This is an interesting thread conception as long as it stays friendly.
JustABill:
There was a time when he was a great man. A leader, a pioneer, a visionary. But that time is long past.
William P. Cumberbach was born into an honest, working class family in Chicago, his father a factor foreman, his mother a schoolteacher. The young Cumberbach displayed great brilliance and thoughtfullness from an early age, reading every book he could get his hands on and writing essays on literature and politics and several pieces of short fiction before he was 14. At 17, he dropped out of school and, using money he had saved for the past two years working various jobs, set off into the world, hitchhiking through America and other countries and making his way as a traveling journalist. He interviewed people present at major turning points in America's history, reported on the horros of the drug wars in Mexico, and exposed corporate ties to murder and organized crime. He traveled across the seven continents and experienced all of the wonders and horros it had to offer.
Upon returning to Chicago, he starting his own news agency, the internet based WPC Publications, with a dedication to honest, ethical journalism and a patronage of arts and entertainment. It was during the early years of WPC Publications that he met Mary Sheldon, a comedy writer and actor for one of the company's entertainment programs, "Rainbows and Gasoline," who would later become his wife.
WPC Publications became a media powerhouse, and Cumberbach became well known for his strong political activism and philanthropy, starting up funds for alternative education and inner city crime prevention. He also served as an advisor for several Federal foreign affairs initiatives, including the Congo Peace talks in Brussels.
Fifteen years after starting his company, he retired as CEO to announce his candidacy for President of the United States. It was a close election, his opponent having a great deal of political experience on his side, but he ultimately won the race.
His first term did not run smoothly. While his education reforms were considered by most to be successful, his law enforcement and military reforms met with a great deal of opposision, as did his attempt to re-appropriate military funding for the infrastructrure. Still, he was popular enough to win a second term.
However, Catastrophe struck near the end of the first year of his second term. North Korea made agressive military advances on it's Southern neighbor, leading to all out war between the two countries. America, in acordance with it's treater with South Korea, lent financial and military support to it's ally. But North Korea considered this to be an act of war in it's own right, and declared war on America aswell. The second Korean War had begun. Analysts and strategists thought victory over the North was ensured, but unbeknownst to them North Korea had made several secret alliances with Iran, Syria, Palestine, and Lybia, as well as variuous anti-American terrorist organizations throughout the middle east, and Ameirca found itself facing an enormous military coolition. The United Kingdom, Japan, France, Israel, and Russia sided with the US and South Korea. The Second Korean war had suddenly turned into the third World War.
The war raged on for two and a half years. South Korea fell within the first four months, and Israel was wiped off of the map by the first year's end. The over all struggle seemed to be a stalemate, until an attack carried out by Al-Quaeda agents and North Korean spies crippled the allied resolve. Several nuclear bombs, funded by the North Koreans and constructed by their scientists working with Al-Quaeda, were smuggled into the united states and detonated in twelve major cities and thirteen culturally significant rural and suburban communities. This segwayed into the Korean invasion of the West Coast and the Iranian invasion of the East.
When the attack was carried out, President Cumberbach and his family were immediately rushed to Air Force One to escape to a bunker in the midwest. However, the plane was shot down by an Iranian fighter over Pensylvania and the President was forced to eject in a parachute, sustaining head injuries and losing consciousness when he landed. He awoke in a forrest, some distance from the crash site, where Iranian forces were already searching the area and arresting survivors. He managed to escape, finding refuge in an Amish village where the locals hid him from the Iranians. After the coast was clear, he left as to not put them in any more danger.
The United States has fallen. The East coast from Boston down to DC is under Iranian military occupation, most of California is under Korean rule, and the rest of the countrie has decendedinto chaos, regions forming their own nation states to fight over scarce resources and defend "their people" from the invaders. William P. Cumberbach is officially presumed dead by the Koreans and Iranians, and they speak of him as such in offical statements, but in reality they are constantly searching for him. Amung Americans who still think he's alive, he has become something of a folk hero.
As for the man himself, he has nothing left say for a backpack, a shotgun, and an unkempt beard. He travels the Highways of what was once America, searching for his wife in hopes that she might still be alive, searching for allies who might shelter him, and searching for a way to save his country. Not as The President, but as a man who can't in good conscience allow this tyrany and curelty to stand. He's left his name behind him, as it is a target, and the only things he carries from his old life are his ideals and his hope.
There was a time when he was a great man. A leader, a pioneer, a visionary. But that time is long past.
Now, he is just Bill.
Good thread!
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