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JINJUP6RICHARDS

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  1. OPENING SCENE - Introduces the setting, tone, antagonistic forces, and highlights key themes. If Solomon absolutely had to jump out of a plane, 0100 hours was not the time he would have chosen for it. Actually, scratch that, never was the time he’d actually pick, but since the Westsylvania Zone militia liked to hand out wall-to-wall counseling like a candy dispenser drone on Halloween, Solomon had little choice in the matter. Taking a deep breath, he climbed out of the cattle truck with the other dozen drafted teenagers, and began to help unload the parachute gear onto the departure airfield. One of the plastic crates resisted his attempts to open it. He managed to pry the lid loose to count only three pairs of night-vision goggles nestled inside. Immediately he tossed one to Hyeon-Ju. His friend had weak nighttime vision, which made him a terrible candidate for combat jump training, but if optimum allocation of resources was the goal of any red zone militia, well, Solomon had yet to see it. Speaking of seeing things – or not – Solomon squinted into the moonless night, his eyes straining to make out the vague outline of the aircraft on the runway. It loomed like a shadow against the dark backdrop of rolling hills behind it, its shape revealed only by the dim, flickering lights at the edge of the airstrip. Imminent now was their ascent into the pitch-black sky. There, at twenty-thousand feet, Solomon would make his first high-altitude jump. Still gazing into the night, he turned his back to the cattle truck before stretching out his hands. He didn’t especially want anyone knowing his palms were already clammy. It wasn’t just because he was about to fling his body into basically the stratosphere, though, it was because of what a failed jump would mean. The memory of Adah’s tearful goodbye still haunted him, even a year and a half into his conscription. Promise you’ll come back! His shoulders tightened. Forcing his thoughts away from his younger sister, he reached for his harness container. The last thing he needed right now was to be punished for moving too slowly. But Wilson was already stomping across the dirt field. The lieutenant’s blue-green eyes jumped out at Solomon as the man held up his backlit AI tablet. “You can stare at the sky when you’re in it. Drop and give me twenty,” he barked, his voice cutting through the night air. Solomon wasn’t stupid enough to argue. He’d been trained sufficiently to know the only response was to hit the ground. Besides, with Wilson you didn’t get racial slurs, at least. Instead, as soon as Solomon got into position, he felt a weight begin crushing his fingers. It was a boot, Wilson’s boot, stepping with full force onto Solomon’s right hand as he pushed up and down against the hard-packed earth. Twenty push-ups was nothing. Even the pain shooting up his arm Solomon could ignore. But the tightness in his chest was making it hard to breathe. He closed his eyes, fighting his sense of powerlessness. Now was not the time to feel anything, anything at all. He had to focus on getting ready for his jump. In a few minutes he’d be seated inside that plane, masked with oxygen, and rising through the clouds. The cargo door would open, like a mouth waiting to swallow him. And he would have to leap through it. Into the night sky, into a belly full of stars and soldiers hurtling a hundred miles per hour with nothing between them and the vast expanse. *** Umma had been out getting groceries at Seoul Mart when Solomon called to tell her Dad still wasn’t home from work. “Don’t be afraid,” was the last thing she’d said to him, her voice distorted by a bad signal. “I’ll find him. If I’m not back by dinnertime, you and Adah make some kimchi fried rice. Be a good Oppa, okay, Solo?” Solomon was Adah’s older brother by four years. For seven months he’d tried to be a good Oppa by making sure she was eating, paying every bill, reassuring her they’d be okay. He hadn’t stopped calling Dad’s office downtown until after the HR lady snapped at him that his father’s absence was his problem, not theirs. “Quit harassing us. I can’t keep track of every disappeared employee.” And when he’d found Adah curled up under layers of blankets, her forehead hot to the touch, he’d made it his job to figure out how much seaweed to soak for the soup their mother used to boil for them whenever they got sick. Sure, the red zone insisted cooking was for women, but Adah was only thirteen, and she was the one throwing up. Solomon wasn’t going to let her go hungry no matter what he was told. “I have to figure out how to put the house in my name, but I don’t think I’m allowed to do that until I’m eighteen,” he said as he placed the tray on the two-drawer nightstand next to her bed. One bowl of miyeokguk with not enough cubed chicken breast in it, thanks to the militias getting the first cut of everything that made it through the zone borders. He glanced through Adah’s bedroom window at the cold, gray street outside. A bright red mail drone flew by, its rotors buzzing. “Careful, it’s hot.” Adah’s face fell. Her halfro was pulled up into a single puff. She reached out to tug it loose, which didn’t surprise Solomon as her hair easily got knotted around the band. But he didn’t think that was what was upsetting her. Her gaze, fixed on something far beyond the room, told him she was grappling with the implication of his words, his unspoken conclusion. “I haven’t given up on finding them,” Solomon said quickly even as his stomach sank. He wished he hadn’t brought up the house deed. It’d been a relentless weight on his mind, but even so, the last thing he wanted to do was stress Adah out, especially while she was recovering. “FaceSeek didn’t turn up anything, but I’ve been talking to someone online who defected from the Philadelphia zone two months ago. I asked him to meet me in person. I need some censor-free information and it’s been hard to find anyone willing to give it to me, but I think this guy will.” “You’ll take the yellow route?” Adah asked. She gave him a tiny smile that didn’t hide the tightness in her eyes. He nodded. “Don’t worry. I’ll be careful. And I’ll make sure you have enough miyeokguk before I head out. Anything happens, you call me, okay?” Two days later, on Sunday afternoon, when WhiteFunk1492 typed back, yeah, I can meet at the schenley oval tent, Solomon put his phone in his pocket and knocked on Adah’s bedroom door. Meeting WhiteFunk was what he'd been waiting for, but now that he was on the brink of it, he found his insides were churning. He didn’t tell Adah that, though. He didn’t tell her that there was a reason why school, church, and the grocery store were the only places he wanted to let them go these days. Instead, he took a deep breath and gave her a hug. “It's time.” Adah dragged herself down to watch him through the open door connecting the kitchen and the garage. Umma had sung the “Lord bless you and keep you” passage from Numbers as a blessing whenever they left the house for school, and Solomon heard Adah start to sing it as he got into the car. That was just like her. To think of him even when she was sick, to encourage him the best way she could. His shoulders relaxed a little as he directed the car to pull out of their driveway and onto the road. He still couldn’t help but look out every window, however, as his car drove up and down the hills, past cars half-parked on sidewalks per usual and lamp posts with pictures of militia veterans who had died. Neither could he help but think about the explanation his father had given him the very first time they got stopped at a checkpoint when he was only seven. “People have been calling it the Great Splintering because the nation split into patches of red and blue, scattered and for the most part disconnected. Some places, red militias rolled in from the fields and took over the cities. Other spots, cities held on and managed to spread that blue rule out to the country. Philly, right next door, they’re all under blue control, stretching across the east side of Pennsylvania. But not here. Pittsburgh, we fell into a red zone, and now those militias, they’re our law and our leaders.” It didn’t matter how many checkpoints Solomon had been stopped at since, he’d never not been nervous at a single one of them. Thankfully, Mappify’s yellow route didn’t let him down, and he arrived without encountering a single militiaman. It probably helped that it was one of those gray April days that felt like a leftover from winter. Nobody wanted to be outside when it was 38 degrees and half-hailing.
  2. THE ACT OF STORY STATEMENT Solomon Williams must survive his conscription into the Westsylvania red zone militia in order to keep providing for his sister. THE ANTAGONIST PLOTS THE POINT Samuel Wilson defected from the Philadelphia blue zone after a stint in a re-education camp that radicalized him rightward. After successfully escaping to Westsylvania, he joins their red zone militia and advances in the ranks: from drill sergeant to commissioned lieutenant. His primary goal in the midst of a newly Splintered America is revenge against the blue zone and everything it stands for. To that end, he is merciless in training new recruits, believing that force is the only way to instill in reluctant draftees the instincts of obedience. Nevertheless, Samuel's dedication extends far beyond mere discipline; he fiercely safeguards the well-being of his soldiers. When a mission he leads into the blue zone unravels, Samuel confronts a wrenching dilemma. Will he remain steadfast in his thirst for vengeance, or will his sense of responsibility towards Solomon, the lone survivor from his squad, guide his choices? Choosing the latter path, Samuel and Solomon find common ground within the harsh confines of a re-education camp, uniting to endure the brutal challenges they face. In this newfound alliance, Samuel begins to grasp that his embrace of the red zone as a reaction to the blue zone may not ultimately offer the salvation he seeks. CONJURING YOUR BREAKOUT TITLE Red Zone Soldier The Great Splintering DECIDING YOUR GENRE AND APPROACHING COMPARABLES Year of Impossible Goodbyes by Sook Nyul Choi to capture how ordinary teenagers survive larger political trends beyond their control. Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler to describe how a futuristic America might evolve both racially and politically. CORE WOUND AND THE PRIMARY CONFLICT A Blasian teenage Christian, condemned by the red zone for his race and the blue zone for his religion in a futuristic splintered United States, struggles to redefine what it means to be an American as he finds himself drafted into a militia, imprisoned in a re-education camp, and forced to ally with the very drill instructor who once tormented him. OTHER MATTERS OF CONFLICT: TWO MORE LEVELS Inner Conflict: Should Solomon abandon Officer Sam Wilson not? After escaping the re-education camp together with Sam, Solomon wakes up to find Sam has collapsed and can't keep going due to his deteriorated physical condition. Solomon is in turmoil: if Solomon gets caught and returned to the re-education camp, he'll never see his younger sister Adah again, whom he promised he would return to as long as he was alive. Furthermore, while he owes his survival in the camp to Sam, on the other hand, Sam brutalized him during boot camp when he was Solomon's drill instructor. Why should he give what protection he has to offer to Sam when he could give it to Adah, who has never hurt him, and needs it so much more? Secondary Conflict: Meanwhile, in the red zone, Adah is facing her own set of challenges: a couple attempting to seize her home in the name of the militia's reclamation policy. Forced into domestic labor to avert eviction, Adah resists as best she can, refusing to stay silent about their exploitation of her vulnerable situation. Despite being young and alone, she persists in speaking out, enduring the abuse follows. THE INCREDIBLE IMPORTANCE OF SETTING People are calling it the Great Splintering because the country broke up into puddles of blue and red all over, none of them tightly linked to each other. In some places cities got taken over by the red militias outside them. Other cities won and spread a blue rule to the rural areas nearby. Next door, the Philadelphia blue zone took over almost the whole eastern half of Pennsylvania, but Pittsburgh, Solomon's home, got eaten up into a red zone. This militia ruling Solomon's red zone renamed their territory Westsylvania and began to rule as a military junta: checkpoints everywhere, barely any due process, rigorous restrictions on speech. When the militias locked down inter-zone travel, they made it so you could only attend college in your local zone. That wasn't as bad for some of the blue zones further east, as they could mostly link up although New York became hard to travel through because of all the red upstate. Economically speaking, in the decades before the Great Splintering, businesses started aligning either blue or red and only selling to either liberal or conservative customers. You had Republican pillow companies and Democrat pillow companies. You had Republican light bulb manufacturers and Democrat light bulb manufacturers. Those are all still around and if you live in a red zone, you can work remotely for a corporation headquartered in another red zone even if you can’t ever travel there because there are too many blue zones in the way. When the zone borders got closed there were massive shortages of everything because distribution of goods got shut down too. Eventually different zones started making agreements to create corridors so inter-zone deliveries could be tolerated. However, a lot of the newer technology (augmented reality visors, bionic limbs, robotic nurses) that was available even just the decade before the Great Splintering suddenly stopped getting built when the Splintering happened. It's been a slow disintegration of technical advances since then, as continued development require a whole lot more resources and coordination than splintered zones can give. As the interim militia council started centralizing power, it required every resident of the Westsylvania zone to register for a faction, from the All-Whites, the Cultural Nationalists, to the Church Militant, and more. Then it began drafting from the various factions to fill its ranks. Unlike its blue zone neighbors, which started to require correct political participation, the Westsylvania zone disallowed any political activity. Re-education camps and hard labor prison sentences are the norm for dissidents in both zones.
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