NationStates Jolt Archive

Gliese 581 Solar System, Planet Gliese 581c. Earth date: 28th of June of 5014. Earth hour: 07:00 GMT

There was only a guesswork, no certainty on whether it was the best time. He awaited five years for it, always thinking on this moment, one which would not happen again. The kitchen was busy as machines prepared the meal, and the man watched the details of the simple room, where several ingredients were being taken by roaming robots. There was nothing unpredictable, for they were perfectly mechanical in their functioning, and he observed silently those in their silent work.

Those machines were blind and deaf, incapable of doing anything but cooking, he watched how they seemed completely oblivious at the moment a fly landed on a pile of pasta, and was trampled by an additional layer of processed flour. ´"Cheapskates,"´ he thought, for there were certainly machines programmed to avoid the inconvenient of someone feeling an unwelcome extra while masticating a slice of his xenoberry pie. He saw opportunity in such flaw, and pondered for a while on whether to come at such impersonal, distant way to finish what had to be done.

Looking at the machines in their dumb work, he waited for a time, and pondered. The fly-pie came right to the cold oven, and he was still allowing uncertainty to take his time away. There would not be any other chance like that, but he simply waited. It was perhaps an irrational pity of such automatons, or just an uneven sense of pride, that held him from taking such path. The man found his way out of the kitchen, and back through the restaurant, reviewing the gathering crowd of individuals, and a number of private security drones in their human masks, wearing flawless black and grey vertical striped shirts of an uncommon formality.

It was an elegant building of exotic beauty, with a star-shaped mosaic of linoleum with the drawings of all nearby stars, as a map drawn into its floor, and walls covered by several holovisions, details which did not matter, for he simply climbed the left-side metallic staircase to the upper floor of the restaurant, navigating and squeezing through the crowd. He knew what had to be done, and as soon as he came to the blockade by a bouncer which seemed to be a real human, he looked at the bouncer brown eyes and replied:

"I am here on family business."

Before the bouncer could answer, he drew a card from his pocket and handled it. The bouncer immediately became distracted, like if contacting someone, and finally replied:

"He is waiting you in his private quarters. Left door to the end of the lounge"

With his way clear, the man continued to walk through the restaurant, this time getting to the end of its upper floor. Hedonists and party-crashers turned the place into a tight agglomeration of human beings, and he had no time to delight into the public exhibitions of pleasure in the middle of the chaotic mass. It was much more of an inconvenient, and it frustrated him the quantity of people blocking his way. Nobody seemed to respect the right of getting through such unintentional human shield, and he almost felt impelled to scare them out of his way, but he managed to hold his anger and after fifteen agonizing minutes, and he got past the crowd of net junkies, autodancers, No-doers, chem-lovers and trouble stirrers that infested the place, although his fist had to open the way in some occasions.

The door was right ahead, and as expected, guarded. Another bouncer stood, and as he approached the cold, metallic door with a restricted sign. He interrupted him with a one-word question:

"Password?"

He could not figure what sort of joke was that, considering that the other bouncer said he was waiting. Perhaps they were playing games with him, but nonetheless, he would get through it. His mind tried to guess a likely word for the door. He began pondering it, but he feared that it would raise suspicions in whatever game they have set for him. Then he came with a reasonable excuse, and looking at the bouncer, he said, in a somewhat embarrassing manner:

"My memory is organic, I am remembering it."

"Great, another biocon!" the intimidating figure responded with a clearly bigoted tone. He felt an urge to draw it and finish those business right there, but there were more important goals to achieve at the moment. Suddenly he had an idea, and spoke, in a cynical manner, for after all, his organic memory might have managed to guess the password:

"Gilbraith"

"Come on in. These days they are letting the password to anyone." the bouncer said, clearly not amused by the fact, as he opened the sliding door with a command, revealing a part of a large room decorated in a soothing light blue. The man came in, and the door closed behind. The room primary furniture was a desk, with a chair turned behind where a man seemed to sat, pondering about something to say. He sneaked in an almost silent manner towards the other end of the desk to his side, and took a seat. The large seat turned around, revealing who he looked for. It was a man who apparently was young, but whose face certainly gave away his experience in life.

"So you have come Gilbraith. I thought you have abandoned me since that day."

"Perhaps it is you who abandoned me, Gonzales. Alas, you abandoned me all the way back. Why have you done that? Why did you corrupt my liberty and body?" Gilbraith replied back, pressing one of his hands over the table while he started at the man.

"Do you not see? Gil, why do you refuse to embrace it? Look at you, you are already showing the signs!" Gonzales replied back, looking at him with a certain pity in his eyes. Gil seemed to not bother. He came much far, and he became aware of the truth, the terrible truth. Nothing ever came without a price, and there was certainly a price that the transition of the last centuries brought. That was what he could not ignore, what he could not leave unsaid:

"Gorn, why don't you take a look outside of this office? Why do you not contemplate what you are becoming? Look around, how many people are willing to fight? How many people are working hard these days? How many people are willing to at least exercise their brains? I have been insulted many times for having an organic memory, but your own organic memory and organic intelligence are atrophying. Soon our species will degenerate into a legion of beings which would be nothing but absolute retards without computers in their brains! Answer me! Why there is no single biocon that is an illiterate while your "Homo Superior" strand is filled with ignorants and hedonists who behave like immature children? Answer me! Why the greatest artists and creative genius of mankind have been non-augmented humans in the last three millennia? Your post-humanity is simply the annihilation of humanity. You think that the loss of death is a good thing, but you lost more than an inevitable mortality. Without any death, suffering and fear, we humans are wallowing in an age of mediocrity. Why have our technology stagnated for a thousand of years? You are the Eloi, don't you see? You have shaped your own selves into prey for any alien species. Without mortality and uncertainty, you put at risk the survival of our kin in the future!"

The man sighed, and attempted to civilizedly explain his vision to Gil. There was something hanging Gil's heart, pressing it like a cold dagger. He felt something, questioning whether to go ahead or not. That man was decent, despite his opposing beliefs. The validity of his goal seemed at stake as the counter-argument came:

"Gil, look around. This is a perfect Utopia for pastafarian sake! People are even forgetting the Eternal War, and they want to have a chance to enjoy their peace. Yes, you are right about the quasi stagnation of our science, but what drove Science was the solution of problems, the need of ensuring survival or joy, of ensuring a life without pain, with better conditions. Science simply stopped because there are no further problems to solve. Everyone can become immortal, be stripped of all sensations of pain and nobody ever starves in this system. This is a golden age, Gilbraith. At first, our ancestors projected a Heaven, a paradise beyond their reach, but now, we have created a perfect Heaven, without death, worries, grief, suffering or fear, only joy, pleasure, fun and limitless freedom. How could you oppose such great achievement that so many sacrificed their lives for? Now, yes, I understand your fears on our survival. But our systems are more than sufficiently autonomous to defend ourselves, and with that anomaly being right next to a potential B-hole, there is really nothing to worry about. We are entirely safe."

"Regardless you cannot force those incapable of conscious thought of becoming your ideal of humanity! It is an affront to freedom of choice! It's downright tyrannical!"

Gonzales shrugged, and politely replied back. The discussion was something that he was amused to do. It was a healthy thing to have beliefs questioned once in a while. Gilbraith also felt his resolve to increase, to be questioned would reinforce his point rather than weaken.

"But the people wish for it, because they do not want to see their children die because they have chosen to refuse immortality. How would you think that it would be to see your own child die? Do you not understand? That is the last step to create a truly perfect utopia Gil, without it, we'll eventually have a hell of sorrow, and existence will be completely futile. Do not come with Yin Yang bullshit, I have friends who lived for a millennia and did not become schizophrenic lunatics. In fact, most of them have no wish of ceasing their existence, because there is nothing close to eternal joy, happiness and peace. This is the end Gil, we have achieved perfection, why should we deny such happiness based on dodgy concepts of freedom? You have not chosen to be born male, have you? Is it tyranny? There is nothing wrong into that, it'll only make people happier, and thus forever."

Gilbraith looked at Gonzales with eyes which seemed to express a certain sadness. Apparently it would not be possible to convince that man of the wrong of him. He had a last attempt only, for clearly, he has changed his plans, and hoped that he would convince Gonzales of changing of opinion. Thus his last card was played as he spoke:

"In former Global State, people had no freedom or free will, but they were still happy, happy because of an illusion forced into the remaints of their own consciousnesses. The sort of "happiness" you seek to create, although not so drastic of a violation against human freedom, still is tyranny. Do you really want to follow a small step of the example left by our former enemies? Is happiness truly worth the sacrifice of a part of human freedom? And more, you are trying to force the end of the Homo Sapiens, of a natural species you belonged to once. Yet, they have done much more, struggled and created much more than this new Homo Superior has ever did. Suppose we were being forced by a Xenu to "evolve" and to have the genetic and corporeal structure of our children forcefully modified, would you accept it? To become drones with atrophied brains whose majority of mental functions are handled by machines? Is that what you seek? Is that how you shall honor those who struggled since the dawn of man to allow us to be here?"

Gonzales sighed, and looked at him, apparently stressed by the arguments. Clearly, he behaved like someone defeated. Gil hoped that the pride of that man would not blind him to the truth. A frightening silence took place for a while.

´"Will he change his opinion?"´ Gilbraith thought, as they continued to stare each other, trying to scan the reply. Then the man sighed, and looked at Gilbraith:

"I am sorry, but if a tiny bit of freedom is what takes to ensure our kin will never again be condemned to suffering, I will not allow for mere ideological folly to destroy what is best for everyone. I shall proceed with this Gil. I do not want to lose you."

Drops of sweat came through his forehead as the long waiting for the reply ended. He looked with a distraught expression at Gonzales, and seemed nervous. There he was, a "biocon". The idea of children being forced to receive nanites was abhorrent, and he knew what was his last manner to ensure that no rhetoric would destroy the ideal of anarchism and put the deaths of its fighters in vain. He had to stop such veiled police state to his plight, and soon, everything ended, as the argument of his pistol came straight through Gonzales mind, silent, piercing through and immediately putting his life to end.

Gilbraith threw his head to the table, and covered his face with his hands. He wept, looking at the dead body of that one who he killed. It was necessary, to protect a species who refused to comply with an artificial evolution. He could barely think about the ramifications and further consequences of his acts, as he drowned into sorrow.

Four thousand and a hundred of years ago, a man named Gavrilo Princip provoked the First World War, after murdering the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. In certain ways, that event was linked, even in a extremely remote manner, with the formation of the Second Spanish Republic. Were the wars that have given the chance for humanity to improve, no matter how ironic, or perhaps revealing such fact was. Perhaps history would repeat again, for better, or for worse.

Gilbraith whispered softly, as he raised from his chair:

"I am sorry father."

And a maelstrom of chaos ensued as he came out into a psychotic rage, shooting at everything that he could see, until finally his own life also was finished. At last, father and son were united.

News would flash... the Nets would roar in flames as "Head of State murdered by his own Son!" shouted through all the medias. And perhaps, the last unbroken chain of a sense of unity in mankind would shatter, with its crackling tempered by the sounds of war.

Inhabitable Moon Oppeln, Alpha Centauri. Earth date: 15th of November of 5038. Earth hour: 23:00 GMT

The two suns have set over the horizon, with the sunlight slowly reaching through the slots of the steel boarded windows of the dome bedroom. A shriek announced yet another day, in a return from the comfortable retreat of pleasant dreams. Taking blankets off, a lady reminded of her uncomfortable garments, as the pressure of the mask to her face could not be ignored, nor the sharp needle that went through her veins. Laying on her belly, she arose from her rest with difficulty, due to the weight of the rebreathing system to her back. Sometimes she could almost feel it like a seconds skin, for it was a long time since she put all that vest and never wore it off again.

There was one single hope for her. She stepped through the floor, with the heavy sounds of her boots, and went downstairs to an entrance hall, featured by the oval ceiling and walls. From there she headed to a door to the right, right through the dining room, where an old device stood. A radio with several upgrades to face the new times, the type of thing nobody worried about. She turned it on, without removing the tight-fitting gloves she wore, and began to type into a keyboard next to it.

After a while trying to get a sign of civilization, it finally boiled down to a garbled transmission, which following fine adjustments took a very clear shape. The voices seemed to be talking about something truly important, from their serious tones. She took her entire attention as a group of unknown speakers were discussing some sort of crucial thing about everything that happened.

"It is hopelessly spreading, it can survive without an atmosphere!"

"We know it. What do you suggest?"

"We have evacuated everyone we could and all our assets retreated back to space station Dresden, I am afraid there is no more chances for who could not manage it. We have no choice but to resort to pulse bombardment."

"Are you nuts? That will kill every augmented human down there! There must be another way to stop it!"

"All our researches have been useless, only a storm can stop the plague from spreading out of control. If we do nothing, more people will die in the nearing moons and in the planet!"

"But there are hundreds of millions down there!"

"Consider it a mercy strike. The plague slowly eats cell-by-cell the victim, starting by the most superficial ones, and it makes medical intervention useless. In a month it will destroy the entire dermis of a victim, who will then agonize with its muscles and intact nerves exposed and be slowly consumed to the bones. Five days have passed since then, and they likely lost fingernails, the entirety of their eyelids, hair and some of the mucous tissues. The more we leave them to their own, more they will suffer before dying."

"Damn it! I can't believe you are talking me into this. When will we be ready for it?"

"Thirty-five hours"

Immediately, the woman threw the device on the floor, angered by the manner how those have taken it so lightly to finish with the lives of everyone there. Children, innocent individuals not guilty of what have happened... and children. Quickly, she ran upstairs and stormed into another bedroom, where a small figure fully cloaked and with a gas mask slept. It was all that was left for her.

"Diego, wake up, pack up some serum bags! We got to be going!"

The figure struggling arose from his bed, and looked at her, asking:

"What happened mom?"

She simply looked at him, with her eyes hid by the mask, and replied:

"We cannot wait her further, it's getting too dangerous. We must go to a safe place, it's far from here, but safe."

"Mom, are we leaving home again?" the innocent child asked in a scared voice.

"We have to, bad people are gathering around, they will eventually break into here." she replied, as she quickly pulled him to her lap and hugged him.

"Mom, why do we have to wear this costume? It is itchy" Diego asked as she putted him on ground again, for it was certainly something a kid would estrange, although he did not have a good time lately either.

"I know son, but we cannot put it off, or we'll get sick. Let's move out son, this place is dangerous," the woman replied to his son.

"But Rafaella, where is dad? I miss him." the kid soon asked, to which she almost let herself fall on the ground, but forcing her despair inside, she remembered what happened, something she could never tell him, who deserved to be spared from the harsh nightmare that world has become. She could see the images again, of those disgusting thugs flaying the skin of her love and laughing, and they looked at her, as she simply ran away before they could allow her to be infected. The image of the skin-less man tormented her mind, yet she struggled, and simply spoke:

"We will find dad in the safe place, but we must hurry, he is waiting."

"Right mom, what else to bring?"

Rafaella escorted his son to her room, and opened a wardrobe, where amidst several clothes, there were a pistol, an automatic recoilless rifle, and several magazines. she took the rifle and as much as she could hold of magazines, tucking them into a belt, while putting the rest into a backpack she was to wear before leaving. Sighing, she handed the pistol to her son. She knew it was not very wise or ethical, but at the conditions ahead, she could not consider age a barrier to increase chances of survival. Immediately, she hugged him again and said:

"Diego, pay attention. This thing, it hurts people, but now, there will be people wanting to hurt us, and the only way to be safe is hurting them first. Look at that wall. See that paint? I know it's difficult, but it is important, be brave. See this thing, it does not let it hurt people you do not want by accident," she said, interrupting it to release the safety lock, and continued, but before she could finish, her son said in a bored voice:

"I know this mom! I played Lunar War: Battlefields for three years. I know it's different in real life, because it hurts people for real". Pulling a switch of the gun, he lowered all way down before pressing the trigger as it hit straight, and silently into the bullseye.

Rafaella shrugged, pondering on the point of games like those who taught kids to shoot and kill. She could almost laugh as she reminded how foolishly reactionary and completely obsolete was the idea that they were trainers for psychopaths. Looking at her son, she finally said, while loading a magazined into her autorifle:

"Do not shoot everyone Diego, only those who run against us, right?"

"I will only shoot the baddies mom", he said, demonstrating some fear in his voice.

She could only feel a certain torment into that. She did not manage to take a mere rhetoric of means and ends to justify asking that from her son, and she felt a constricting guilt into teaching and instructing an innocent child to kill real people. How far have her fellow friends, now rivals, gone to ensure their selfish survival, was perhaps a lesson to how beneath all the facades, man has not truly changed.

But they had to do what was necessary, and soon they went all the way down to the garage, with the titanium reinforced gate to the outside closed for a long time, and a floating, slender automobile of fully tinted windows next to them. She let the unique canopy opening of the vehicle to slide open, as she asked for his son to take his seat next to her in the front door. As soon as she turned on the vehicle, the map showed up, to which she said to the system:

"Is there any server up for a situational update of the safest roads to the Goddard Island Space Elevator?"

A male, emotionless voice answered then, in a very clear and comprehensible manner:

"Connected to orbital server three. Data accessed and being downloaded. Done. Plotting waypoints into map. Warning: human presence cannot be precisely identified, several reports of gang wars were used into plotting, but much is unknown. Recommendation: ignore traffic conventions. Auto-pilot is currently set with ethical restraints on."

Sighing, the woman in her mask have thought on the possible consequences of what she wanted to speak, but somehow, her urge for survival definitively has overridden any sense of ethics she had. And quickly she asked to the machine:

"Turn off ethical restraints. Prioritize passengers safety and ignore pedestrian and other automobiles safeties. Engage autopilot and garage opening"

"What are you doing mom?" his son then asked as the system announced:

"Configurations saved. Preparing for departure in ten seconds."

Looking at her son beneath the mask, she quickly replied:

"I am making sure the bad people will not catch us son, maybe you should close your eyes, because there are many ugly things out there. This will be a difficult and bumpy ride, but do not be afraid, I will be here to protect you. I bet you are tired, maybe you should rest, do you want to lay down son?"

"Yes, I am tired." he replied, looking at her with curious eyes.

"Tell the car to do it then son," she said, smiling, even though her expression was hid by a mask.

"I want you to make this seat like a mattress." the boy then said.

"Lowering seat. Seatbelts are automatically set.

Soon the seat of the boy was so lowered that he could not see anything through the window besides the reddish sky and the sparse clouds. Soon the car took a fast dash to the outside as the garage opened. The sensation was the same of flying, and Rafaella's mention of a bumpy ride was not about the roads, for a vehicle like that did not need roads in the first place. Next to the dome house, a desolate street stood, with several derelict homes, and piles of rubbish everywhere. Even more disgusting was the quick glimpse she took to her left side, observing a stirred up skin-less cadaver rotting next to the door of an abandoned house. She could almost puke as she saw it, but vomiting under that mask would be a truly disgusting sensation, and she managed to hold her stomach. That was only a hint of the horrendous scenery she managed to spare her son from. All he could see were a few smokes raising to the skies, which immediately arose his curiousity as he asked:

"Mom, is the city burning? I can see lots of smoke trails in the sky."

"Yes son, the bad people are burning this city, everything is falling apart down here, that is why the safe place is up." she replied while alertly observing her surroundings as the car went to its maximum performance and speed through her house street.

"Are we going to space Rafaella? I always wanted to go to space." the boy asked, as he attentiously looked to the sky, dreaming of how it was really like.

"Yes, we are son. We are going to space, it's the safest place around." she said, distracting herself from the scenery of carnage. Further down the street, rubbles and ashes were everything that remained of some houses, and she could listen to the bumps as the magnetic drive of her car kicked away corpses on the street. She felt horrified, but somewhat safe from being inside her vehicle, which was a small barrier, a small shield to the horrors outside. It only worsened, and so far she found no living soul around, likely because thugs hated to wake up at early morning. She quickly shouted for her son to close his eyes as she noticed more horrible brutalities. A headless and skin-less corpse stringing amidst wires extended between two abandoned houses, with an ironic sign below it with the words "Welcome to Dakkar Commune". She gasped again, as his son opened his eyes and continue to admire through the mask the mostly peaceful skies, which were a contrast to the decadent urban scenery.

-----------------------------

Rafaella opened her eyes and wished to scream as a mob blocked her way. Her vehicle was approaching them, without decelerating, yet they did not move out, the map indicated that there was an immense row of them, marching in a desperate search for any way out of the place.

"Close your eyes," she said with fear, and looked as their faces stared hostilely at her. A bunch of them rose weapons, and began to fire streams at speeds which nothing could hold as she got down and cowered, with the safety belt automatically releasing. She began to tremble and scream as the bullets tore holes into the car, knowing that any wound or shot to her suit would serve to infect her. Suddenly a thump came which kicked her towards the seat, and a succession of thumps came, followed by agonizing screams, as the car began to simply ran through the crowd. She could not count exactly, but she knew that such maneuver might have killed at least a hundred of people. Desperate people who like her, sought a chance to live, for those of their families still alive and for themselves.

She wept, looking at stains of blood in the windscreen, which had several openings provoked by the rounds. She was quick to ask, thinking about the worse that could have happened. She was afraid of making the question, but there was no other thing to do as the car continued in its programmed trip, this time almost leaving the city to the long road to safety:

"Son, are you all right?"

No answer came. She began to despair, and arose back to her seat to look at him, when she gasped as she saw her son, with a bullet to the head, laying down into the seat next to her. He was gone, forever, after all her efforts to protect him, now she had to witness the loss of her son. She could not initially recognized it. She closed her eyes, and wanted to believe it was only a bad dream as tears came down beneath the mask.

It was no dream.

She began to cry out loud, and hugged his dead body as she mourned:

"My son! I love you... do not leave me alone! Please! Tell me you are pranking me! Tell me you are alive!" and Rafaella wept, shaking his body to no avail. First, her love was brutally murdered, and as the last person who mattered to her died at her hands, she could no longer hold it, selfishly ignoring the fact that those who lost their relatives in the carnage she ordered her car to commit were feeling the same. It was both empathizing, and disturbing on how a hundred of deaths of random people would not torment an human, but the death of a loved one would.

"What have I done? Why? Why did it have to be you?" she asked to nobody, before finally falling into a silent suffering. All she could do now was to not abandon him there to be desecrated by the leprous scum roaming the countryside. Time passed as the pain slowly faded, but it never truly went out.

She traveled far with her vehicle, and although no longer crying, her resolve was shattered. Suddenly the car broke its mechanical silence with news:

"Updated data points that all undersea tunnels to Goddard Island collapsed. New route shall take to the Voltairine City Harbor. Information indicates that Voltairine City was gated off by Bioconservatives, who have been so far immune to the plague. This vehicle structure is not sufficiently tough for a run through the gates. Alternatives include use of violence or negotiations for a permit through the city."

"What else can get worse? I lost my son, and now I will have to beg those intolerant pricks for passage! Pal, I know this is irrelevant, but have you collected any hint that links the spread of plague to the Biocons?"

"No, there is no plausible evidence outside of the realm of conspiracy theories regarding such possibility." the system replied.

Sighing, she mourned in silence, thinking about whether it was worth to continue seeking survival after all. The trip has been event-less after these incidents, and many hundreds of kilometers were covered by the day.

Night has come, and Rafaella was almost sleeping into the car as it was already past midnight. The dead road continued without any car passing through besides her own. Despite all tiredness, she could not sleep, not after all. She was feeling herself out of air, hopeless and aimlessly waiting for whether luck would bless her or not. She looked at her dead son again, and wept, reminding of all the joys they had together. She sketched a smile, but the fortunate past could not erase her mind from the now. In certain ways, she was already dead.

Time became less clear, to her, it was a result of the tiredness and of the terrors replaced by sheer monotony. Away from the skin-stealers, from the sackers and from the desperate lines at cyberware clinics, she had finally a time to contemplate everything. Could they really be right about living forever? At the moment, she willed to end her life, for it had no purpose anymore, with everything that was familiar to her gone.

Then, as a manner to distract herself, after likely hours without managing to sleep, she asked for the car to do something:

"Scan interesting communications, maybe I will find some clues."

"Found one... audio on."

Then another communication came. It was certainly not from outer space. A pair of women was talking about what seemed as important as the last transmission.

"You say it was a failed research on a new upgrade over nanites? That makes sense, thank God I never gave ear to those nihilistic weirdos. I know it was not pretty, but perhaps it will show them how fragile they are."

"Wait a minute comrade. I have detected a tracker spying this conversation. Got it! It's in the high road to Vol City, inside a car. What do you suggest?"

"Well, someone sane enough to drive a car cannot be infected. But we better arrest whoever is there. We cannot take risks"

"Oh yes... so hey curious one! We'll give you until midday to come to our city unarmed and surrender. We do not want to hunt you, we could hurt you that way. Do not worry, if you are not another psychotic thug, we are not going to lock you in jail."

Rafaella sighed and turned down the receiver. She cared little about her fate at the moment, and as it seemed luck conspired against her, she felt no will to resist that order. She simply said to the car:

"Reactivate ethical restraints"

A slaughter of pedestrians would certainly led them to kill her, and it was a risk to take that something else could be in the middle of the trip... at least then, she would be killed asleep. Soon her consciousness faded away as the tiredness was great enough to overcome her suffering and despair.

-------------------

Rain drops soothingly woke her up again to a new day. Rafaella rubbed her eyes and looked at the horizon. A clean city was ahead, with only its tallest building visible. Another important thing to notice was the circle of cars surrounding her, with military-clad individuals point their guns.

"Good afternoon, miss. May you come with us, or will we have to shoot you down?"

Sighing, she shouted, as she slowly walked out of the car, dropping her rifle inside it:

"I surrender, just... give a proper burial to my son"

"Thank God you are still sane Miss, your son will not be left to rot, we are only bringing you to a check to be sure you are not infected, there are very few remaining cities where people still have a sense of unity, most of them because they were of non-augmented majority. Come at my car, and do not worry, we do not have to remove your NBC suit to examined your health."

As she willing got into the back seat of the car, she asked to the officer:

"Have you found any other augmented who managed to survive without being infected?"

"I am afraid you are the first, who are you woman?" the man said with no problems, as he manually set the commands of his car navigation system.

"I am Rafaella, and that... was my son Diego. I came from the Dakkar Commune, and things have been horrible there, with all the decaying people. Skin-stealers, rapists, murderers, anything you can imagine exists there." she said in a clearly nervous way, reminding of the brutal scenes she witnessed.

"Why are you in such an hurry?" it's almost like you imagined your time was running out."

"I will be honest. I have intercepted a communication, like I did with yours... they are going to pulse bombard the entire moon, you will survive because you are completely organic, but I won't. I need to get to orbit before it is too late. I have... I am afraid I will be dead in three hours and thirty minutes by now," she said, interrupting with a deep sigh, before continued.

"It is already too late, at least I will not have to live with all those I loved gone."

"No, it is not Rafaella. We have a functional spaceplane and large enough take-off area for it in the city, but there is a problem with it: its navigation systems were nanite-based, and fried off because of the plague. The only one trained to pilot it around here is infected and under quarantine."

"Wait a minute? If you are immune to the plague, why would you quarantine an infected?"

"Because he would spread it to any space station he docked to, perhaps," the man sarcastically pointed, and she felt something uneasy about it. She thought about making one last question while they continued to travel through the road:

"How exactly do you certify people are not infected?"

"Ehm... I... I do not deal with these matters of kil... of examinations."

Sighing, she could not remember why she did it. All she saw were the two officers dead, and the car on its automated movement. She did not think she would be able to kill them after they gave in that for some reason, they wanted her dead. Now it was the time to stop the vehicle. She took a pistol from one of the guards and began to shoot towards the hood. The car suddenly stopped with an explosion which was strong enough to push up its butterfly doors, and quickly she made her way out of it. Now there was not much to do other than wait for her inevitable fate, and thus she laid down over a clean grass, and looked to the sky. Then she sensed something strange, a gust of fresh air striking gently the skin of her neck. Worried, she realized it, and decided to take the suit away, for now it did not matter anymore. At least she would not die wearing a diaper.

As she examined the cut with more care, she finally noticed something. It was certainly not recent from the way the lines folded inside deeply, which thus gave only one, ironical explanation to it. Rafaella laughed in a silly manner as she realized that somehow, the plague did not affect her, and yet, she was still going to die. But there was still perhaps a hope. The metallic car could serve, and she walked back to its inside, pulling back the doors the best she could. Now perhaps it would work as a proper Faraday Cage. She counted anxiously for the last fifteen minutes. Each second raising her anxiety. Ten seconds only, and she felt that her life was over, that there was no further reason for her to continue living.

---------------------------

It was difficult to describe. One could compare it to a thunderstorm, but it was significantly intenser. Massed pulses stroke through the ground of every inch of the moon, and yet, life itself was not harmed. A disgusting aberration with the skins of others draped over rotting flesh has fallen. Agonizing families had their mercy. It was everything over at last.

"Rafaella, welcome to Dresden. It's a miracle you survived! We would like for you to tell what you seen, and what you have felt.", a male voice asked. She slowly regained her senses, feeling the comfortable mattress on her shoulder. Likely she was in an infirmary, but somehow she could not open her eyes. She stood silent for a while, with it interrupted by the voice:

"The storm damaged your augmented eyes, but do not worry. In a month you will regain your sight. I know it must have been difficult to you, to endure all that happened down there, and I know you must hate what we have done. But we had no choice. There was no way to cure the plague, and if we did not realized that action, everyone would die."

Finally she opened her mouth and said:

"Wait a minute sir. Can you answer me a curiousity. Is this base air supply unified or compartmentalized at normal conditions?"

"It is unified, why did you ask?" the man asked, in a somewhat scared manner.

Rafaella sighed as she realized the consequences. She indeed managed to survive and arrive at a safe place beyond the inhabitable moon, but the cost has been tremendous. And as a surge of nerves came to her, she was quick to shout, feeling an overwhelm of despair:

"What the hell did you learn in your medicine Bachelor? Maybe because you all are going to die? I was infected by the plague! Don't tell me that you are just a maintenance guy for an automated medical robot!"

"Shit! They never taught me that! We must blockade this base before a disaster struck the entire system!" the man shouted back and ran away.

And thus, Rafaella has managed to escape from the plague... with all her loved ones gone, her eyes blinded for months and serving as the involuntary responsible for the future death of dozens of thousands of innocent lives inside a space station. Her mind could not stand it anymore, and her consciousness shattered into the burrows of insanity, as soon she would see her son roaming the station, cheerfully playing with a Nerf gun... and never again return.