The Rift 2103: to start over
August 03, 2103.
A scientist is running through the hallways of a large building with anxiety on his face. while passing by the laboratories in the underground part of the facility looking at what can only be described as a total spit on the face of modern science. A scientist with a technological looking rod or 'magic wand' as they call it was levitating a crate while both the crate and the rod were surrounded by a blue aura and then he put the crate which had a 500K imprinted on its side over a pile of crates with the same
imprinting.
If someone was to look at that it would have been looked as a crime against nature. To a scientist to do magic but the man didn't pay any mind to that, after all he has a mission to complete and he has seen that little feat way to many times to be actually surprised.
Passing by testing areas with a person in a hazard suit and a big gauntlet with several protuberances connected to a machine in his back.
Picture something like this but without the gun:
The man was pointing his gauntlet at various pieces of metal. In an instant the gauntlet was surrounded with the same blue aura that the rod and the diferent pieces of metal began floating in the air, but instead of just moving them around the man closed the gauntlet in a fist and all the pieces began to melt in a big sphere of liquid metal which he proceded to separate in several smaller spheres and then flicking his fingers he made the spheres take diferent forms of gears and machinery pieces which he assembled in the carcass of a engine and then activated it succesfully.
after leaving the underground facility and going in the elevator he made it to the last floor of the building and was recieved by a woman in a desk typing in her computer. it was the CEO's secretary.
"Mr Morales is waiting you," said the woman not looking away from her computer.
Building up some courage the man stepped inside his boss office. inside was Mr Morales with his back to the man looking through the window of his office.
"Mr Morales i..." but was cut off by Mr Morales.
"Please tell me you come with good news, joseph." The man now identified as Joseph ran a hand through his hair while avoiding the gaze of his boss, not a good signal.
Mr Morales let out a tired sigh "i knew this day will eventualy come, i knew i couldn't hide it for to long. now, my boy...".
"Mr Morales if i may interrupt, ¿why hide it from everyone? this is revolutonary, imagine all the possibilities, imagine all the aplications." but again was cut of by his boss.
"imagine all the weapons, imagine all the new forms of warfare, terrorism and mass destruction that would come from this: to turn the enemy troops into animals, to turn children into bloodthirsty beasts, to teleport an atomic bomb over the heads of an unsuspecting city the possibilities are just endless.
"Which was first Joseph, the nuclear power plant or the atomic bomb? when a new discovery is made, when a new technology is created its allways weaponized first instead of help the wellbeing of the people.
"I hid this because i want my son to have a future, i wanted my son and grandson to be able to go and play to the park without a mask or a hazard suit. because i'm not a fat and greedy bastard who only wants to fill his pockets just to discover in the end that you can't eat money, nor it can create oxigen." Mr Morales turned around to look at a wall which had portraits with all of his predecesors "padre, abuelo, please guide me in this times of dire need."
Eduardo Federico Morales Salazar, that was the name of the actual CEO of 'NeoTerra industries' or 'industrias NeoTerra' how its called in its land of origin and 'Morales: reparación y mantenimiento de tecnología', how was called when it was founded by his great-grandfather almost a hundred years ago prayed to his deceased father and grandfather for guidance recalling the history of his family's enterprise.
At the first years of the XXI century before the event known as the great collapse. In an area of the South American continent before the information of his country of origin was lost a jobless man, parent of a child and husband of a woman whose job could barely mantain them all was trying to find a new income to sustain his family when one day in a struck of luck Alfredo Ayala Guzman, how it was identified in the historical database won the raffle that called lottery and an indeterminated amount of money due to the lost of the currency data.
Not much is known from there except that he started his business as a small technology repair shop and the fact that the man cared more about the future of his family than his inmediate benefit, trait that was pased to each of the heirs of the corporation. Due to that it was one of the few forms of organization who survived the collapse and the only who didn't participate in the 'war corps' that followed instead opting to give shelter to war refugees rapidly gaining followers, employees and manpower.
after the war ended a period of armed peace known as the 'poor war' started which consisted in a extreme unrest between corporations. everyone was waiting for the other to fire the first bullet but none wanted to because none had the resources, troops and money to start a war, but ofcourse everyone feared NeoTerra due to its huge amount of manpower weapons and resorces after helping people who lost everything in the war and returning wastelands that were battlefields to a fertile state again.
After years of neutrality NeoTerra decided to take action and made a treaty which ended every hostility between corporations definitely ending the war, in fact no one went against it because the overwhelming power that NeoTerra possessed and thus the 'Metro Corp Alliance' was created taking the functions of the UN of the days prior collapse.
After years of rebuilding what was lost and an extensive economical growth NeoTerra was still the head of the Metro Corp Alliance. However conflicts looks to be at their doorstep once more due to the uprising of an extremist, separatist organization known as 'The Legionaries' who attack other corporations using guerrilla tactics sometimes using other corporation uniforms to build up tension between corporations. it doesnt require a genius to deduce that their objective is to start a new war corps.
However due to the great collapse the world's nuclear arsenal was destroyed but now the threat of nuclear war is very real. But all of that changed 'that day'.
February 14, 2100
in a day known as 'the magic vallentine' after a secret division of NeoTerra dedicated to the study of occult arts made the biggest discovery since electricity. Magic, the product of man's incapability to explain what surrounds it was proven very real after the discovery of an ancient library in the island previously known as Britain, inside was the knowledge of the mythical wizard Merlin what is magic, how to controll it and how to influence your surrounding with it.
After many struggles trying to find the 'arcane stones' that the books described as a battery of magic it was discovered that it was a combination of mineralls called orgonite (ironicaly prior to that orgonite was just considered junk that you can buy in a spiritual shop) and so the new energy was called 'orgone' and the act of use it for any purposses was called 'magic'.
When the scientists learned how to use machines to activate the 'magic' inmediately they set to build an orgone powered technology, the results were not only as expected but surpassed the expectations. the creation of technology that not only works with orgone but can controll it giving it the capabillity to link a human mind with that of a machine and so the 'magitech' was born.
after years using the knowledge imprinted on the books in the library and aplying it to the new technology a new branch of science was created, one that only the personel of NeoTerra with a level five of higher autorization could know. But now that knowledge was filtred to the media creating an even bigger unrest between corporations.
Morales was taken out of his prayer by Joseph "Mr Morales we can get out of this we always do."
"I already did." Morales takes a picture out of his pocket and stares at it for five seconds "my dear boy and wife."
"I am very sorry about your loss but how that has anything to do with..." but was cut of by a chuckle from his boss.
"Loss? what loss? i never lost them," said Morales laughing.
Fearing for the sanity of his boss Joseph could only say "sir?".
"I know she lost to much blood giving birth but she survived... barely, i know that VTOL crash was catastrophyc but Neo barely got any scratches, i just said they died for coverup", said Morales giving a sad smile.
"Why?" asked Joseph.
"The future my friend, the future. Some time ago we found an anomaly in the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The pressure, the conditions and the materials present in the tectonic fault created a spacetime singularity, a portal between dimensions." Joseph's face was of disbelief and Morales paused to let him assimilate what he said.
"The probes that we send through gave few data to us due to the unpredictable nature of 'the rift' before falling in a weak but constant transmission assuring us its presence but every data was the same assuring us that wherever it is at the other side is always the same place, even we managed to put a sattelite in orbit, again not much data was obtained from it except that it collided with something leaving the planet's atmosphere but it didn't recieved much damage, we are still recieving a signal from it but we can not establish a solid transmision to know the topography of the new planet.
"However, before disapearing the barometric and atmosferic scanners showed that the air pressure and the atmosphere constitution is optimal for human life.
"after their suposed deaths i dscovered that they both had a quite particular affinity to orgone, so imade them my first conscripts of the new step in history of humanity. THE ARKS."
"Arks?" asked Joseph.
"Yes Joseph, arks." in that moment a wall opened revealing a giant screen which showed the images of several floating citadels, each of the containing hundreds if not thousands of vials with what looked like fetuses each of them connected to a cable from their spines. And amidst all of the citadels was one who looked quite larger than the others.
"that's the 'Prime Ark', the center of all and"-Morales pressed a button and the image shifts to something that Joseph could hardly believe-" where lies her." the image showed a woman suspenden by her feet in what can only be described as twirling bolts of energy that also passed throug her hands, surrounded by a big wall of mist that moved whit her hair in a non existent wind with two wires coming out of both sides of her head and going to the source of the energy lines that held her in her possition. it was like something taken out of a fantasy/science fiction movie.
"She's now fleet command, she acts as an orgone reactor, giving energy to all of the arks. And now, my beloved Miso, you'll give humanity a new chance along with our son, Neo." the image changed showing a baby, a bit more grown-up than the fetuses in the other tubes.
"Wait, where did you got the other babies?" asked Joseph.
"They are the rejected, unwanted sons and daughters of people who didn't understand the value of a life." Joseph's face filled with realization.
"do you mean... aborts?" asked Joseph, horror in his face.
"although abortion is illegal, people always wants to get rid of the responsibility and the blessing that is parenthood. so i decided to give them a new chance, i tracked all the clandestine abort clinics and gave them a machine that uses orgone to make abortions without actually killing the baby, instead putting it in stasis and so when they arrive the stasis capsule filled with orgone which comes from the orgone sea in which Miso is floating they will age at an extremely fast pace, reaching physicaly the age of 17 approximately in a one year term.
"But obviously they'll need to age mentally as well so in the year they are gong to be in that capsule they will be in a computer generated virtual reality that simulates a pacific modern world which is entirely based on a school. there they are going to learn and live all the years that they are going to have when they awake. the simulation is designed to prepare them for all the challenges that they may find in the other side including hostile indigenous life forms.
"We know that outside the rift there's an ocean like in this world so the arks will remain underwater in the meantime," finished Morales before the dumbfounded expression of Joseph.
A very loud alarm sounded and every man and machine that was loading and preparing the ark left and every hatch and door closed and the locks that held the arks in position released themselves letting the arks floating in the sea "it's time," said Morales and then all the arks proceeded to submerge, as the arks slowly disapeared into the dark waters of the abyss so did the dread in Morales' heart "goodbye my wife and son," said Morales wiping a tear from his eye as the footage showed the ships getting closer to the rift until a bolt of energy strucked every vessel one at one in a chain, disapearing into whatever the new world had for them "i'll miss you."
END
