"Are we clear?", asked Mick. "No, not yet let's wait for the signal", Arthur said, though he himself did not expect a signal. "I'm not staying here any longer".
[Radio]: Arthur, Mick, do you copy?
"Yes"
[Radio]: Alright proceed to the planned exit, but take the alternate route, you might be chased by the Red and blues.
"Thanks for the heads up, not like we didn't know it" Arthur replied with a hue of amusement in his voice. Arthur and Mick, receiving the signal, start their car and rev up the engine to its max. "Fukin hell Arthur, we better make it out alive", "oh we will", the car drifts to the exit gate and they smash through the red and white barrier and sure enough the police was on them. "You think we can lose 'em?", asked Arthur in an attempt to cool down Mick. "I don't know about that, my main concern is that we make it out alive." "Hahaha, we will bro, we will". Arthur intends to lead the police car down to an old cave as previously planned by the team, the road that led to the cave was wet and steep, and as skilful as Arthur was, he knew he wouldn't lose control. He sped up the car, shifted gears and was aiming for top speed. "Might wanna slow down a little, Arthur." As they raced on the steep road a curve was up ahead; looking in the rear-view mirror, he saw that the police car slowed down. "Huh? Couldn't even chase me for the heck of it", as Arthur comfortably took the sharp turn.....
A barricade was set up.
Arthur, as quickly as he could, turned the steering wheel to make a sharp right and drifted back to the road where the previous police car chasing them set up their barricade.
"Holy shit! We're busted now, no way we make it out alive, it's over" Mick exclaimed. "Shut your mouth, and listen to me, I'll stop the car midway between the two barricades, and we make a run for it!", "On foot?", "Yes on foot you idiot, how else? Or did Prince here order our ass a getaway helicopter?"
Arthur midway, jerked the parking brake and the two rear tires screeched and the car came to a halt.
"Run, run, run" exclaimed Arthur.
[Gunshots fired]
"Ahhh! Shit", cried Mick, "you okay? Shit, you're bleeding. You got shot in your lungs", "Ruu-uun wit-hout me..... iiii", "I'm sorry Mick, I really am, I don't believe this", shamefully Arthur turned around and ran for his life. He took a massive tumble downhill and skidded past thorny branches and sharp rocks to the main road downhill. "Hello, can anyone hear me, ahhh, please, replyyyy, pleaseee!!".
[Radio]: Arthur? What the hell happened?
"We were chased and they knew of our escape route, we stopped the car and ran on foot, then they shot us, I don't know if Mick is dead, but I had to leave him behind, he was shot on his back through his lungs."
[Radio]: What in the heck? You're telling us now? Where are you currently?
"Main 68 Avenue, I tumbled down the fucking hill"
[Radio]: Stay there and don't move much, we're coming to you.
[Next Day]
Arthur: You said the route was clear.
Jason: Look Arthur we don't know when or how the police found out.
Arthur: That was your job.
Jason: Arthur, we're in this together, none of us kne-
Arthur: IT WAS YOUR FUCKING JOB! WE LOST MICK BECAUSE OF YOU!
Arthur grabs Jason by his collar and smacks him again at the wall. Leo and Harry split them up in a hurry.
Arthur: I'm out of here, no more, no more of your bullshit, I lost my best friend for what? For what Jason?! For a couple thousand dollars and the police are on us too. How long can we keep this up? Losing more people by the day, that's it, I've decided, I will live as an ordinary citizen in this shit world even though I know I won't survive; anything is better than this.
Arthur, with a tear in his eye, turns his back on his three partners and walks out of the dorm, heading straight for his dad's home, where he hadn't been since five months.
[Context]
In a world of malice and hunger; where the weak suffer and the strong persist, where the poor exist and the rich live, where life has no meaning except money, jewels, pleasure, where materialism overshadows humanity, lived a kid, born without talent, without a genius in him. This is the tale of Arthur. Arthur was born in 3003, his mom and dad were your average tax-paying slaves to the rich, they worked under WSTO (world space technology organization), times were harsh, but humanity struggled and survived as WSTO showed them a dream, a dream which awakened hopes in the heart of people, there was famine, drought, vegetation was only heard of and read about in books, greenery was non-existent, the world was in piles of metal and scrap. WSTO, had 50 members, all of whom were filthy rich and took control of the world, they lived in a central town above the mountains of Central Union Country, which was known as 'Russia' in the early 2000s. The world, even with extremely advanced technology could not conquer mother nature, the earth could not support life anymore, with no animals, no clean water, and no trees, life was impossible. That was until Lab-made water was deemed 'healthy' by WSTO, dwellers of the earth think it's all a lie because natural deaths have increased in number ever since Hydrogen and Oxygen were combined chemically by humans. Arthur's parents, being average dwellers lived a miserable life, along with the other 2 million people on earth, they had no food either. When Arthur was 6 years old, his mother passed away due to cancer, and later his Father became a drug addict to cope with the pain of life. It was unimaginable that this very earth was capable of supporting 8 billion people. As Arthur grew up he studied the dream of WSTO; WSTO claimed time travel was possible, and all humanity had to do was travel back in time, buy the crops and seeds and bring them back to the present, a simple solution for such a devastating problem. The only drawback? Well, time travel isn't discovered or 'made' yet. Arthur knew that time travel wasn't possible, at least not in his lifetime. As time passed on Arthur started going out and making friends, he would rarely be home, he couldn't stand the pathetic sight of his alcohol-stanched father, his drowsy eyes, shambled walk, and he couldn't bear a second in his presence. At an early age, Arthur lost many of his friends to cancer, cancer was common as the only thing left in the earth's atmosphere was a dish of carbon dioxide, a glass of humid air, a bowl of infinite radiation, with a side of leftover oxygen. One of Arthur's best friends, Mick, survived his childhood as well, it was when both of them reached adolescence that WSTO finally decided to rid the earth of harmful radiations and biochemical wastes. Had they done so sooner, Arthur's mother, his friends and so many people on earth would have survived. When Arthur and Mick decided that the only way to survive in this miserable world was to take what people have, to rob people of their homes, their money, and in some cases, their lives. Arthur and Mick found 3 other partners and began their heist for food, and money. Meanwhile, WSTO claimed that they had designed a portal which connected Earth's space-time to a wormhole present far in the supercluster 'laniakea'. But so far all their experiments resulted in test subjects disappearing and never coming back. 'Hopeless' thought Arthur. On the other hand, Arthur and Co began gaining popularity, among the people and the police, they were now feared at every corner of the planet, and the police were on them. Their heists consisted of robberies and murders, all in a vague effort for food. Some of their escapades would result in a bag of potatoes and others in containers full of cash, where the former was more valuable. It was until Jason, a partner from 'work' got the news that WSTO had an agency near the foothills of Central Union Country, and they stored food there for the rich, the place had bread, butter, milk, and even water! Arthur and his team decided not to break the news to the world, and to have it all for themselves, they began formulating a plan. But Arthur had a gut feeling, that this was wrong, all of it, the situation, the entire world, every human deserved food, regardless of his thoughts, he went ahead with the plan. Being famous thugs, it was inevitable that the police caught them sooner or later, but all rational thinking went out the window for Jasin as all he had on his mind was bread. The plan was as follows: Jason will be in his minivan, which he'll park outside the agency, the two security guards will want to confront him; the minivan had a series of generators, that could generate high energy radiations, and temporarily mess up their CCTV. When that is done Leo and Harry will sneak in and use the blueprints to map their way to the food vault, on the other hand, Arthur and Mick would act as decoy. The plan went smoothly, the generators did their work, Leo and Harry went in, and Jason killed the two security guards with a silenced Glock. Soon, the generators ran out of power and CCTV's were back online and all alarms went off, Harry and Leo had about 3 minutes to stuff as much food as they could in duffle bags and make a run for it, as they appeared through the entrance, Jason started the minivan, signalled Arthur and seamlessly went away. Whereas Arthur smashed into a barrier, set off more alarms, and captured all attention, little did Arthur know that the Police had sealed their get-away route.
End of Chapter 1