Once, I had a chance to really feel what it was like to be One Free Man. Marshall Barker, administrator of City-13: He, among other administrators like Lenard Austin who ruled the short lifespan of City-15 and Barry Norwood of City-16 had absolutely no leadership skills whatsoever and were easily defeated by resistance teams. Yet whenever we had the chance to be free, we never prospered. Nobody ever bothered to prepare for war with "Benefactors" of those days. Everybody was relying on the thought of how they were finally free and blessed; yet nobody even considered the possibility of the, again, "Benefactors" coming to enslave us to be citizens... more appropriately, prisoners. Though we raided the Benefactor hideouts for weapons and machinery for resistance purposes, we succeed, then we fail and get transferred. This went on for many years. Yet on that fateful day when we were transferred by train to City-17 we realized it was time to step up. This Doctor Wallace Breen who had administrated City-14 and now City-17 along his new brainwashed puppets he calls his Benefactors, or from then on, the "Combine" saw the history of our cowardly acts of insecurity. They knew they could take advantage of us. This was going to take a lot more than a handgun and cursing.

--
I sit on the transit hop headed towards City-17. I had nothing but one suitcase containing only one change of citizen's mandatory uniform and one bottle of water. Hopefully the Metrocops won't find that suspicious. I look down at my feet. I want to pray but I sometimes wonder if there really is a God. A shadow approaches me. I look up to find a man who had short hair with thick rimmed glasses and a stylish goatee. He notices the nametag on my suitcase.

"Xavier Blackmoore, nice to meet you. My name is Gordon."

I reply with a sigh. "No matter how many times I get relocated, I just never get used to it."

The trains comes to a complete halt.