World War Four

5

I couldn't believe it. All I do is go to Paris to investigate some plane crash and what do I find? PLANS TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD. This is my domain and I promised to crush anyone who tried disturbing my spot on top.

And some fellow is. He has plans, and good plans at that, to acquire the world as his own. Okay, you may be wondering how this happened and how I came to find out about this idiot. Let me start from after I got off of the plane in Paris.

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As I walk out of the airport, all I see is rubble and destruction. The only people are news reporters and victims of the recent crash. The plane had crashed in an almost clear area in Paris and had caused quite the ruckus. That is if you count just a newspaper article a big deal. People were so used to this by now that the extent of the news anybody got from any attack was mostly just a heading. However, it had been a while since a huge re-occurrence of any war. This attack was the first step of a new chain of attacks and it was a little unnerving to know that not much was being done about it.

I really need to put an end to this before it gets too out of hand.

As I am walking around I talk to different people in order to get different opinions and more information regarding the crash. It is at this moment when I spot a shining gold thing a few hundred yards away. I contemplate just leaving it there, for it could just be some piece of the plane, but curiosity gets a hold of me and I saunter off to the glimmering patch. When I look down, the sight before my eyes makes me want to kick myself.

It's a briefcase

A briefcase? What in the name of Pliny the Elder would I do with a briefcase? However, I have no idea what drove me to pick it up and take it with me. It was as if some soul had taken control of my body and mind for a little period of time and had urged me to bend over, grab the suede handle, stand back up, and walk away.

But I feel that everything happens for a reason and that only destiny, or fate, lead me to this run down, brown, gold lined piece of baggage.

I talked to one of the news reporters, assuming she was residing somewhere during their stay in Paris, and she gave me the directions to a hotel near by. Once I checked into a room and made sure that all of the blinds were closed and the "do not disturb sign" was out, I make an effort to open the five locks on the briefcase. I think that may have been one of the reasons for me taking it. If it wasn't important, then why would someone go to such a length to have, let alone remember, five different combinations?

I comprise a list of different ways to open the locks. They are normal hinged locks you see on normal briefcases. There is a combination on one side and a piece of metal attached to the other side that is locked in the combination port. 1) Sit and figure out every possible combination. 2) Melt the locks. 3) I can cut them off.

I didn't have the time to find 5 of the 10,000 feasible solutions. If I melted the locks off, there was no way to make it seem normal again and I would be wasting a perfectly fine piece of luggage. So... I decided to cut the locks.

I needed a tool that was strong and sharp enough to cut the metal at the base of the lock where it attached to the combination port. I did not have a chainsaw at my disposal, but I did own a Dremel saw thingy.

Don't ask how I have a little electric saw. It can come in handy a lot sometimes, especially when you are fashioning a weapon out of wood to kill your arch nemesis. Yes, I am kidding. Not about the Dremel, the killing. Fashioning weapons out of wood is actually really fun and a great way to get stuff off of your mind. It's like you are carving away all of the layers of your pain and misery until you create something useful to battle the inner demons.

I was skeptical at first thinking that it may not work. The packaging did say that it, and I quote, the Dremel saw is "Powerful enough to cut through virtually any material and simple enough to be able to control with one hand. Its compact size and ergonomic design make it easy to handle and easy to store. In addition, the blades change out quickly and easily. The 6-amp motor on this Dremel saw is strong enough to cut plastic, metal, wood, laminates and tile. The design gives you an impressive line of sight, so you can use it with confidence. This tool is suitable for woodworking, craft projects and home improvement jobs."

I don't know if cutting off the locks of a briefcase would count as a craft project, but it's definitely metal. Therefore, it should work.

Immediate success. Sure the saw didn't cut through as smoothly as a knife in a pad of room temperature butter, but it got the job done. There ended up being a lot of sharp metal shaving everywhere which proved to be a real hassle to clean up, not to mention dangerous. I was glad that the leather did not acquire any scratched or damage at all. I would have to remember to give in a good review to Dremel once I cleared the whole "Taking over the world" thing.

The case popped open and I was rewarded with my worst nightmare.

Someone else was trying to take over the world as well and this highly secured box had detailed summaries of everything he intended to do. At least I  assumed the culprit was a male due to the fact that the outside of the box had the name Xavier Thompson engraved in it as well as a phone number. There were papers upon papers of maps, ideas, newspaper clippings, and information on every single attack that had occurred in the past decade. I lost myself to reading every thing and imagining what the owner of all of this information was like. He was probably a weirdo with hygiene issues and a lack of common sense. Maybe he had also lost family to an attack and wanted to stop all of this nonsense like me. Perhaps he was just pure evil and greedy and wanted the whole world to himself. But I was getting too ahead of myself. I fist had to meet him. I had no evidence telling me what he was like. He could end up being a good person, however unlikely it may be.

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So what ended up happening was that I called the number on the box and, as I predicted, a man answered. He was a complete and utter imbecile. So rude spouting off in five different languages making it seem like a competition. I was going to Harvard and was majoring in human studies, obviously I needed to know various languages. I had learned Hindi, Spanish, Arabic , Chinese and obviously English. However, I was able to gain something though, he knew French, Italian, Polish and German. It was evident from the plans in the briefcase as well that he was focusing on the bigger European countries like France and Germany.  Talking to him was infuriating, but I kept myself dignified and told him to meet me at the ruins of the Eiffel Tower at 9 o'clock in the morning on March 23 if he ever wanted his briefcase back.

Now all I had to do was understand, memorize, and copy down all of his plans in 5 days.