We Are

By Ruben Payan Jr

In the year 2026, entire countries fall into chaos as governments crumble due to a lack of natural resources. The streets of the major cities of the world are littered with corpses. Money has lost all value and the greed of mankind has robbed the planet of all its worth. Water, the liquid of life, is nowhere to be found...until it is.

Desperate to harness the wealth of pure water discovered in Japan, world powers deploy troops in a desperate race to monopolize it before the others.

Veteran U.S. Marine Gunnery Sergeant, J.D. "Gunny" Hunter, is called up from retirement at home with his wife and children and their farm, to be thrown into a global conflict against the Chinese and perils over the most precious of resources...

On the other side of the world, Captain Jianguo Li of the People's Liberation Army answers his country's call to war and finds himself on an island in Japan, locked in an all-out war with the United States and her alleys, far from his wife, children, and grandmother in China.

We Are is the story of two men from very different cultures discovering that all men want the same things, and maybe it is within their power to help each other while also helping themselves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 4, 2016
• ISBN: 9781683487272

Book preview

cover.jpg

We Are

Ruben Payan Jr

Copyright © 2016 Ruben Payan Jr.

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc. 2016

ISBN 978-1-68348-726-5 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68348-727-2 (Digital)

This book is by no means intended to offend or discredit my military service, or the brave contributions of others who have served in the military. The brotherhood I found in the Marine Corps has allowed me to look back at my service as one of the best times of my life. WE ARE is simply a story that appeared through me, and one I felt called to share.

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Dedication

Credits

The Gates of Hell

Washington D.C. The Death of a President

Hail to the Chief

Beijing

Sori Kotei

Combatants

Duìzhang (Captain) Jianguo Li

Kusatsu Onsen

Shinaki Dam

Li

Gunny Hunter

Hell

The Hole: Day One

J.D.

The Fight

Hiatus

The Hole: Day Two Pain

MORE PAIN JD

Common Ground

The Hole: Day Three

THE PHOTOGRAPHS

Body Heat

The Hole: Day Four

The Rescue

Going Home

Epilogue

FOLEY, ALABAMA, U.S.A., FALL 2056

SUZHOU, JIANGSU, PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

Contents

Dedication

WE ARE is dedicated to the future generations of the world. May you learn from our mistakes and build your civilization free of greed, hatred, and separation. Remember: love, peace, and humility are essential for the co-existence of nature and humanity.

Credits

I would like to share my appreciation to the following people for their contribution in bringing WE ARE to life. Without their presence, this story would have drifted into the ether.

"Success is never a result of one's own individual effort."

-Ruben Payan Jr.

David Woodby – Writer and editor

When I searched for someone to capture my voice and bring my story to life, you appeared. You are an inspiration to the world. Thank you for your service to humanity and your gift of words.

Joyce Valenzano – Editor and Twin Flame

The first time we met, we knew that this journey was going to be a wild one. Thank you for your love and powerful intentions. Our bond is unbreakable.

Angela Toda – Editor and friend

When I get lost in my sea of ideas you always seem to bring me back to the power of simplicity. Thank you for your guidance, honesty, and support.

David Stern – Editor and friend

I love this guy. A true friend that has inspired me to search deeper within myself, bringing to light the questions that I would normally avoid. Thank you for being real.

Nayeem Mohammed – Graphic designer

We have created a friendship that transcends cultures and beliefs. Thank you for your contributions and commitment to this vision.

Tom Li – Illustrator

Thank you for contributions in helping me bring WE ARE to life. Your gift of the arts is truly magical.

Camille Pipkin – Life partner, mentor and best friend

Your patience is unprecedented. You're always open to listening to my crazy ideas at 3 o'clock in the morning. Thank you for believing in this journey.

Arnie and Michelle Pipkin – Simply Amazing

Over the last decade we have shared many wonderful moments together. You have shown me the true power behind the word family. Thank you for allowing me to be part of yours.

Tommy Wang (Wang Yunfeng) – My voice in China

Thank you for standing by my side through all the triumphs and failures I've experienced in China. If there was a way to clone you, I would. Love you buddy.

Brandon Christian Payan – Son, friend, and mentor

Our father-son connection will never be severed. As my mentor, you have inspired me to go deeper within myself in search of the meaning of true happiness. Thank you for keeping my ego in check. I love you with all of my heart.

The Gates of Hell

The historians will say it started on Wednesday, the twenty-seventh of May in the year 2026…but that will be a lie. The twenty-seventh is the day the United States of America defaulted on the interest payments on long-standing loans. The loans, held by foreign investors, amounting to roughly one hundred and forty trillion dollars, were called immediately. Of course, the U.S. was unable to pay. The ensuing pandemonium saw mass suicides on every stock exchange in the world. Chaos reigned supreme. The international monetary system simply collapsed and disintegrated.

As bad as the world financial collapse was, the Gates of Hell were really opened on the twelfth of February 2013, when North Korea conducted its third nuclear bomb test at the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site in North Korea.

The island nation of Japan sits on or near the boundaries of four of the earth's tectonic plates: the North American, Pacific, Filipino, and Eurasian plates. The science is obscure, but in essence, a previously undetected fault line ran from near the test site in North Korea directly to the tectonic plate convergence deep in the Marianna Trench. The detonation of a miniaturized and enormously powerful nuclear device initiated unusual activity in the interaction of the tectonic plates resulting in a slow, but massive, upsurge in volcanic activity within the Ring of Fire in 2026.

The Pacific Ring of Fire is an arc around the Pacific Ocean Basin, where seventy-five percent of the world's volcanic eruptions occur. The disturbance in the Earth's crust caused aquifers around the world, already imperiled by human overuse, to simply dry up.

El Niño conditions typically lasted only a single year, but in 2023 the condition, exacerbated by hot dry air above a severely parched Earth, became permanent, disrupting weather patterns and caused even more extreme and unparalleled drought. Heat began to rise the world over, water became even scarcer, and crops began to fail.

Along with the hellacious drought came other weather related natural disasters. Monstrous tornadoes damaged cities and towns alike, destroying desperately needed crops, and ravaging infrastructure. Earthquakes and the resulting tsunamis obliterated coastal areas all around the world. Monstrous hurricanes developed, so large and powerful that an additional category, Category Six, had to be added to the technical lexicon. Few people were able to afford the electricity to monitor radio broadcasts.

By May twenty-seventh, 2026, conditions were so severe in the U.S. that martial law had been declared. Food, what little there was left, had been seized by the Federal government and everything was rationed. After the financial collapse, the government was barely functioning, and the rationing system began to break down as well. The number of deaths rose to unprecedented heights, and bodies littered the streets because no one had the energy to move them any more…and if they had somehow found the energy, there was no place to put them anyway.

With dead bodies scattered like discarded matchsticks in all the population centers, the flies came like a biblical pestilence, followed by the maggots, followed by disease. Cholera, typhus, and diphtheria spread unchecked. The dead began to stack up.

Fear and hatred became the watchwords among the citizens. The believers among them were afraid that God had deserted them...there was no way this could be the rapture, because they were all still here. The non-believers wondered if God was real and if he was, why he was so angry with them. The one commodity that had been the real difference between animal and man began to slip away. In a very real sense, the biggest casualty of this incredible series of events was faith.

The military still managed to function, but only because there were vast storehouses of MRE's (meals ready to eat) and even larger storehouses of precooked C-rations left over from Cold War days.

Conditions throughout the free world were no better. There had been constant episodes of mass suicide from all over, but news was sketchy and heavily censored. The bulk of international communications had been taken over by the governments, leaving the spread of news to the amateur HAM radio operators who continued broadcasting despite efforts to quiet them.

In every country, military units were seen racing through the streets, seeking out the amateur radio stations. A pirate video from Singapore showed a six-wheeled, pug nosed assault vehicle filled with armed police rolling down a broad street littered with the bodies of dead or dying citizens. The vehicle veered neither left nor