Earth 2075 AD
Prologue
Wife...son...daughter...father. Father?
“Where’s grandpa?” Trent asked his daughter in a panic,
realizing that his count of the family members fell short by one.
“He’s still sitting in the front yard,” the little girl replied, “and I
want to stay with him. I don’t want to go down to the basement.
There are spiders down there!”
Trent dropped his armful of bedding on the floor and yelled,
“That man makes me so mad! We don’t have time for this right now!
Get this stuff downstairs. What’s coming out there is worse than
spiders. I’ll be right back!”
Sure enough, he found his old father sitting in a plastic lawn
chair, staring across the city skyline, gripping a hunting rifle that had
been passed down through the family for generations.
“Dad, you’ve got to come in now and take shelter! That’s what
we’ve been told to do and there’s no good you can do out here!”
The old man kept his eyes ahead and spoke somberly, “There’s
nothing I can do either way. I’m no use to this family anymore...I
haven’t been for a long time. We’re likely to die anyway, and I’d
rather look death in the face when it takes me.”
“Don’t spout that crap right now!” Trent yelled as he grabbed his
father’s arm and tugged.
The old man yanked his arm away with surprising force and
jumped from his chair, swinging the rifle around to push it against
the chest of his son. “Look son, I’m not going down there. This is my
life and I choose how it ends. You go be with your wife and kids.”
“But these machines...you can’t fight them! They’ve taken city
after city. They rip everything apart. The army couldn’t stop them.
What makes you think you can put up a fight?”
“I didn’t say I was going to put up a fight, did I? I said I want to
see them when they come. I want to know who...what it is that kills
me. Sure, they took New York, they took Boston, Philly, Buffalo,
Chicago, Minneapolis...more cities than I can count. But when they
take Omaha, I’m going to sit here and watch. I’m not going to huddle
in a basement.”
A distant rumble caused both men to drop silent and survey the
horizon. Another rumble sounded, and a crash, and then distant cries.
“It’s the droids,” Trent uttered, his breathing quickening.
“They’re here. Let’s go!”
“Look!” the old man lifted a hand and pointed to the southern
sky. Strange dots were appearing. After only a few seconds they’d
multiplied until the sky was textured with thousands of black specks.
The distant rumble was growing into a roar. “There are so many.
Where do they come from?”
“Nobody knows-- they just came! They took over all the mines,
all the factories, and reduced buildings to dust, and they multiplied
before anybody could stop them. What does it matter now? Let’s just
get out of here!”
“No. You go. I’ll watch.”
“Do what you want!” Trent relented and sprinted back into the
house.
The old man muttered as he watched the sky blacken. “Why do
you want us? What did we ever do to you?” A swarm of flying
machines approached and a thick smoke was lifting from the ground
below them. He wasn’t sure what weapons they were using, but he
knew there wasn’t anything that could stop them. The flying alien
ships shot overhead in a deafening thunder. Then he saw the ground
droids, rolling like huge tanks with long, mechanical arms that
waved like tentacles as they swarmed though the neighborhood,
ripping obstacles out of the way, breaking into the sides of homes,
and working methodically to complete whatever purpose had brought
their wrath upon humanity.
He wasn’t frightened as one of the huge machines approached.
He lifted the gun and aimed at the droid. Soon enough, his
ammunition was spent and he dropped his gun, shouting at the beast
which was only a few dozen meters away. “This is my family home!
Leave it alone! My boy don’t deserve this!”
The droid paused, as if it had heard and was taking this
declaration into consideration. Then one of it’s long arms extended
until it was nearly touching the mans face. A brief burst of gas
pushed the man’s gray hair backward for a mere second, though he
stood as solid and brave as a tree. The huge droid proceeded toward
the front of the house as the old man’s knees began to shake and his
vision blurred. He collapsed lifeless on the grass just as the machine
ripped the wood and brick walls apart like paper. Within seconds an
appendage emerged from the wreckage of the house with a young
girl in it’s grasp. The droid thrust its screaming prize through a hatch
that opened on its side before it turned to rumble back through the
smoking ruins of the city.
Earth: 2155 AD
Chapter 1
Hansen hastily glanced at the sky, noting that the stars still confirmed his liberty from the enclosure that had been his home for the last two years. The dim sparks seemed especially beautiful now, but there was no time to admire nature’s majesty at the moment. He had to keep moving, lest the stars be taken away too soon.
His eyes now focused on the dark ground immediately in front of him, Hansen moved forward, taking only small, quick, careful steps. Any loss of concentration might send him tumbling down the sloped surface, possibly alluding capture while inadvertently escaping life as a consequence. With every step, his unseen goal was closer, and with each labored breath his heart raced faster with anticipation. Was it minutes or hours since the journey had begun?
Suddenly, his feet no longer shuffled along the metallic slope, but struck the flat, dusty earth barely illuminated in front of him. The change of footing caused him to stumble, but there was no fear of serious injury now, and he picked himself up and began sprinting as fast as he could, meeting the ground and picking himself up again repeatedly in his desperate flight. After only a couple of minutes, his body could no longer take the strain and he collapsed into a cloud of dust on the ground. He lay smiling, laughing between his panting breaths and short bursts of coughing. Again, he looked at the stars, long enough this time to take in their beauty.
Though his muscles were weak, his memory seemed sharp as his eyes darted from one constellation to another, mapping the sky in his mind and plotting his next move. His momentary reverie turned again to panic, and then to terror of uncertainty, as two unfamiliar stars began moving from the horizon to a position immediately above him. Were they watching? Did they know he was here? Did those dim lights promise rescue, or captivity? He screamed and hoisted himself up onto his wobbly legs to run again. But his body couldn’t keep up with his desperate desire, and he soon found himself crawling, the dust mixing with his sweat until he could no longer move. Everything went dark.
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