Solar Communes

[Solar Communes]

It is the fifth millennium. After thousands of years of war, the future of mankind was finally sealed with the destruction of the last pockets of the fledgling Global State forces in the Tau Ceti system. The toll has been severe, billions of lives has been claimed, yet ironically, it brought less losses than the Third World War, despite the latter being a war the involved only Earth. Planets like Chiron in the Alpha Centauri System or Cetia in Tau Ceti became ridden with radioactive wastelands, with its survivors living in deep underground cities, dreaming for a day to rebuild their worlds, for such was the price of freedom, a freedom which took nearly three thousands of years to be conquered.

During the long expanses of war, many attempted to break or bypass the most primordial rule of the Solarian universe: the law Special Relativity, yet all attempts to break the barrier of light, or to use the Immaterium to travel through their own universe have failed. No matter how clearly there is no universal set of physical laws for the multiverse and its Many Worlds, as exemplified by the anomalous dimensional gateway in the Gliese system that opened a deadly route of Chaos and Jungian nightmares to reach the multiverse, the complete impossibility of faster-than-light travel in their Relativistic Universe has created a completely different mindset on space exploration, technology and developments from that of universes where the speed of light is not an unbreakable limit.

Many advances happened since the 2170s, the time when the Solarians became a Type I civilization. Those thousands of years, despite the war, were more than enough for the long construction of a monolithic masterpiece of space engineering: the Dyson Ring of Gliese 581, which has given the final leap to the next energetic step in the development of their civilization. Even with a single solar system under their direct "control", Solar Communes has become a Type II civilization through sheer internal developments of their own system rather than through expansionism. As of now, more than 25% of its inhabitants dwell in space, among a cluster of sparsely populated facilities created for exploring asteroids and converting the nearly infinite power of the Gliese 581 star into astronomical quantities of energy.

Nobody could ever imagine how far the dream of the rag-tag group of anarchists who built the Confederacy of Third Spanish States in the early 21st century could have progressed. And at last, anarchism has emerged triumphant as the dominant paradigm of an era where scarcity and disease are no longer common, where the Homo Sapiens has artificially evolved into the Homo Superior, and where the idea of government itself is considered utterly obsolete, as private, but democratically run conglomerates, take responsibility for all the roles that were previously assigned to a State. The Confederation is extremely decentralized, with economies which range from free market post-human juggernauts to bioconservative anarcho-primitivist communes. Any attempt of centralization would fail, and due to all distances, the Confederation cannot exert any direct influence over other solar systems inhabited by humans, and thus, Sol, Tau Ceti, Gliese 876, Alpha Centauri and Muphrid are each completely independent Confederations, although all of them are united by common beliefs, and by a sense of union of the human race that never existed before.

Yet, Balkanization is an inevitable aspect of human culture, and this time, due to wildly differing ecosystems, also accompanied of several biological differences originated from the adaption to alien worlds which environments are inhabitable, but still different from Earth's. Whereas the average Solarian biology is perhaps described by the expression "human cells between nanites", Solar Communes itself is characterized by three types of genetically modified human subspecies. The Homo Superior Superior is basically adapted for environments very close to Earth, the Homo Superior Astrum organism is slender, with its blood pressure and other characteristics adapted for zero gravity, while the Homo Superior Plumbeus are taller and sturdier, with much more body mass than average humans, adapted to planets of gravities close to 2g.

Each of these subspecies also have inevitably developed their own cultures, and even among them, further cultures do exist. And these are only three of the seven subspecies of human beings genetically modified to adapt to different planets, although Solar Communes only possess them.

Other cultural traits also are specific to planets, and even regions. Where Solar Communes planets are typically inhabited by an homosexual majority, Earth has become a haven for the conservatives of this era, where a revival of a part of traditional Western and Eastern practices in all facets of life resurged. Mars on the other hand is featured by an almost monastic, extremely ascetic life style, due to a culture shaped by the fact that its first colonists had to cope with extremely scarce resources. Also, its people are physiologically different from Earth humans, due to the inferior gravity of the Red Planet.

One could glance deeper at the deeply balkanized, cooking pot of communes, city-States, nation-States and in some rare cases planetary States that form the whole of the Interstellar Anarchist Confederation, or even at the different cultures which formed across Solar Communes system, which remains to date the most developed solar system of all. The icy planet of Gliese 581d, also known as Glacius, has went through a thousand of years of terraforming since the breakthroughs happened, yet asides from the more comfortable weather, it remains an hostile planet for an average human being, whose body is adapted for 1g.

This new front of different human cultures, values and beliefs that derive from the same basic principle of freedom and direct democracy stands with a new challenge ahead. The Solarians were the first to discover that two sentient beings cannot understand each other and will inevitably enter into war. With the Solarian-Silicoid war of the 22th century, they brought a native sentient species which lived into the depths of earth and magma to its extinction, as a measure to ensure their own survival. With the traumatic first contact with an alien sentience, the Solarians have concluded that all non-human sentiences are a threat to the survival of mankind, and followed by the sentimental flames ignited by the losses of loved ones and by the witnessing of gruesome attacks, the war created an ever prevalent feeling of hatred against Xenu, their word to define a "sentient alien lifeform".

The development of relativistic weapons of mass destruction and the complete lack of any contact from their own universe puts a worrisome possibility to mind. Perhaps such long, unanswered silence is the ultimate proof that all the spacefaring civilizations that could have contacted them have felt to their mutually assured destructions due to the use of powerful and massive unmanned spacecrafts capable of approaching the speed of light against each other. On the other hand, the reports from what happened in the multiverse were not good news. Tales of empires enslaving entire alien species, of genocide practiced against human beings, and of fearsome godlike civilizations fueled doomsday theories and justified the further development of supercollider technology, despite the failure of previous experiments into generation a truly destructive singularity. As one of the latest developments, a limited quantity of massive smart and self-sufficient missiles fitted with powerful enough particle accelerators to provoke controlled micro black holes has been built, but still, it has not been enough to dismiss all fears about what could come. For such powerful weapons were not without their faults.

And thus... they became aware of something. A mutual defense pact existing in the multiverse, which single goal was to provide a security to differing civilizations which paradigms sometimes opposed each other. The Extra Solar Union of Systems was seen with disdain by many of the Solarians, and yet, the growth of a Nihilistic, cynical youth which views of foreign politics were constructed by the doctrines of works like The Prince, by the millennial writings of Nietzche and by the excelling maneuvers of men like Bismarck, bred a new vision of foreign relations, completely oblivious to ideological or even xenological issues, which only reason d'etre was its building concept of Realpolitik, as a mere way to ensure their own survival, and to perhaps acquire technologies which can better take advantage of the universes where the speed of light is not an absolute limit.

Most of humankind expansion has been limited to sub-light colonization efforts in stars close to Sol and in their own dimension, for the Warp is considered an excessively dangerous mean to achieve faster than light travel to the multiverse, and its randomness makes colonization efforts completely unreliable. An old ambition of the Solarians was to set their holding in a non-Relativistic Universe where what in their own universe is considered pseudo-science, like the graviton theory, becomes true. The idea of exploring a different set of natural laws would require drastic cultural changes, and thus the unreliable link to the multiverse implies that any Solarian colony in an universe not restricted by Special Relativity will have to handle by their own, and will likely become something completely different.

A message has passed amidst the eternal wails of Chaos, crossing the infinity of the Immaterium, sent multiple times to ensure at least one of its transmission would arrive at its intended destination. And eventually, amidst one of many of the ESUS properties in space, a new message would come. The message was neither too long nor too brief, and was the request of a Type II civilization to enlist into their ranks "for the sake of civilization and of the preservation of sentience". There were not much details, as although the message was edited in a manner similar to that of a 21st century Wiki, all its contributors were wary.

OOC: I could write more, but then it would get too tl;dr . I was invited via telegram to join ESUS , and I think it's the right time now that I built enough of the "Hard Sci-fi Near Future Tech Edition".

[Metallinauts]

Greetings, in order to join you must pass three roleplay tests, these do not have to necessarily have to be canon in your nation afterward, nor do you even have to roleplay as your nation.

Scenario #1:
Your nation has recently become aware of a vicious sex slave trade taking place on your outer colonies. This is horribly illegal and must be put to an end. Play an undercover agent for your government who is sent in to gather information on this ring, and if possible bring it down with out back up.

[Trailers]

Ah, SC, I'm glad you listened to my advice. Good luck.

[Solar Communes]

It was nothing, for sometimes the mind forced itself into hiding, maybe because certain visions were better forgotten into the depths of the subconscious, or perhaps to deny that the very foundations of all he believed in were shattered. They had to be noble, great people of unparalleled morality, that was everything he was taught, everything that made from his people what they are.

Escobar coiled into his own thoughts, he refused to listen to the request of the desperate mothers on their daughters, to the credit-tempting proposals of the Panopticon Company to hire him for an investigation. He would rather that it never existed, that he never heard about it. It was beyond his naive idealisms the idea that his kin would still commit the same barbarian atrocities of twentieth century humans, that after all the struggle, the sacrifices of countless to ensure a free mankind, their graves would be desecrated by such action. At first, he attempted to frame remaints of Global State for it, yet a brutal logic came to point that Global State was gone five years ago, and then denial was his last choice.

Information could not be denied. To stop receiving it was as futile as attempting to stop breathing. There were many advantages to the direct access of computer networks through a simple thought, but keeping a lie effective to himself was not one of them. He could not resist the urge, specially when all it required to mentally read news was a simple thought. It was at the heart of the Solarian people, information was the essence of their society, and pretending that something was untrue rarely worked. Such Information Networks were taken for granted, and like it would be difficult for someone to live without a cell phone millennia ago, such information was vital for their lives, to the point they could not imagine how dire was to live without it.

Gone were the times of televisions, sound devices and personal computers, and even more of even desks and paperwork, yet like in the times those were natural, most people rarely cared about understanding the deeper details of the technologies they were used to for their lives, maybe someone coming from a distant past would be in awe, but for them, all of it was entirely mundane as was a cell phone to a 21st century denizen. Some have theorized that cell phones provoked a sort of addiction, and perhaps the same could be said about the Nets.

Escobar office was his own mind, a virtual reality shaped directly by his thoughts to which users could connect and interface directly. The virtual room was conspiucously Victorian, like something gone straight from an ageless detective fiction, but more likely a retro marketing gimmick. He sat at a comfortable wooden chair with leather foaming, and a solid wooden desk lied right ahead of him, filled with drawers which were little more than fancy representations of the folders of the personal computer... attached to his brain, although his mind sometimes could be entirely lured by the illusion. The touch was as solid in its feelings than a touch in reality, and the smell of wood could easily deceive the unwary about the nature of the location.

Hopefully, a new arrival would open the ornated wooden double door, blowing a gust of wind to touch the ebony wood diagonal stripe floor, with each step helping him to forget the request that came to him to investigate his greatest fear. Phasing out his hopes, the man came again, he was elegant, with slender body and brown skin, and had a short, liss black hair. He wore a classical suede jacket, and seemed extremely worried, putting to the limits how much sadness could be expressed without weeping. Escobar sighed, but he could not simply ask to her to leave, it was too much for him to commit such selfish act, an act which would perhaps prove the worse possibilities he had in mind about mankind.

"Please, my daughter! You are the only one who can help me. She is missing, and I fear that with those news she might be There! Escobar, you are the only one nobody knows about in this section of Sol neighbors, you are the only who could help my daughter. I need your help." the man pleaded to him, placing Escobar psychologically to the wall. In one side, there was the action to accept that humans still bred scum, while to the other, it was to act like an authentic scum to deny the existence of the dregs of humankind.

"For reality sake, could you please tell me more about her disappearance?" he asked, looking at the man with a wry and inquisitive stare, pressing the matter into what he did not wish to hear.

"I know nothing, and I found nothing where I last saw her, this is her photo. Please, find her!" the man ahead pleaded again, with clear signs of despair, yet clinging to an increasingly lower hope of finding the young woman alive.

Taking the photo, Escobar watched it, memorizing the features of the one he sought to rescue: it was a gourgeous young teenager, despite the visible pimples among her light brown skin, forming into a crown amidst her long hair and forehead, and covering much of her face like a mask for her purple eyes. Likely it was an overgrowth the excess of pimples, although it was entirely normal to happen at that age, and they never seemed to care about, specially for when her overall looks made the pimples almost unnoticeable, which actually served as part of her uniqueness. And thus, finding her could be easier than he thought, provided the kidnapper did not have access to gene therapy or surgical devices, to which Escobar preferred to simply ignore the implications.




He knew what was at stake, yet his facade did not give any hints to the desperate father that could be more to the missing than what he pretended to know. He could no longer lie to his own self. He knew that it was a fact, that the exact people that millions gave their lives to secure was now breeding the human dreg capable of engaging in such crimes. He tried to smile, yet nothing besides a questionable grin came, and the investigator answered, in a paused, calm voice:

"Evan, I will do my best to help you. We have many ways of discovering everything, and I promise that I shall bring your daughter back." with a somewhat reluctant pace while he made his promise. He was not a good liar, in fact, lying itself was a skill that was mostly left behind to times when amorality was a safeguard of survival and prosperity, in times long gone.

"No Escobar, I need no promises, only your work on it, I will be very grateful for your help." the man said, offering him a handshake.

Escobar took his hand and shook it. Afterwards, the man left through the infinity of the Nets, opening the doors of the office, to which a massive, but empty Victorian street was revealed for a while before the doors shut again. A door with the sign "Restricted" was to the edge of the room's left corner, and he walked towards it, opening it with a brass key he took from his pocket, while holding the photograph with his free hand. Inside the door, a massive machine stood, with several clanks and nuts, running smoothly in its purpose. It had a pair of slots. One was to its front, which had an arrow down painting indicating it was intended to receive something. The other was to the back, where a complex press machine was attached to it. In the middle several sets of buttons and levers stood. Those he simply ignored, for instead he inserted the picture of the girl into the front slot, and walked to the rear end, waiting.

Soon it began to press, passing layers of ink down a roll of paper, slowly revealing what was at hand. A new photograph began to form, in the same sepia hues of the former. It was turned upside down, with its content hidden from his sight at the moment. A stream of despair struck him at the moment he approached his hand from the printed image, he felt that perhaps it would be better to stop at the moment. And perhaps he was right.

Escobar observed the final result and gasped. The image was simply horrendous, inhuman, he was treading into a terrible truth, in its full graphical intensity as he saw what have been done to the girl. Somehow, it was arguably worse than death, no matter how questionable the act of a brutal murder would be. All now could be linked, and whoever did it, certainly had its hideout amidst the quasi infinity of the Nets. But he needed something, and sitting in a chair amidst the analytical engine, he took his position next to a typewriter, where he began to write. A sheath of the blackest color slowly enveloped every inch of his skin, melding his shape into a completely generic, androgynous Anonymous. With the disturbing photograph in his hand, he continued typing, as the walls of the room unfolded into an absolute blackness, and soon everything vanished.

The blackness faded as a seedy facade of a club stood next to him, gritty, in the middle a dead empty road, with expanses of desert around, and with a feeling that was reminiscent of a Gibson book, several neons, and a post-modernist architecture featured a building where each floor randomly rotated. Strangely, there were other anonymous avatars, dozens of them, with not even a single individual recalling his right to hiding the identity, and even the bouncer at the door was also anonymous. Escobar approached the Bouncer, as a computerized voice, cold and featureless, spoke briefly:

"Four hundred fifty. No returns. Remember rule One"

And like the infinity of anonymous individuals who stepped through the club, he also went in. He knew that it was a direct link to the Other, and thus, his plan could work safely from there. He knew what to expect from a place like that. It was likely in the middle of an obscure, almost unknown island. His thoughts about the mention of a rule deducted that it was obviously about telling about the location to others. Clearly, there was something out of place in such obscure corner of the New Internet. True to the spirit of the place, the anonymous soon assumed a false persona of a cybernetic thug, as he walked through a hallway, ending into what was the main lounge.

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

Escobar held his surprise to see it. Apparently it was a haven of virtual sex, but with the exact sensations of the real one, and from the manner how adult avatars danced in a disturbingly manner with children avatars, he had no doubts about which sort of paraphilia such club tended to. The sight of innocent, barely dressed kids being harassed was simply one of the greatest problems for him to cope into this. He could not give suspicions, and taking advantage of an avatar which was programmed to never react to his real emotions, he managed to keep his disguise as he strode through the den of depravity.

Next to a counter, a bare-chested teenager, of little more than twelve years, greeted him. Technically, there was nothing wrong for him on that. Twelve years old has been the age of consent since nobody cares anymore, but the obvious sights of pedophiles having their fun was enough for him to choke. A feeling that luckily was not represented in this world.

"Welcome to the 50 days of Sodom, you can find all your pleasures here."

Perhaps it could be much easier to track down the physical address of that place, as they would not deny a customer the knowledge of their physical location, until he reminded that their real customers likely know it, and simply gave up on the immense risks that asking it would bring. It could even foil entirely the attempt of getting further. Now the name made some sense, as he had estimated that the tall building had around fifty floors. Likely each floor held worse depravities than the ones down, in a completely twisted ascent to heaven. Looking as bad-guy and unidimensional as the avatar allowed, he said to the teenager, grinning, as he got another idea, he came to the teenager and whispered:

"Fiftieth first floor"

The teenager looked at him for a while, and whispered:

"Wise guy, know the secret heh? Ten thousand credits"

"Deal, I hope to have a truly great time," Escobar replied under his guise, as he prepared to give in more credits.

"Yes, I suppose it is your first time on fiftieth first floor. You will not regret any credit you spent on it. With a further thousand, you can have me as an extra, if you wish", the teenager girl said, wriggling in a seductive manner. He attempted to resist the urge, but he could not. In finding the monster of humanity, he feared he would find his own. But there was no other way. Yet, if he was alone in a room, he could gather information, and being with her, she would expect him to do whatever depraved torture he was supposed to have paid for.

´"Interesting... there are few who would be willing to spend such amount of credits for pleasure. Now, I do not want to think on what is worth that much money"´, Escobar thought as he poured more credits from his wallet. The new colonies still had to cope with the principle of scarcity in their economics, things that were less than clear in the unified, quantum Net, and although poverty did not exist, people could not always afford to have everything they wanted. It was a great progress, but in truth, the mutualist economy simply led to a blurred line between what was upper and what was middle class, provided one refused to consider machines as the "proletariat". For Solarians though, traditional economics were obsolete, and everything was taken for granted.

"No, you are not into my tastes," he replied gruffly to keep with his alter-ego. The teenager clearly sighed. He knew that behind that avatar there could be a eighty-year old crone who was in one of the sinkholes without access to rejuvenating therapies, and the thought managed to get his mind abit out of the grim location. A small child avatar, with no more than eight years of age, guided him through the elevator. There the girl asked, while clearly shaken:

"Do you want to play with me?"

"No, you have nothing hot on you. Once you grow up maybe you can be my bitch." Escobar said, to later ponder how he could be able to say such words to a mentally and physically abused children, it was frightening him how far he has gone through it.

"You can peek at the plays if you press that button," the girl said in a clearly demotivated way, pointing to a button next to a small screen. He feared what would happen, but an urge of curiousity led him to press the button.

Escobar forgot what he saw as he pressed it. It was simply too disgusting for his mind to cope with. It was much more literal of a desecration against all those who died to create this new future for mankind than he could ever imagine. The goal at hand helped him into forgetting the scenes that would surely be up to a Marquis de Sade work.

Finally he was there, at the Floor 51. It was simply the top level of the building covered by a triangular tinted glass ceiling. Several strobe lights hanged up, giving a faint illumination of a reddish hue to the place. The child asked him if he wanted her, to which he let certain thoughts pass into his mind. He was feeling that he was about to unleash the worst of him, before he finally said an audible "I told ya girl! I only get jailbaits!", as the elevator door finally closed, with the young children looking at his eyes with clear expression of sorrow, like if somehow she knew it.

It was time to check that place, perhaps it would be a sufficiently private location for him to investigate beyond. But he had to discover what exactly was the "pleasure" on offer. He began to step through the lit center of the vast room, looking at a faint, unrecognizable shadow of someone, someone in suffering, from the manner the shadow danced agonizingly and struggled amidst the red-lit wall. Escobar simply stepped through each of the stone floors, and finally noticed on how the place looked like a dungeon.

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

At last he was close enough to identify the poor spirit. And it was exactly her! There was an authentic fear, desperation of someone in plight. The young teenager was tethered to a surgical table, with her eyes accompanying his movements, and showing the utmost despair of someone powerless to resist. Escobar looked at her purple eyes, and caressed her black hair, ignoring all the torture instruments that seemed to be layered everywhere. But there was something particularly strange about her. Her ears were pointy, and her eyebrows curved up, like if whoever came there had something for elves. But he knew she was as human as him.

He could easily notice how broke the teenager was, looking at him pleadingly, and foolish enough to implore for one who she would never imagine that was not another deranged sadist:

"Please," she almost whispered, and gasped. "Please, do not let me to die... I can pleasure you as much as you wish, you an stay here for as long as you want... but do not leave me dying."

Escobar knew that she could not die there, but the young girl was being continually putted to a near-death level of suffering. He sighed beneath the facade, and unstrapping her neck from the table, and pulling it to him in an almost back-breaking manner as the young girl screamed of pain.

"Look at me yo! My thang was not about this kinks, gotcha? I thought it was sumthing special here. Thez gooks tricked Jay, but you are pretty. I will buy ya out of here, ya, you'll be with mah hootchie girl! I be nice and cool, and you just listen to mah tales"

The girl simply looked at him, and putted an wry smile, the best she could do in her condition, asking then to him, in a less desperate manner:

"What sinkhole have you been thinking you were in the twenty-first century? That slang way of speaking was extinct since Comuns became our language, and you are one of the poorest gangsta posers I ever saw, including historical reenactment ones. You are not a customer, aren't you?"

Seemed like his cover was finally broken, how foolish he was to waste all that time inventing a slang of his own language for nothing, but at least, it seemed a safe ground there. Privacy likely came into the package of Floor 51, and he felt safe to speak, as he gently lowered her head back to the table:

"Your mother sent me to help you, but these walls are not soundproofed, and if you do not scream during all the time I will take to track your real location, that will certainly raise suspicions."

"I cannot scream like that, I am not a good pretender, nor are you detective, you were lucky most of the attendants are simply pseudo-intelligent bots and that you were not addressed by any real person." she answered back, as he strangely strapped her neck back into place, and her forehead as well. He would rather not give false hopes.

Now if she could not pretend to be screaming... he thought harder and harder on a manner to simulate it, until he finally reached a disturbing conclusion. He either had to submit her to some sort of torture so he would have the time to datajack into the place without raising suspicions, or abandon her to a hellish fate of a literally eternal torment, for that discovery was likely blind luck, and places like that never lasted if they weren't really well hidden. He looked at her with pity, and could not take the courage to say what had to be done. He stood there for dozens of seconds, silent, until he finally spoke:

"Amelia, the only way I can find your location in the Other is to make you suffer now. It's the only mean, but if I don't, you'll suffer forever. Don't get mad at me, I will get no pleasure from doing this"

The girl simply fell in absolute silent, saying nothing. She clenched her teeth, like if preparing for what was next. He sought the least damaging, something that would provoke pain, but that as soon as it stopped, would not leave further suffering to her. After a while, he was ready to turn on the power to the electric wires wrapped over her. He felt sick of his own self, his hands trembled as he approached the button with his finger. With a major reluctance, he turned it on...

It was the most disturbing datajack he ever had to cope with. While Amelia writhed and agonized, screaming in interrupted sequences of pain, he took a simple dice from his pocket, and pressed his fingernail over the central dot of the "five", the upper right dot of the "three" and at the center bottom dot of the "six". The dice unfolded and surreally transformed itself in a 21st century laptop. At it, a black display with a green console showed a strange numeric address. It would be completely useless for him, as he struggled to concentrate between the screaming and moaning, to get into what was needed.

He typed at the console "Set debug mode on", and everything vanished. An abstract representation of a massive data stream was everything that he could see, as a box, representing his currently location, had its data coming all the way back to something beyond his field of view, a problem solved quickly as he willed for the image to expand. He could see input and output coming through another, proxy "box" before reaching another proxy, and several others that came all way back to the sender, his own net. And suddenly, he pointed a finger to his own, and took several strange cubes, immaterial enough for him to put into his pockets. Next, he immediately reached for his pocket, and taking a cube titled "Masker", pointed it to the abstract representation of that horrible place.

His avatar changed to that of a typical goon, and soon a ghost representation indicated how where they were fooled to think he was coming from, a net linked to the place. He then released another cube titled "Trace Tracker", and a small imagery displayed the message "No Trace". Next, he took a cube with the title "Astrograph", and threw it with no ceremony at the abstraction of the 50 days of Sodom club and linked networks.

Then again, all shifted to a star map, with an abstract line coming out of Dream and slowly building up through the space. Such slowly was relative as it represented countless light seconds. The line crossed a quantum communication relay, and jumped immediately to the Muphrid System. At this point, he already knew where to exactly look for, but it was not very soothing that he would take decades to reach it. The line continued to trace through the way to the only planet that orbited it, a violet gas giant. Then it began to lead to one of the three inhabitable moons orbiting it. That alone was a major progress. He knew where they were.

The Objectiva moon, one of the newest colonies, and although a moon, it was almost as large as Earth itself, and a lucky found, being one of the closest celestial bodies to Earth in its habitability properties. And ironically, it was also much closer to Earth in the manner that such dirt resurged there. He thought as the line traced through the atmosphere, and finally ended into a server located at one of its four main continents, but it was not what he was looking for, as apparently they also used proxies.

Then the message "No Tracker" changed, and an alert beeping sound came as it indicated "49 seconds". That was the time he had to get the hell out of there. His avatar was no longer at the physical realm, but they could still hurt him after the tracking of his own location succeeded. He could only hope that the tracer would finish before that.

Thirty seconds, and more three proxy servers later, there was still no clue of how deep they were hidden, and Escobar began to almost wish he believed in some deity. There was little he could do to change the fate now, and time continued to run out.

Ten seconds left, he tensed and after crossing servers across four continents, fifteen islands and ten archipelagos, he almost lost his hope. He had to cut down everything, and already held the "Emergency Shutdown" cube in hands to deploy. With two seconds remaining, the tracker finally pinpointed the location of this area of depravity in a submarine facility into the depths of Objectiva West Ocean. And in a quick reflex, he threw the emergency shut down, forgetting that he left Amelia to be continually electrocuted by the torture he inflicted on her. But now it was too late.

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

Escobar arose from his own bed, looking at the ambrosia styled walls and ceiling and at the warm wooden floorboard. He yawned deeply as he got up from the bed, and pressed on his chest as he reminded of what he had done. Then he noticed something was there, and as a train of thoughts jumped through his mind, he finally shrugged and said to his own self, looking down:

"I have been so much time in the Net that I forgot my gender in reality, again"

Isabella Escobar felt an strange sensation. Perhaps it was natural from assuming a completely different gender in a virtual world so perfect that it was completely indistinguishable from reality until one decided to jack through a network. But she felt... like being in the wrong body, like if she was actually supposed to be a man in reality. It was something weird, and she laughed as she remembered the jokes on how people in the first centuries of Internet had no problems into assuming opposite gender personas. Yet, the laughter soon vanished as she reminded of what was left behind. And of how much time it would take to bring it back.

Isabella quickly wore her personal, tight-fitting mechanical counter pressure suit and after a while throwing the stream into her mouth, and into her face, she felt clean enough for a long travel. It was a long, and not truly outstanding journey that she took through several mag rails to reach the spaceport, nor it was memorable the average Solarian crowd she spotted around. Women kissing each other while naked in public, same sex couples walking around with their genetically developed and cloned children, robots doing repetitive chores with no rest, all the usual sights of the place, nothing really out of normality that she would keep in her memory for too long.

Then she was at her own spacecraft. One of the most expensive of her purchases, for torchships were large, and not designed as personal transports. Yet, the space saves have allowed many modifications to come, particularly regarding the storage of additional supplies. There was no armament, and much of it was dedicated for orbital or in-flight parties with her closest friends. She looked at all, reminding of the good days, of how far they went, and how far everything crashed at her. She could not cry for some reason. Perhaps it was a "manly" fad from her latest week inside the Networks, or perhaps the realization that crying would not solve anything, something that alone put her out of any chauvinist stereotype.

All she tried to do was to rejoice for a while good moments, at a time she thought all of them were good, that the worst of mankind was long gone, a time she cared about nothing but fun due to the prosperity, where fears were finally gone, and remaining threats distant memories. Again, the greatest enemy of man was man, and she finally came through the way down to the cryo deck, in the elevator of the tower-like inner layout of her craft. She tried to relax over the comfortable couch of what was close to a grave, but she could not stand the feeling of guilt. She could have allowed them to track her location to save her, but logic came first to compassion at that moment, and fear overwhelmed her as a ticking sound became almost paranoid. All became vague memories, and nothing as she finally entered in her long slumber. The spacecraft was released from the monolithic station, and flew in a high velocity, leaving a trail close to that of a comet behind.

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

Isabella woke up again, stepping out of the chamber, and immediately putting her helmet back into place, for it was better to have it should the worst come. She again took the large elevator, after stepping through the gratings of the catwalk, and again was alone, at the bridge, getting into the Nets of the spacecraft.

She saw the planet right ahead, it was lit by a bluish purple light, and featured by four major continents which were extremely close to each other, with a few spread out islands to the other side of the planet. But there was more important things to see, and soon she threw another cube with the title "News" into the cyberspace. Suddenly a frameless window came with a broadcast. The title was truly something that shocked her: "Pedophile Sex Slave trafficking ring annihilated by Private Defense Agency, leader arrested to face public trial".

In the end, she lost thirty-eight years of her life traveling for nothing. At least there was one more thing to do, the least she deserved for going all her way through this to help that girl. She personally wanted to met her. Even more bothersome however was the fact, explicitly pointed that an anonymous datajacker was the greatest contributor to their uncovering. All her risks in the end, were completely futile. She would be... anonymous.

Soon she docked her spacecraft to another space station, and this time things were really strange. Different-sex couples were everywhere. It was like returning to how society was before fully artificial reproduction and "same-sex cross-genebreeding" were realities. And she felt herself like an stranger in that new world. In fact, she could not resist to look at the ladies that passed by her way, despite the fact that as far as she could remember, she has been among the heterosexual minority in her planet. Perhaps it was the choice of impersonating a male avatar in a reality which was so precise to even simulate male hormonal inputs, but she doubted they could bring any physiological changes to her. It was just psychological and it would pass with time. Or at least she wanted to believe it would.

Then she reminded that old social dynamics class where it was pointed that the time the Virtual Reality became popular and truly real coincided with the time homosexuality became mainstream in Solar Communes. But quickly sweeping those irrelevant thoughts, she took hours traveling through a space elevator, and a few more hours to arrive at the execution spot.

It was not enough to be there and up her hand for the inhuman beast to be shot at the head. She had to personally meet it. Isabella knew that it would require more than persistence, as the cybernetic goons were more than paranoid about rescue attempts, for the ring although broken, was still not completely destroyed. As she began to take her steps through the metallic arena, where a mob gathered to give their opinion in a direct voice, an arm came next to her midriff, still under the space suit, and a sort of bouncer robot said:

"Halt! What do you want?"

"To personally meet the scum," she said to the machine.

"Only if you allow a Brain Net scan. All irrelevant info shall be erased, and all your private information copied to my Net shall be deleted if it does not contribute to the investigation at hand. I have no remote operator." the robot coldly replied, approaching his flesh-covered hand to her forehead.

"All right, if it takes that, I do not have anything to hide." she replied.

It was like in a flash when the false-flesh hand reached her forehead, and Isabella could almost fell for an instant a rapid succession of her own memories, but it was too quick to be perceived by her conscious mind. The cyborg nodded, and allowed her to go through.

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

She finally entered in a cell, where an unhealthy looking shadow cowered into a corner. The cell was not exactly filthy or uncomfortable, and by the fact the prisoner did not notice her, they probably allowed him to access a limited Net to at least have the illusion of freedom in his last moments. The shadow was cloaked over a black, featureless cloth of synthetic look, and oblivious to her presence. There was no way to identify who was behind it, she faced the prisoner's back:

"Override thug! Override. You have a visit!"

The shadow began to turn around, and under the cloak, a pair of purple eyes gazed at Isabelle. She became silent, immobile as they stared at her own eyes, piercing through the depths of her soul.

"Detective... I remember you," the woman said, staring at Isabelle with eyes filled with disappointment and hatred. Isabelle simply became silenced, still shocked by the inevitable fact.

The purple eyes of Amelia simply scanned the woman next to her, hostilely shifting from direction while adapting to the light. She again spoke, in an angered manner.

"Oh yes... I expected you would react this way, for this was as unexpected as the fact you have abandoned me, and allowed for me to continually endure an electrocution for an entire month in the Reality. Like you all, arrogant post-singularity nano-freaks who never knew suffering."

"I have not abandoned you Amelia. I did not know you were light-years away from me, and I did not know suffering, until I discovered about you, until I felt almost a dagger into my heart whenever I remembered of what I have done. I am really sorry."

Isabelle seemed almost shaken. She could not simply deny, yet she attempted to. The idea that the one she sought to save became a monster was tearing her apart from inside, and she could not ignore the dire reality as she nervously trembling awaiting for the next rebuttal:

"Are you sorry? You could have saved me you idiot! Why did you not think about uploading what you discovered to the same PDA that is now getting me killed? Because you are too selfish to pass away the "heroic deed" to others, whore! But I have to thank you, for I have learned how pathetic you are in your delusions of grandeur! You are refusing to be human, don't you see? And do you know what happens when you repress your worst? It will eventually break out... and all at once. Now add to that the fact you are clinically immortal, repressing the homicidal and sadistic features still present in your kin."

Finally, she felt the courage to face it, however in a weak, poorly self-confident manner, which would likely bring Isabella down later on:

"No suffering justifies the atrocities you did against children!"

"Idiot! I have never kidnapped any children. You have no idea of how this circle will care nothing to an explicit order of their new leader to not deal with children! I wanted to make them pay back for what they did to me! I wanted to make Them suffer the most horrible pains, to unleash it on those who deserve least I do on those who don't! And because of that, they set everything up to put me here!" Amelia shouted, and Isabella backed off, sighing, she seemed completely broken, and at the point of crying, ye she did not. An uneasy silence then settled for many minutes, as each looked straight at their eyes, like if sharing something beyond words.

All changed as Isabella pulled her gauss pistol and shot silently against the head of the drone guarding the cell door. Feeling much more guilty of Amelia's crimes than Amelia herself, she dropped the gun to the woman, and lowering her head, said:

"I would rather die than know that I should deserve to be there, rather than you. I did not convey the information to others because of my ego. I have ignored the fact I could stop your suffering, I have led you to become this. If you truly see me as scum, shoot at me."

Amelia simply lunged at her, and as she refused to defend herself, she grabbed Isabella by her collar and punched her right eye. Isabella grimaced and moaned as a new sense came to her. It was the first time she felt physical pain, and after the shock, she only regained fully her senses as she was put into a corner, with Amelia looking at her:

"Now you know pain. Imagine feeling that every day and every night, at every single second. That was what I felt. Those idiots of the circle forgot that I knew everything about them. And I ratted them out as I was going to die anyway. I will die hating you unless you take my ass out of here."

The pain still bit her around her right eye, she looked down, and became silent for a further while, incapable of taking the courage to say what she had to. That changed when Isabella finally spoke in an angst-filled tone, but first, she suddenly shot her pistol, which she took back to her hand, and killed that who she was supposed to save.

"I cannot do it, or both of us will die. I expect you would attempt to kill me, I was a fool to let my feelings close my judgment... nor my pride shall remain, for I am as guilty as you for my incompetence. Intentions are futile, and by the consequences, I am the worst criminal here," she spoke to herself.

She felt her heart beating fast, sweat coming through her space suit, and a feeling of pointlessness, like if all she has done was useless. It was liberating, and frightening at the same time to acknowledge there was no reason for her to live, that immortality was a foolishness only kept through egocentric thoughts. Death was the only way, and she deserved it. The barrel was touching her ear, and she prepared to take the last measure of judgment.

A tear finally came down from her eye as she looked at the dead body of Amelia. Then she let the pistol fall, and hugged her corpse, crying.

"What have I done? What have I done?" she shouted, but things could only get worser as she could hear her shout again. "I will die hating you!", "I will die hating you", it echoed through her head as she screamed. Then all faded out.

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

When she woke up, Isabella was truly scared as she could fell herself tethered to a bed. Immediately another woman came to her, in a white coat, and with a terrorized and curious look, her eyes accompanied the woman for a while, as she was afraid to ask the reason she was entrapped, and thus stood, watching, for several seconds. Trembling of fear, she finally asked:

"What happened to me?"

The woman looked at the woman, and smiled, trying to soothe her fears, she seemed to be a good person, trying to comfort her, but she could notice an uneasy expression on her pale face and black eyes, the woman also was afraid of answering, and that pent up anxiety only worsened the fears of Isabelle. Perhaps for noticing how Isabelle was distraught, the woman looked at her and finally replied:

"Isabelle, I am doctor Bernal, you came here and asked me to make you forget the fifty percent of the happy moments of your life, and to keep you permanently tightened to a bed for thirty-eight years, without any administering of medications for induced sleep, and with daily an-hour long non-lethal electro-shocks, and for me to not ever, no matter how you would insist, to let you go until this time is gone. I found your request strange, and on the borderline of extreme masochism, but you have my word I'll honor it. I hope that your guilty shall be over. It is not always that someone felt as undeserving as you were. Try to keep your mind sane. Fortunately she said nothing against talking."

Isabelle sighed, and looked at the plain white ceiling. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and perhaps she could prove that suffering alone could not turn an human being into a monster. She agonized as the electrodes powered over her body, and screamed feeling something she never felt before. Perhaps she has gone insane since she met Amelia again, but certainly, she would never forget the harsh lessons on the folly individual heroism during the entirety of her theoretically immortal life.

[Zerstorendar]

Holy goddamn. Long and thought-provoking.

Looking forward to the next one.

[Metallinauts]

#2: Your head of state is about to be assassinated, play the assassin and give his justifications for doing so.

[Solar Communes]

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.

[Metallinauts]

Very very nice

#3:A plague is ripping through a massively populated planet. Play a man/woman trying to race to a distant space port trying to beat out the quarantine. In the course of this post describe the break down of society and show what the plague has done to the people of the world. The protagonist may escape or be doomed, it doesn't affect your score.

[Trailers]

I must say I'm very impressed. Good luck on your third test.

[Solar Communes]

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.