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3Prologue
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5The future.
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7We never really know what path it will go. We can affect it, but little. We may sometimes only watch and stare into the future, not being able to do anything. We see it may bring the great, but at times it brings the bad. Our limit is the technology, thus sometimes it is not enough at the right time.
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9The world is in a fine state. As you know, some time ago people were concerned about the excessive use of oil. Wells and rigs were pumping, trees and bushes were cut down, animals and plants were consumed. Population has grown, and grown, but so did the dependance on resources. Unsurprisingly, some nations finally had enough of the pollution and intervened. When there was no peaceful solution of it in 2046, several countries declared war on each other, its war lines were mostly by the Eastern Europe. Because of the trigger of the war, it was officially called "The E-War". For the good of everyone, it lasted only about several months, since the extremely advanced warfare tactics and technologies allow wars to be executed and completed much more faster.
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11After these events, the society evolution was finally sustainable; the future shined bright and far for the upcoming generations of people. Just four years after the initial war, breakthrough-technology allowed for colonization of Moon. In less than a year after program's launch, hundreds of people paid big sums to live there. The life-support technology allowed indefinite living in the hazardous environment of Moon.
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13Soon enough, in 2054, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched their first space shuttle with a crew of five people to Mars, which was a true accomplishment for the American space research. A few individuals could finally see its surface with their own eyes. More landings and research were conducted by NASA, and later followed up by Russian Federal Space Agency (FKA).
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15The overall technology for average people has evolved a lot the past 40 years. The most popular thing to mention is the high-resolution projections onto many glass types, or other transparent materials, making it a very common addition for products: mirrors, car windshields, baking ovens, and so forth. Automized equipment is also ubiquitous, almost always with voice commands or even physical gestures registered by cameras. Limited artificial intelligence has been slowly put into mass production and exists in certain machines and houses, but it is expensive. It adapts to its owner after periods of time and eventually becomes a true "intelligence" to the person.
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17Agriculture, medicine and distribution since The E-War has started to dramatically take a new shape. Everything became more massive, efficient and its absolute first priority was to create little to no pollution. Regardless of its colossal progress in all these few years, a big chunk of population still lived in poverty. However, that was only a matter of time before they also would live in a society where acquiring luxury is not a very difficult task.
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19Chapter I: Beginning of The End
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21I wake up early in the morning, lying on the bed in a greasy, but very comfortable position. The sun never ceases to flash these bright orange beams of light every morning through the windows in my room, to let me know there is another day of work waiting for me. I am awakened by my alarm clock, flashing with big, green LED lights right my eyes and beeping loud on the table by the bed, telling me it is 9:15. Smacking it to shut it off, I whisper to myself, "Fucking hell..." That is because yesterday I was having a party with my friends from work. We got drunk, danced, were social and messed around with stranger ladies, as usual. So obviously the feeling of minor drowsiness and hungover are still with me from that bar. In my opinion it was more than worth it. After stretching myself and trying to shrug off some of the drowsiness, I get up and open my wardrobe to dress up. My usual outfit is a blank t-shirt covered by a white cotton sweater, and the bottoms being the jeans or maybe something more formal. My wardrobe consists almost entierly of cotton sweaters for reasons which I cannot figure out. When I was getting on my pants, unexpectedly my smartphone starts ringing next to my alarm clock. It was the latest edition of Windows's glass brick that works just like a phone with touch-screen and high-resolution display. I grasp it and see that my best friend George Williams is calling. Not only he is my best friend, he also works right next to me in his office.
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23"Morning, George, how are you?" I say enthusiastically. However, George didn't seem to be himself in this call. "Yeah, hello, Bill. Listen..." I already could tell something was not quite right. "... look, we got a grave situation here. Me and Charles triple-checked, we even went under the hood to see if something was busted. You must come here, now. Can you?" I am slightly confused, wondering what to say back. I take a quick glance at my augmented wrist displaying the time with LED lights under my skin. It says 9:27. "Uh, yeah, of course. It's... my time to work after all." George responds, "Alright, I'll be waiting for you." He hangs up without saying anything further, which leaves me without any inch of doubt; something is certainly out of place.
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25I fasten my jeans and wrap it up with a belt. My phone, wallet and note-recorder are in my pockets. "There we go," I mumble to myself. I open up the door and head out to the kitchen, but then re-think myself a bit. Frankly, I do not seem to be too thirsty or even hungry. Most of the time I start the day with some fried eggs and toasts, at times even spaghetti, but this time was different. Very probably because of the odd call from George. Instead, I walk from the fridge and into my office. It has handful of books on shelves, placed by both of the walls. At the windows I got a sofa, along with my laptop lying there. It's basically the place where I do work at tasks for projects and various activities from my job. From behind the sofa I grasp my shoulder-bag and shove the laptop in it and go to house's front door.
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27Looking out through the window, I clearly see it has started raining outside. "Right...", once again I mumble to myself. I don't care about it, because at the desert there is almost never any rain. As I was going to get my car keys, my phone starts ringing and vibrating again. "What the hell is it this time?", I say it fairly loud with a hint of annoyance, because I have awaited George to be uncessarily calling after two minutes since the first conversation. My hand slips in the pocket and I take out my phone, but it turns out that this wasn't George calling. This time it was another friend, Alice. She also works with me.
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29"Hello, how are you, Alice?" I know her almost as well as George. "Hey there, Bill. Listen..." Just the same as with George, I immediately notice something is definitely out of place. "... the situation here is serious. I mean, really serious." She takes a desperate breath. "Bill, you must come here as fast as possible, please. This is--" I don't let her finish, and interrupt, "Okay, yes, I am on my way now." I hang up and now start to go with quick steps, heading out towards my Volkswagen. I am stressed and wish to arrive at the complex as fast as possible.
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31I slip in the key, in the form of an electronic card, into the car's socket and all lights go from dim to fully bright in a moment. The dynamic holographic car feedback comes up and its friendly voice asks me. "Good morning, Bill. Where would you like to drive?" Automated traffic system steers cars to many destinations, and manual driving is needed only in confined spaces or places that are not yet in database. "Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex."
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33The streets of California are busy as usual, nothing seems to be different than it usually is when I drive through the populated and lively city every morning. Well, not exactly every morning, because I leave my home on Monday and return on Friday since the complex is in the middle of a desert. For that reason we just camp in our so-called barracks near the research complex. Shortly after I leave the landscape of Riverside, I decide to call George again and ask him out