48"

"I'll stop by tonight...be there."

   Matthew walked out of the biker bar and into the bright afternoon sunlight that cast an orange hue onto the tan buildings, just in time to see the supply caravan enter the mall. The Rainbow Train pulled into the mobile home park to a throng of residents and mixed reviews. For some, it might contain badly needed supplies. To others, it might hold mail, or news from other cities. for others, the Rainbow Train served as a reminder that,although we still referred to our country as the U.S.A., this acronym now stood for: "Uniformed Servitude Applied."

   The last vestiges of our constitution were shredded...and along with it...the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments. And slavery was now a common practice in America. Primarily used as punishment for crimes or repayment for debts, modern slavery has become such a big business that kidnappers often would conscript entire families. This human cargo was often hijacked while these pilgrims were traveling to another city. And there were stories about Wagon Trains supposedly taking settlers to new, clean “free zones”, but inevitably these Wagon Train leaders were in fact con men who would sell the entire wagon train full of settlers to roaming bands of slavers once they got the innocent victims far enough away from home and isolated in the middle of nowhere. This nasty business had been going on for decades with immigrants smuggled up from Mexico or in from China. But nowadays, no race, no sex, no age or color is free from the shackles and the lash. Slavery was now an equal opportunity destroyer.

   This month's Rainbow Train consisted of three flatbed trailers, hauled by twenty men and women strapped to the wagons, flanked and equally spaced on either side by six gunmen on horseback and a gunman riding "shotgun" on each trailer. These flatbed trailers were packed full of supplies used to replenish the shelves of the aging WalMart general store. In most instances, this parade was often the only time citizens ever saw their incarcerated loved ones.

"Why don't they use the horses to pull the wagons?" Matthew overheard a child ask his father.

"Do you know how hard it is to come by a good horse son?" The father replied.

   A choked scream was heard from a woman in the crowd when she and other onlookers realized that the wagon had twenty-four slaves. The additional four beasts of burden were suddenly recognized as previous residents of their mobile home park.

“...that’s the Marshall family...” someone murmured.

“...weren’t they headed to Mexico?” another person mentioned aloud.

“...musta got shanghai’d along the way...” a third person guessed aloud.

“...we own em now...” one of the horsemen replied “...bought and paid for by Bossman Muro himself...”

   Slavery had become the new start-up industry of the apocalypse.

   This was the fate that awaited Matthew's son.

   The Lord of the Lot...a nasty, morbidly overweight guy named Muro ran this side of the complex. He used to be a stock boy before the fall. Muro convinced some, and assassinated others. Within two years, Muro was the Lord and Master of the largest citizen dwelling in north Sacramento. Now, he runs the WalMart on the north side on the mall, The Home Depot at the south end, and all spaces in between. He had the market cornered on all supplies in the region...and had trade routes set up with other citizen dwellings and suppliers in northern California. And as the Lord of the Lot, Muro metered justice. If you stole from a neighbor, you did a year in servitude....his servitude. Once you entered the walls of the warehouse, anything could happen. You could be worked to death, pimped out or made to fight in grueling cage matches. But if you stole from Fat Muro you were going to be shackled and slaved for five years. Very few people survived five years of indentured servitude under Muro's whip. Five years was, for all practical purposes, a death sentence.

   Matthew headed toward his orange quarter family stall...but he could feel that he was being followed. A glance backward revealed that he was, in fact, being followed by several bikers. The bikers followed Matthew into the Mobile Home Park, not close enough to gain suspicion, but now Matthew knew that the followers were the fish out of water. Matthew weaved through the cars and trucks, signaling friends and allies along the way. Matthew led the bikers into a dead end alley of rusted buses...a killing box, where they now cornered him...or so they thought.

"You need something?" Matthew asked as he turned around slowly to face his followers.

"I hear they're lookin’ for your boy..." the biggest of the three bikers said "...I think you're gonna need my help."

"How you gonna help me?"

"Look, tell us where he is, and we won't have to fuck you up. Hell, we might even cut you in for a taste."

   The sun was falling and even in the darkness the sparkle off of the blades of long knives being drawn by the other two could be seen.

"We gotta problem here?"

   Several Orange Quarter residents, lead by a particularly burly neighbor named Shaun appeared behind the three bounty hunters, and this squad was armed with bats, knives and metal pipes.

"Do we have a problem here?" Shaun asked again.

The bounty hunting bikers, seeing the odds against them, now became conciliatory.

"No, we were just asking our new friend about an old friend..." the biker leader said 

"Matt, are you straight?" Shaun asked

"I don't know..." Matthew replied. He asked the bikers "...are we straight?"

The Bikers backed off "...we'll finish this convo later, my friend"

"No, I don't think so...we're done here...friend"

   The Bikers moved away, weaving themselves through the maze of cars and onlookers as the bodyguards followed them away from the orange quarter. Matthew took a moment and thanked his buddies as big Shaun walked him back to his car.

"...be careful, they're all looking for Ronald." "Who else is looking for my son?”

“...hell...who isn’t? Everyone’s tryin to collect that bounty. Militia, Bounty Hunters, Leo's...Fat Muro raised the bounty to five G's."

"What in the hell? No kid's worth five thousand dollars...what's he thinking?"

"He's thinking that with a bounty like that..." Shaun replied "...he is going to get Ronald killed...to punish you."

"I got no choice now...I gotta get out of here." Matthew replied.

"Yeah man, I think it's time for you and the fam need to take an extended vacation...now."

"Thanks homie."

   Big Shaun walked Matthew to his home. A dirty red Ford Explorer with a canopy extended off of one side. Matthew’s wife Roxanne was a short chubby woman with rosy cheeks and spiky blonde hair. She was preparing a meal over an open fire under the canopy while their oldest son Craig, stood guard over the campsite with a makeshift spear. Shaun briefly hugged Matthew then turned and hastily retreated back to his home. Shaun turned back and locked eyes with Matthew.

"Dude, trust no one." Shaun insisted.

"North Ogden, Utah? I never heard of this place." Matthew stated as he stood there puzzled.

"Well, that's where I can take you." the Dreadlocked woman replied "...there's fresh air, clean water and Law...well, more law than there is here." reasoned the woman.

"Bullshit! How come you're the first person to ever come from this paradise with promises of a land dripping with milk and honey?.." Matthew argued.

"KEEP YOUR voice...down..." the roughened woman hissed.

Matthew, his wife Roxanne and his oldest son Craig huddled around a meager campfire, listening intently to what the woman had to say.

"...first off, come or don't...it's your loss. And don't get it twisted...Ogden is not a cakewalk. You'll have to pull your share. If you don't produce...you don't eat. You got me? And the law of the land is a bit more...regulated there than it is here. The magistrate tolerates no bullshit. His name is Biggs, the local sheriff. And he's a real buster. But I’ve heard about you, you're a hardworking man, honest and minds his own business. Besides, this ain't about you anymore." The woman persisted.

"Then who is it about?" Matthew asked.

"That's my business. So what's it gonna be?" The woman insisted.

Matthew pondered her offer for a moment. "What’s it gonna cost me?"

The woman straightened up, looked around my meager belongings "fifty dollars...." 

"...are you fucking kidding me-" Matthew argued. 

" - per head." she affirmed.

"two hundred dollars? Where in the hell am I supposed to get that kinda coin?" He exclaimed. 

"Sell it...sell it all...but the guns and hand tools..." she said "...and bring sturdy shoes, because we're probably gonna end up walking most of the way."

"I dunno..." He said.

"Well you'd better decide by sundown tomorrow, or the offer is off the table and I’m a ghost." The Dreadlocked stranger stood up slowly and began to walk off "...think about your family."

"Hey..." Matthew asked "...what's your name?

She almost ignored the question, but spoke on her way past the fender of the beat up ford explorer

"Tubmann."

Roxanne leaned in and in a hushed tone whispered "Utah?"

   It didn't take Matthew long to sell the Explorer. The challenge was selling the SUV on the under without letting the Wal-Mart admins know, and they seemed to be everywhere. The stuff, the clothes and the televisions and the jewelry Matthew sold to the whores at the theater but he was still about forty dollars short. He had to part with his power tools but the hardest things to part with were the wedding rings. The Neo-Gypsies got those at a very low price. All they had left was the 38 caliber revolver with five shells and the shotgun with three shells. Matthew made the family hang around the SUV as not to raise suspicion and as the sun began to fall and clouds filled the sky from the east, one of the three bounty hunter bikers was spotted about fifty yards to the west. Matthew sent his oldest to tell Shaun to round up a few of the loyal locals while he kept an eye out for Tubmann...

...and that's when all hell broke loose.

   A fistfight in the Yellow Quarter turned into an outright brawl that grew and spilled into the Orange Quarter. Shots were fired and Matthew witnessed several well- armed Militiamen headed in his direction, with that fat Wal-Mart admin leading them my way. Matthew grabbed Roxanne and headed towards the back of the car but suddenly found himself face to face with the big biker bounty hunter and one of his buddies.

"No more fuckin’ around...” The main biker bounty hunter angrily spat “...now where's the boy?"

"We don't want any trouble..." Matthew said as he opened his coat slightly, showing the bounty hunters the pistol gripped shotgun strapped across his chest.

One of the bounty hunters grabbed Roxanne and held a knife to her throat.

"...tell us where he is..." the knife glistening in the fading light "...or I cut your bitch" and as he dug the knife into her neck, a trickle of blood appeared on the blade

"Either way..." the biker bounty hunter hissed "...we're gonna get the boy."

   Matthew looked to the west, but the Militia was now blocked by the riot in progress. Help was not coming.

Matthew pulled the shotgun out and leveled it at the bounty hunter. "He don't get that knife off my wife...I’m cutting you in half!"

   The bounty hunter casually pointed his left index finger over his own right shoulder, where Matthew and Craig spotted the third bounty hunter, standing on top of a van about sixty yards behind the hunter leader, leveling a large scoped hunting rifle at the group. He was not up there alone. A shadow moved extremely fast behind the sniper. There was some close quarter combat movement that the crowd on the ground could not discern...but in a quick moment, the sniper was down, and the skinny tattooed skinhead kid from the biker bar was now standing on the van, holding the sniper's rifle. The big bounty hunter turned to his wingman, and instantly heard a heavy metallic click directly behind his own head. A large hairy hand then grabbed the bounty hunter leader from behind and pushed him face-first into the ground. Standing over the face down bounty hunter was the big hairy biker from the biker bar the day before, holding a very large frame chrome revolver to the back of the grounded bounty hunter's head.

"You might want to let the lady go..." the Big hairy biker hissed "...or end up like your boys..."

"Fuck you!" the knife wielder shouted as he pressed the knife into Roxanne’s neck and twisted her arm until she cried, "I’ll kill this bitch!"

Shaun rounded the corner and clubbed the knife holder into the dirt with a baseball bat.

"What the hell is going on here?" Matthew asked the hairy biker with the large revolver.

"You ready to go?" he replied as he removed a pistol and a knife from the bounty hunter on the ground "Tubmann is waiting for us...and you don't want to keep her waiting."

"Go where?" Shaun said as he stopped rummaging through the dead bounty hunter’s pockets "...where are y'all goin’?"

"Shaun, we don't have time to explain, but I gotta get my family out of here, or we're all dead."

"Time to go...now!" the hairy biker said. “Grab your stuff.” "What do I do with these two?" Shaun asked.

The hairy biker paused for a moment "...hide the bodies and make it look like it was on account of the riots."

   With arms full of their possessions, the Joyner family weaved through the smoke and the fires and the fights, away from their home, and into the darkness. The group crouched as they ran through the field of overgrown weeds as the lights and sounds of the block war faded in the distance. They scrambled down one side of a trash clogged drainage ditch and up the other, through a hole in the fence and across a freeway choked with the rusted skeletons of cars and trucks. They crept low, moving from one derelict car to another, using the dim light of this overcast night for cover. They trudged through a field overgrown with elbow high weeds until they arrived at a darkened intersection. From out of the shadows stepped Tubmann.

"Sailor, how did it go?" Tubmann asked.

"A typical nine-eleven...in and out but..." Sailor replied.

"But what?" she sternly asked the hairy biker.

"But we had to put down a couple of local Whiskey-Tangos..." the hairy biker replied "...Speed will catch up at our spot."

"You got my money?" She directed to Matthew.

   Matthew handed Tubmann a wad of money, and fished out a bag of coins from his inside jacket pocket.

"It's short." Matthew stated before Tubmann had a chance to count it. "How short?"

"...about twenty short"

   Tubmann looked at Sailor...he nodded and she shoved the cash and coins into her inside jacket pocket.

"It'll have to do..." Tubmann said “...let's move."

"Where's my son!" Roxanne exclaimed as Matthew deliberately leveled his shotgun in Tubmann's direction.

"He's safe."

"Fuck safe...where is my son?" Matthew demanded.

"He's safe. We moved him out earlier today. He's waiting for us at the spot."

"You've got my son!?!"

"Yes...I have your son. Now...if you don't mind, let's get this family reunion on the road...shall we?"

Matthew grabbed his wife in one arm, grabbed the shotgun by the frame, and pushing his eldest son in front, they followed Tubmann east down a dark wide street, while the big leather clad biker named Sailor covered their retreat.

~ DOWN TOWN~

   The shopping plaza was always known as a dangerous place, even in Matthew’s youth. But since the fall, the skaters, punks, anarchists and drug addicts claimed this ground, and were as relentless as roaches and as overwhelming as locusts as they swarmed, swooped, parkoured and skated the entire concourse. Once a hub of commerce and community, these white stucco walls and clean glass storefronts had digressed into a dirty smelly hollow darkened beast that howled and groaned under the weight of a building whose darkness was as intimidating as being swallowed in the belly of a whale. They entered the mall from the north and went undetected as they approached the entrance. Throngs of half dead addicts gathered in small knots of two or three along the enclosed mall. "SuDo" was their drug of choice. A bathtub mixture of amphetamines and the boiled off resin from salvaged rubber and glue created a painless beast of an addiction that never slept, never got hungry, never felt pain and never knew fear. A SuDo addict was a person with no feelings and little to lose. They were the walking dead. Tubmann strode past them without hesitation or fear as they followed her into the dimly lit halls and walls of the open air plaza. Ahead in the dark distance, the group heard the sounds of scraping and grinding. The sound was distinctive. Matthew witnessed the stunt boarders. Acrobats who slid their armored skate decks across anything that was nailed down, leaving rooster tails of sparks from metal grinding metal at parabellum speeds. In the middle of the ballet of metal and noise was Ronald, Matthew’s youngest son, wearing a wide toothy grin while rolling through the skaters on an armored skateboard. It was the first time Ronald had smiled in a very long time. Tubmann stopped, keeping a safe distance from the sparks and the boards as the skateboarders sped past her. Matthew was about to call for his son, but Tubmann raised her hand, hushing him. They watched the teens skate and jump around the mall in the cool night air, their dirty bodies covered in a sheen of sweat and grease. The leader of the skaters rolled up to our group, kicking his board up from his foot and into his hand, throwing a few small sparks behind him.

"Sup Tubb..." the dirty skater spoke "...you got my shit?"

   Tubmann nodded to Sailor...and the large man reached into his crotch and retrieved a duct taped pound bag, tossing it to the skater. He bounced the bundle in his hand and tested its weight, smelled it and smiled.

"He's not a bad skater..." dirty skater said "...he can't fuck with any of my boys, but he's got a little game."

"You took good care of him..." Tubmann asked 

"Hell yeah we did. We even fed his skinny ass." The skater replied.

"Fed him what?" Tubmann asked suspiciously.

"You don't ask, and I won't lie..." The skater laughed.

   Tubmann got visibly angry at his response and dirty skater hopped on his board and rolled backwards...just out of her arm’s reach

"Hey..." the skater leader hollered to his boys "...time to bounce..."

   And the skaters disappeared into the darkness, leaving just the five of them...alone...and exposed. Sailor slowly put his back to the nearest wall and scanned the darkened distance as Tubmann backed his play and pulled a sawed off over and under shotgun concealed under her duster from the small of her back.

"Time to move..." Tubmann whispered, and the squad of refugees slowly clung to the shadows as they attempted to make their way out of the mall. The feeling of danger settled like a mist on their skin as they could barely hear the sounds of much scuttling about. Matthew checked his shotgun to make sure a round was chambered. Roxanne pulled the revolver from her waist. Craig raised his bat and Ronald pulled a knife from his boot. The moon peeked through the clouds just long enough to illuminate the silhouettes of over a dozen SuDo addicts, standing between them and the exit.

They didn’t say a word...

"Roxanne...get behind me...!" Matthew whispered as his family moved into defensive positions and they slowly began to back away from the battle in the direction they had arrived from. Meanwhile, Tubmann stepped forward. She slowly, methodically raised her shotgun pistol to the head of the dope fiend out front.

"You can't kill us all..." a voice mumbled from the darkness. 

"You'll never live to know." Tubmann whispered back. 

   The shotgun broke the silence and filled the two-story tunnel with smoke and sound that echoed through the whole area. The high-pitched whine filled Matthew’s ears and slowed the room into moments that hung like the gun smoke that took too long to shake. Matthew was the first into action as he leaned back to miss the spear of sharpened metal that was swung at his face. Roxanne pulled him back and the rugged rusty blade missed his face by centimeters. Matthew dropped to a knee and fired his shotgun towards the marble floor. The buckshot ricochet up from the cement and into the knees of three drugged attackers, sweeping their legs out from under them and placing them face down in their own blood. Meanwhile Craig swung the bat in fast wide arcs, keeping the druggies at bat's length as Matthew chambered another round. Through the gun smoke he watched as Tubmann performed a ballistic ballet. She fired the final shell from the sawed off shotgun into the crotch of one, then released the shotgun. Instead of the empty shotgun falling to the ground, it fell one foot and stayed there, suspended from a dirty shoestring tied from the shotgun handle to her wrist. Her left hand reached under her right armpit and retrieved a black automatic pistol. Tubmann drew the pistol and swept it across the area in a wide arc, shooting as the pistol moved from right to left...one, two, three shots...three men down. She grabbed it in a double fist, firing two more shots as two more went down, but it wasn't enough. The mob was on her. She backhanded one attacker across the chin with the pistol butt, kicked another in the groin. Craig moved in and clubbed another moving in on her and shoved the bat into the gut of another. Roxanne fired shots from her revolver, dropping two. Sailor knocked out three or four attackers with one punch each.

"C'mon..." Matthew shouted "...let's get the hell outta here!"

   And just as the group began to back up from the fight, the floor erupted in flames and light. A Molotov cocktail exploded in the middle of the mob of attacking addicts setting most of them aflame and running off the remainder of SuDos as Tubmann got back to her feet, and Sailor ran out of dope fiends to punch. The skinny tattooed baldhead kid appeared on the shopping mall floor above them, leaning out from a balcony.

He jumped.

   The kid used a planter halfway down the wall as a hand hold, and then jumped again onto the remnants of a mall kiosk and then back flipped onto the same floor as the six. He then approached from the far side of the fire.

"Speed..." Tubmann shouted "...Thank God for your skinny ass..." "C'mon Ma...the van is this way..."

"Move out..." Tubmann motioned us to follow Speed, down a broken escalator, and into the parking garage.

As Matthew ran past Tubmann she grabbed his arm, and with a stern look, exclaimed; "You try to run out on me again, and I’ll blow off the back of the head on your way out! From here on...we are a team...and don't you fuckin' EVER forget it!"