In the early hours of the morning, the sun was hidden behind an endless grey clouds. Rain poured down drenching all the people without shelter.
On a derelict backstreet, one unlucky group of five workers were busy loading crates onto several lorries. Among that group was a short young man. He had dull yellow-green eyes, thick, short, black hair that clung to his dirt covered face. His face had hallowed cheeks and a small nose. His arms were skinny with only a small amount of muscle and his body seemed thin and weak.
This was Thurman smudge, an eighteen year old vagrant worker. Having been raised in an orphanage in the Mibogle union, Thurman was forced into working by the age of twelve. Like most orphans, Thurman never gained a foster family and stopped going to school at the age of twelve due to a lack of money for further education.
Thurman moved from place to place with a few of his friends from the orphanage, hoping to find any job which could pay for them to eat. This was not an uncommon sight, overpopulation and increased costs of living resulted in poverty affecting more than ninety percent of the population.
The lucky would find a place of permanent work, the unlucky would be taken somewhere when they were caught with an out-of-date rite of citizenship, which was a digital certificate stored on one's own communications bracelet.
Thurman couldn't be considered lucky or unlucky, though. He managed to save enough each month to pay for his rite of citizenship, although he sometimes went hungry. He had hit a lucky streak of jobs recently, managing to save enough credits for the next weeks food.
This was hardly a surprise though, in recent months the government has clamped down on the rite-less, making it harder for employers looking to save a few credits on practically free labour, this resulted in a drastic increase in one day jobs available.
Sadly, this also meant that Thurman had lost the last of his friends that left with him from the orphanage due to this. After all, if you became a rite-less, you would never be able to get it back.
Still, Thurman was happy that two of his friends managed to get on the Mars colonisation fleet, at least. They were struggling to save up credits and might have lost their citizen rights soon if they were still here. Thurman even gave his spot to his friend when they failed to get a spot.
"That's the last of them", a man shouted, looking at his clipboard. "Here are your credits for the day, good work", the man then gave each of the five men their hard earned credits for the work through their communication bracelets.
"Oi! Smidge, was it?" One of the workers, a muscular man, six foot tall with blonde curly hair, asked getting Thurman's attention. "Names Armen, Armen Stryker."
"It's Smudge actually", Thurman corrected.
"Right, I'm planning on heading down to The Yellow Rooster to watch the news, the latest report on the Mars coloniser ships. Want to come?"
"Uh yeah, sounds like fun. I guess I could spare a bit, the ship should be reaching Mars soon, right?"
"Nah!" Armen replied as the group stood in the rain, not bothering to find shelter as they were already drenched, "First drinks on me"
"Sorry Armen", said one of the other workers, "I'm heading to the post office, I need to send the weekly video message to my family."
"Ah, sorry Randy I forgot it was today?" Armen responded, a tinge of disappointment in his voice. "It's a shame though, we haven't had a chance to talk for the last month, will you meet us at The Yellow Rooster after you're done?"
"Actually, I'll watch it at the post office, I might be able to get a live chat open to talk to my wife, I've been on the list for a month now," the man known as Randy responded.
"Well, good luck Randy, tell Melinda I said hi if you get the chance. What about you two? Sharl, Filde, are you coming?" Armen continued, talking to the other two.
One of the men, a dark skinned, bald man in his thirties, simply nodded. The other, a youth like Thurman, with dirty blonde hair and a scar under his eyes, ran ahead yelling "I'll mee'cha there, I need to check on my friends."
Having shrunk down to a group of three, they walked in the rain. Fifteen minutes later they arrived at a small pub. The windows were relatively clean, and the paint had peeled away long ago, revealing the grey brick beneath. Engraved in the stone above the door was 'The Yellow Ro ster' a part of which had fallen off.
As they entered the pub, all that could be seen were a few table a bar ahead and a large-ish T.V. on the right wall. The only person in the pub at the time, a man in his late forties wearing a fedora and a nice black suit and tie, short brown hair, a scar on his cheek and a glass eye. He turned to the group who just entered and smiled
"Armen, I'm surprised to see you hear in this rain, you here to see the news?"
"Yeah, we managed to get an early job this morning, where's Dillon shouldn't he be sweeping right about now?" Armen responded, clearly a regular of the place.
"Money's been tight recently, so Dillon is out looking for some temporary work, I called the other barkeeper, Jade, she should be here soon." The man responded, indicating he was the manager of this establishment, "I see Sharl is with you today, and who is this new face, I don't think I've seen you around these parts, you a vagrant?"
"I'm Thurman Smudge, sir." Thurman responded.
"Nice to meet you, I'm Ash, the manager of this fine establishment. Come in, come in, and take a seat. You might dry off before the news starts in thirty minutes. Sorry I can't get you anything, the damp makes my old wounds ache." Ash responded.
The group continued to chat as they waited for the time the news came up. Ash Mainly talked about the time before the war and the way the world used to be. Armen talked about how some of the regulars moved or lost their rite of citizenship.
Jade came in later and served them all drinks. She was around nineteen years old, had long curly blonde hair, sky blue eyes and a smile that made you relax. She wore A white shirt and black pants, as she got to the bar she put on a yellow apron with a rooster on the left, the logo of the pub.
Just as the T.V. was switched on, Filde, the youth from before, burst through the doors, shouting "Am I late!"
"Nah, Filde. The news is just about to start," Armen replied, "Jade,, get the lad a... what ever that nutritional drink is. Something-nutri-something C."
"Super Nutri-solution C, sir?" Jade responded.
Filde simply nodded, sitting down on a chair facing the T.V.
The news started moments later, a man in a blue suit wearing a white laughing mask behind a desk was on the screen. This was the normal attire for news reporters in the present, to keep their identity hidden from the general public.
The man started with the usual reports: murders, areas where there weren't enough workers, weather. After half an hour the news finally turned to the Mars colonisation ships.
"'The Mars colonisation ships will land on Mars in the next thirty minutes, the video feeds will have a three minute delay due to the distance. As you are all aware, these ships set off four months ago to create our first other world colony. Let's move over to our news reporter.... news just in, a report just came into the station, their are some electromagnetic storms between us and the ships, their may be interference with the broadcasts. Now we shall move to our news reporter on the Mars ships, we apologise for the poor quality."
The picture then changed to a man wearing the same uniform as the other news reporter, except for 'MARS' being written on the mask. The broadcast was often distorted, occasionally to the point where only blurred colours could be seen.
"This is th.... reporter on Ma.. nisation ship Micro-5... Resi... are.... to land.... no prob... have occurred during th........ I ha..."
Then the picture cut off, a 'we are experiencing technical difficulties' screen then appeared for a few minutes, before turning back to the first news reporter.
"Sorry for the inconvenience, the storm appears to have cut off our signal. Do not worry though, the last report from the colonisation fleet informed us that there is nothing wrong and that the operations are going smoothly. While we wait for the signal to return, I will briefly discuss the history of the Mars colonisation plan."
"You think everything's gonna be alright?" Filde asked, worry on his face.
"There's nothing we can do even if there were a problem", Ash mediated, trying not to panic the rest, "thought I'd get a few more customers during the news though, that blasted rain is gonna be the death of this place."
The news report continued, talking about the Terraforming of Mars just before the war broke out, failed attempts at creating portals, the success of cryogenics, the building of the ships on the space station and finally the sales of the tickets. The news reporter then started to talk about the reason the electromagnetic storm was interfering with communications and why they weren't able to detect it.
"I hope Randy managed to get a video to his family on the Mars ships, though I guess he might not have had a chance to talk with them. Smidge, anyone you know on the ships?" Armen asked, clearly annoyed that they couldn't see the Mars ships land.
"I said it's Smudge." Thurman corrected, causing Armen to laugh and apologise, "I have two friends on there, one was pregnant and probably would have become rite-less if I didn't give them my ticket, the other got their ticket before me. Both of them would probably been caught by the enforcers by now if they didn't go." Thurman continued, slightly down when he remembered the rest of his friends getting caught by enforcers.
Before they could continue their discussion, the news witched back to the live report on the ships, only this time their were a few people who weren't wearing masks, blood was on their faces.
"The ships... Des..... eor..."
That was all that could be seen before they were pulled away by an invisible force before the screen went back to before. Just as the first news reporter was about to respond, the T.V. turned off and the Earth began to shake.
Thurman fell out of his chair and saw out of the window that a bright light was coming from the left, lighting up the street.
Pointing it out, everyone rushed out of The Yellow Rooster, Armen helped Ash get out. They all looked towards the light, only to see a giant pillar of light in the distance.
"The capital is in that direction", Ash commented, trepidation in his voice,"Only thing worth attacking that I can think of", he continued, trying to shake the shock of what is happening, "that can't be a nuke though, the light there is like a pillar and there's no mushroom cloud, and we aren't feeling anything from it either."
Before anyone could comment, almost as if He jinxed it, everyone felt a strange tingling in their head.
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⦿Total population death has exceeded 100,000,000,000
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⦿Dimensional array linking with planet 0000A3A105
⦿System interface setup started
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