Don't+trust+your+friend

Shock after shock. First, you are greeted with a mysterious note, get taken away by mysterious men you don't know, and now you find your best friend, John, part of them. You used to tell him everything. You always used to rely on him, and he seemed to treat you the same way you treated him. He seemed like the one guy you could actually trust.

Well, you were wrong. All the trust shatters as you see your best friend here. These are men who threatened his life. You can't trust anyone who threatened your life. You decide to play along with your best friend without genuinely trusting him. Code? What code? What are they talking about? He doesn't know anything about a stupid code; he is just an employee for a company. He is absolutely lost.

At the moment, in the room, it is just John and yourself. The rest of the gang members have left the room, giving the two of you a few minutes of privacy. "What code are you talking about? I don't know any stupid code! What's going on, John?" you stammer with great anxiety. "There is no code." John replies without a change of expression. "Then, what were you talking about there?" you ask, still in great confusion. "I'll talk about it if you promise to cooperate with us." John replies. "Okay. I will cooperate if you promise you won't kill me. What do you want?" you ask. "It's a long story." John said. "I have time." you reply gesturing at the bounds that have you

John started his story. "We aren't from a gang or anything. We aren't bad guys. We work for the Secret Service of the United States of America. FBI and CIA take care of the big tasks, and we basically do most of their dirty work for them to keep their reputation clean. Well, Paul, you've been involved in some dirty business right now. Or rather, you've done nothing wrong. But we need you as a cover up for something else. Remember 9/11? Yeah, one of the most tragic accidents of the history of this country. But the CIA has been able to track down Osama Bin Laden and he's dead now. I bet you know that."

"In what way am I involved with that terrorist act? Or how am I going to be a cover-up for anything?" you ask.

"Just keep listening." John replied. "You see? CIA has been working on the documents and evidence they found at the compound Bin Laden was living in. But we found something extraordinary. There have been secret transactions that we couldn't really tell where they're from, but they were made to and from inside the United States. CIA has been tracking down that weird piece of unidentified evidence, and we found that a great public figure had been involved in aiding these terrorists. I won't reveal his name, but he is a major influence in the economy and Wall Street. If we convict him of what he did, the economy will crash, like, absolutely shatter. We can't risk something like that. Not during election year, especially. So the president has secretly contacted us to do something about it. You know? Like, to save the Wall Street guy's butt. So, we found a perfect guy to cover-up for him. We found you. We have been tracking you for over a year, and we're putting together evidence, both legitimate and manipulated, to charge you for working with terrorists. You won't believe how much evidence we put together to make a story framing you. For example, we've been tracking your transactions and manipulated them. We've created pictures of you working with suspicious people dealing with explosives and weapons. We've been recording everything you said for the past 8 months, and we've been able to create an audio file of you saying 'The code is Geronimo,' and a few other things that could lead to evidence aiding us. We couldn't find the word 'code' in your vocabulary, though, which is why we questioned you about the code. To record your voice saying that word. And finally, your vacation trip to the Middle East last summer serves as our conclusive evidence that you're working with Al Qaeda."

"What will happen to me?" you ask nervously. If you were framed for aiding terrorists in 9/11, wouldn't you surely get life in prison by the least? You couldn't afford that. You had to fight his way out.

"Oh, you will definitely get life sentence. Who knows? Even the death penalty isn't too unlikely. But there's nothing you can't do right now to save your life now. You came here. You are in our control. We will soon report you to the bigger authorities such as CIA and FBI, and they'll deal with you. You can deny all of the story, but what's the point? What criminal doesn't deny their crime? Haha!"

"But what about our friendship? We've been friends since...forever..." You weakly said, tears streaming from your eyes.

"Yeah, dude. That's what I thought too. But I gotta admit, this job pays really well." John replied, no sympathy whatsoever in his voice.

Three days later, you were all over the papers. The entire world was talking about him. The president clearly stated how unpatriotic his actions were, despite he knew the true story beneath. Many celebrities and public figures also pointed him out. He became Public Enemy Number 1. His trial was two months later in Supreme Court. He did not receive the death penalty, nor did he receive prison for life. He received 9080 years in prison.