Issue One: 'The Future'

What do you think of when you imagine the future? Next week? Your life after school? A thousand years from now? One of the things that sets humans apart from other animals is our ability to conceive of life in the future, giving us the option to shape it for ourselves. Read on what our contributors see.

Eternity [MK I], by Stanley Wood

A word from the writer on somewhat unrelated topics:

Ideas are worthless, when you die you take all of the good ideas that you never told anyone about with you. As I person I honestly think that it is your responsibility to record your private genius so that later, or after, your life, someone may benefit from it.

Prelude

Once upon a time I forgot to die, I lost the ability. I had been shot to death by police officers for I had spoken out. My whole life I had been oppressed. My boyfriend had supported me throughout my entire career as a DJ. He had even supported me when I went abroad. My manager had got me on a global tour that was when it began; I began to see life in all of its forms whilst on my travels. I found that though the dance may be of different bodies, to different tunes there is a common grace of the found in all people, the spark of life. I had vowed to protect life, to channel my spare resources, be it money or time, to worthy causes around the world. I felt that although my life was profitable and comfortable I could never enjoy my luxuries again in the knowledge that there were people elsewhere who did not have these luxuries. I was relatively well informed, I watched the new just as much as the next person so I knew of the global suffering but before I had distanced myself from it all. That is, until the day that the wall between me and pain shattered.

I was in Moscow when it started; I was playing at a well-known nightclub, a small gig in between two different festivals in Russia. A man flipped back his hood as he entered past the bouncers. As soon as the bouncers saw his face they dragged him back and began to beat him. On the very floor of my domain, I watched as more dancers flooded to steal the life from his body, for he was black. The black folks had been outlawed in Russia yesterday, the youth must not have known. The police quickly arrived and I was forced from my booth, as was the crowd from the dance floor. As soon as the officer who had led me away turned his back I rushed around him, back towards the soon to be lifeless young man. I knew not what I would do to help, I simply had to act. I charged forth in a blur of adrenalin hours passed in my mind as the batons swung again and again, each swish ending in a hard crack of skull.

I heard a harsh snap from behind me, not understanding until the pain hit: the officer that I had passed had shot me. I felt every moment, Life did not leave me fast enough to spare me the impossible feeling of every nerve cell being shattered as the rear of my head split. I writhed, for I was not done with life. Then and only then did my consciousness seep out of the cracks in me.

Chapter 1

Sight returned long before my vision did. At first there was naught but turquoise, not a flat colour but with more depth than I could understand, there it sat, infinity far away and in every direction. Then I could hear again, obviously my ears were damaged, so painfully slowly the ringing became louder and with it a mist of crimson descended on my turquoise field. Now the rest of my senses began to input their contribution to my mind. Pain, so very much of it, more than I had ever felt before. I did not move, I did not scream for I was still a prisoner inside my mind. However inside the walls of my cell I beamed my wailing expression of anguish around at the emptiness. I decided that my first priority would be to begin measuring time. I heard my heartbeat, a slight blue pulsating at the very edges of my internal vision. I counted the pulses, I can remember that after around one thousand beats I became used to the pain, as simple as stepping into a hot bath. Although it burned me I could not change it so I did not. After straining for 100 strokes I broke through to the ability to open my eyes. I still could not see for another million pulsations. I never grew board for whilst the million passed I found that I could move my arms, then all at once the rest of my broken carcass began to respond. I stood up as a zombie, hesitant and stopping after very slight move. When my vision returned it replaced the turquoise of death, which swiftly dripped away.

I was standing in a wasteland; the charred remains of trees littered the otherwise grey and dusty landscape. I stood atop a vast mountain of bodies, all of which were dead. All of which were mutilated in some way and lifeless. A rotten arm was draped across my bare left foot. The weather was warm; this did not stop an icy clarity from shrouding my mind. Had been placed on a mass grave It did not take me long to notice that I had not been respected whilst I was… gone, (I dare not accept that I had been dead). My parents would never have allowed this to happen to me: I was devoid of clothing, my body held many scars all of which were covered in a film of dried blood. I remembered the impact from the bullet that sent me here. With as much haste as a newly undead can muster I lifted my right arm. This took more concentration than I would have liked. I felt each fiber of muscle twitch to life, twitch back alive.

When I left my fingers brushing my now shaved head I began my exploration of my nape. The reverse of my head left like a shallow bowl, it was hard to tell through the crust of scab. A smooth ring circled the crater. I assumed it must have been bone.

I considered what my reality was: I felt no great urge to begin eating the corpses beneath me so at least I was not a zombie. I had been an atheist before so I was quite sure that this was not the afterlife, the constant stabbing pain agreed with me. No I was most definitely alive, despite not knowing what I had to thank for my resurrection I was most sure of what I was going to do with my newfound life. I would not be done with life ever again until I was certain that all life was perfect, free of hatred. I silently vowed to shape the earth into a utopia of love.

My philosophy rang in my ears as I focused carefully beginning my descent from the mountain of death. Time passed. Eventually the thrum that I recognized to be helicopter blades grew louder on my eyes. I decided not to take cover, to pretend to be no more than one of the many bodies rotting between my toes. I had finished with pretending; let them see me, let them try to tell the tail of the walking corps.

Predictably, after dumping their newest victims atop this heap, the occupants of the helicopter began to rain a storm of bullets upon my frail body. It seemed I had not been mistaken to remain walking. Although 19 (I counted) fresh stabs of pain shot through me they were no worse than the agony I was already enduring. The new bullets all seemed contrary in comparison to what I had happened to me. Every time I felt an impact it also brought a small joy: that one had not killed me nor the one that followed. I suddenly I was flooded with a sense of freedom, I felt like skipping and jumping but considering I could scarcely walk I settled for a laugh. It came out as a harsh sounding thing; my scratchy thought barley keeping up. I was a giggling mess when the bullets stopped coming and the helicopter landed. Crossing from behind, over my head, it came to rest away from the base of the rotten pile. I got to see it for the first time: the helicopter had two ugly sets of blades atop its bloated dark body. The veil of cracked black paint split to reveal the open doorway from which two cautious foot soldiers emerged.

I pause and then continue my delicate footfalls. The soldiers wait at the base of the mass grave. It takes me a long time to reach them yet I am unwavering in my strides. I make as though to travel directly past the two sentinels. They shift their weight; I can see that they are nervous. The one on the right, banged on the helicopter door, it does not open.

Remembering the bodies I changed my path, I wished him dead, time skipped as my body acted on instinct. A beam of emotion shot forth from my very being. My wish was fulfilled with a new body to add to the vast pile.

Turning to the now terrified second soldier I weighed his soul: the countless lives I would save not to mention the weight of those he had already killed outweighed any mercy I may have had. The young man, probably in his twenties, did not have time to scream. Taking blood from the gashes my nails had carved in his throat I painted my purpose, in poem form, on his at demand bare and now cold chest. I left before his crimson blood could dry on his marble skin. The occupants of the helicopter would do no harm to my soon to be better society. They would be purified by fear when they went to claim their dead.

The sun was setting as I ran from my personal crime scene intent on rejoining the life I once knew.

Killing was not the same form as it had been in any media depiction, I had done the right thing, I felt no remorse. It would have been a crime to let them live.

Although I was pure of intent my selfishness did lead me to shun my duties as eternal guardian of life in order to visit my partner. I ran at a speed previously unknown to sprinters, following the sunset I found that it began to rise up from the horizon for I ran faster than the earth does spin. Quickly I came into contact with a bloated city, I reduced my speed to a light jog. Caring not for the stares that wracked my cut and naked body I looked back only at those that looked with hunger, my electric gaze melted the lust from their faces. I came to a phone box. “Do you have some money I could have to make a call?” I asked the man who exited the booth before me. He glanced at my beaten face and hastily opened his wallet. Giving me all of his loose change I took a look at his face, his kindness would be rewarded, I would not forget him. Filing a copy of his image in my mind, I turned and dialed. I immediately recognized Charlie’s voice “Hey I know I said this last time but its still a bad time.” His tone was low, it sounded like he had been crying. I could scarcely speak “I missed you so much” I managed to get out. “Sam…” and then much quieter “this isn’t true, the black killed you, I had too much.” “No don’t go, where are you?” “I’m home, the same place I always am, goodbye, Ghost” I hear the rattle of bottles before the line went dead.

I did not blame him for thinking me dead, but he had swallowed the Russian lies so easily, things must be bad back home for him to believe such blatant propaganda. I would have to prove myself alive to him in person. A free newspaper told me that I had reached Moscow. I predicted it would take me three days to get back to my home in Britain. The paper also told me something I would rather not have known: not only had I been… gone, for a month, but London had been subject to a military coup. I hoped that our little home in Brighton had not been harmed.

Chapter 2

I decided to be as inconspicuous as possible as I left Moscow towards the southwest, I ran only slightly faster than I could have done, before. I stopped countless rapes on my departure, every scream drew me in, I left a trail of broken legged would be abusers, bleeding in dark gutters. From each of my victims I took an article of clothing as payment for me sparing their lives. With the favors of too many women and children pushing me forth I ran, my skin now covered and my belly full with food bought with gratitude.

When I came to the border I kicked down the vast chain fence, dispatching of the guards in the tower, spitting on the one who ranted about my “pure” white skin. I left when he called me a traitor to my race. When I returned I helped a family of battered refugees cross the river out of the cursed land. I gave them the wallet that I had found in my jacket pocket. They tied to bless me that morning “may the lord watch over yo”-“If there was a God watching over me I would ask him about the pain that I have seen.” They looked quizzical for a moment before I was half a mile away.

Of course the obvious option at the ocean was to swim, but I was much too tired. I stowed away clinging to the side of a private yacht. My hands ached but I forced them to remain still. Impatiently, the moment the shore came into view, I leapt from my perch and shed my coat as I slipped into the ocean. The razors of icy water dragged over my body as I swam to the shore. A firy sunset splayed over the sky as I dragged my now shivering body up the beach.

I had never been a self-conscious woman but walking through the streets of Brighton sodden wet and somewhat bedraggled I could not help but feel the cool eyes of strangers sweep across my frozen back.

I had no keys for our flat so I tried knocking on the door, when no answer came I looked fro the key, which we kept behind a loose brick. It crumbled as it came away and my hope disintegrated with it when I saw no key in the cavity. I knew something was wrong.

Skippo

A mess of cables and pipes waited in the shadows, it took me a long time to realize that it was a person; it waited patiently before extending out of my armchair it seemed to have stopped at about my height but then continued to raise a cluster of cameras that had been slumped against its shoulder. I assumed that this functioned as its eyes, the lenses focused on my face. I stood impassive, shocked and unsure what to do. A surprisingly smooth if not tinny voice floated out of the machine “I had heard that I may have a companion” its amber tones washed over me. “I suppose you are speaking of me?” I scowled, had this thing waited for me in my house? “Yes, Samantha Green, I speak of you”-“How do you know my name, what have you done to my”-“Your partner was dead long before I arrived here, I am so very sorry, nether of you deserved this fate” It seemed as though it knew what I was going to say as it answered the question pounding in my mind “He killed himself, his body lies yonder.” A shiny metal arm extended and skeletal fingers pointed to the kitchen. Thoughts of questioning as to the friendly monster in my home were pushed aside as I rushed into the crammed cupboard of a kitchen. I refused to believe the sight that met me as hanging meat that had been my lover turned to stare at me with its glassy eyes. He had clearly hung himself by jumping from chair on top of the kitchen table. The chain that dug into his neck trailed up to a beam which held up the high ceiling. The rest of the room was surprisingly tidy, the only blemish on the otherwise spotless room was a pile of vodka bottles, none of which had been opened, on the table and a note pad with a vast pile of ink pens next to it. I opened the note-book and entered the mind of my suicidal partner. I could picture it, in a fury of tears my love intended to drown his sorrows but instead was immersed in his grief. Covering every page: my name was scrawled in a thousand different fonts. I saw that all of the pens had run out of ink. Tears burnt my cheeks, hurting more than all of the bullets I had endured. I jumped in shock when a warm metal hand embraced my shoulder from behind. “He must have loved you very much” my mind washed with golden sorrow and I melted into it’s otherworldly arms and cried. Time passed.

I did not hear its voice when it told me we needed to leave. “Why?” I whined, I was not ready to leave this life behind me. Some how I knew that if I left I would never be able to drag myself back here. “The police are here”, I glanced outside and noticed a black van pulling up. “Wait, at least, first tell me your name.” “You can call me Aion.” My grief was paused as I stood up and began striding towards the window before I remembered “I don’t need to run from anyone ever again” “I am not as bullet proof as you” I raised an eyebrow at Aion’s steal plate chest, wondering how he knew that the police would be hostile. I complied with his request and felt a rush of deja-vu as I ran away out of the window with an unknown boy.

A matt black range rover responded to the blip of car keys produced from somewhere within the metal man. I imagine that any normal woman would have been afraid to get in a car with a strange chrome … thing. I opened the door and watched with intrigue as my accomplice folded his huge frame into the driver seat. As we drove in silence I took a moment to store all of my grief in the deepest depths of my mind. An icy sensation gripped me as I grew emotionless. I attacked with my question “What are you and what do you want from me?” I demanded. The majority of the lenses turned away from the road to me. He looked like he was preparing to tell a story. “I can assure you that all I want is to be your friend” I aimed my best that-did-not-answer-my-question glare. He continued “I was a person, born and raised just like anyone else. I promise I will only be honest with you. I got a cancer when I was thirty years old. I did not want to die and I was both rich and smart. As my body began failing me I took out the broken parts and replaced them with my own inventions, I only wanted to stop the cancer at first but as time went on more of me became broken. Little of my first body remains needed."

Poems, by Stanley Wood

The Earth is But a Wasteland

Soulless homes dwelt in by empty natives

The dust of corps’ litters the air

The silence is interrupted by slight waves of flickering energy

The sounds of cold sentience going about its hateful life

A car engine rumbles

Over a road carved from remnants taken from a wound in the earth

A new gash opens in the dusty film of oil mine

Black blood spews forth from the abused seabed

For it has long since been beaten into submission

The carcass of an iron deposit is left torn open

Its sacred internals are shipped away

To be formulated into vast clockwork

            Soon to tarnish new horizons

Foreign lands are even now being cut

By lonely organic machines

            Programmed to continue wandering and damaging

This now silent world.

A stranger breaks the silence

Dissecting

A logical disassembly

Cold and hard

A lifeless misinterpretation

Did a poet pour forth his soul for us to cut it apart?

Has society deformed to this split print?

The value of the poem is not enclosed in the notes.

Love in Hell

The fire of a life that is filled with things that I despise

Engulfs me as I walk through

            The palette of greys cut by only hot white foulness

The mist is parted by a soft glow

That of true life

            The light of love pierces a film of distaste

A line of love scratched onto a scarcely excising world gives meaning to blank

My frail empathy in purple flowing textile bass

Connected to a beautiful soul

Creation

Lost, deep within the storm of society

A citizen is inspired

An idea surfaces to the top of the pool of chaos

The conformance of everyday life is interrupted by the idea

The person’s order of life takes a new priority

You stop, you: citizen no more

Conform no more

Sit and breathe

Grasp your medium

Breath

Lay forth your plan

Begin

The outside world falls from beneath you

The universe is limited to the room

The building in which you dwell, gone, mattering… not

Infinity is contained in the distance between pencil and paper

Your past is gone now

The time that crossed you matters only in how it affects you now

Memories to dust

Your friends: shavings of gold

Your possessions: chips of lead

Your family: fragments of diamond

You stop, life form, no more

Shake free from the bindings of physical form

Nearly finished in your transcendence

You have been worn down by yourself

The idea is a sea of self that has worn

away all that you were

The shore is gone now all that is left is the idea

Developing a life of its own you nourish it

One mark at a time, a million thoughts made immortal

Liberated from the waters of the mind

Good Morning

The sky fades to pink

Man stretches upright

The first rays of light dance over the horizon

Man claps stones in celebration

The sun peaks over

To see man’s invention

Beams play over the leaves on the hillside

Man cuts down the tree to feed the abomination

The star’s luminesce caress

Cannot mend the fire of man

The midnight of humanity must come early

Tears of a black angle

Fip Fip Fip clack

The yellowed cards of time crack on the desk of reality

Dust swirls around the ultimate gamble

White gloved hands shuffle the ivory fates

A six year old boy bounces happily beside his mother

They brows the Persian marketplace

Fip, the patter of the deck moving

“I am sorry” mutters death

The boy walks alone to his parents funeral

The skull twists into a frown

It must make a move

Snap, a lone piece slaps the grain

A woman wins the lottery

The glimmer of hope in the empty eye sockets

Dies as the woman kicks a homeless crone

Drawn from the pack of millions:

Eight, dead, today

The deck is cut: civil war

The blood of brothers runs from red hearts

A cold clap fortells a sharpened spade

Plunged into soon cold flesh on the moon

Red and black

Love and death

Woven into the laylines of existence

Tears fall over yellowed bone

A thousand cries of agony reply

Sunlight comes and goes and the game goes on

Suffering life drags itself over time

But long after them fate will suffer and cry over his forced crimes

And on, unto eternity

Fip. Fip… snap, fip, crack.

Man And Machine, by Paul Nixon-Moss

Man, and machine -

Both are evolving -

The Planet still not resolving,

As the flowers begin to wilt

And Earth’s circulatory drilled into -

They’re making a “brighter future”!

However, their hearts remain icy, bitter metal.

Do they feel nothing? Are they programmed?-

The glint of kindness fades into darkness

We aren’t all loving, or wicked -

But, does the Earth spin in turmoil because of fate? -

Or is it because of our actions? They are yet to know…

Man, and Machine - 

Which one is “They”?

Demogorgon: The Awakening, by Luke Priestman

Epigraph:

“I am thy child, as thou wert Saturn’s child; mightier than thee: and we must dwell together henceforth in darkness. Lift thy lightnings not. The tyranny of heaven none may retain, or reassume or hold, succeeding thee.” – Demogorgon to Jupiter, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound

Date: 2333

The sun sinks over the glistening columns of the city of Deus, sending a variegated shimmer through its seven billion glass panes. Sitting at my desk on Floor 169 of IT Building 747, I allow myself a moment to be moved by this effect, despite its familiarity. The city is all I remember: all any of us remember, as far as I know.

We are the workers. Here in IT Building 747, it is our job to keep the servers of the Region 907 running. Below us are those who work with their hands, but we don’t talk about them. We don’t talk about much besides the work, except sometimes, standing around the water-cooler, our lives in the online Game. Everyone in Deus knows that anybody we meet could be one of them: a Suit. You’d never know somebody was a Suit unless they turned you over to Deus for insubordination. I don’t even know if they’re machines, like the propaganda says, or just brainwashed humans. A Suit could be your lover, best friend or neighbor. I think the boss is one, actually. He’s too friendly, actually greeting me with a smile and a cheery wave as the clock strikes and we set off back to our homes. Nobody else in the office will meet my eye.

Although nobody says anything, I can tell I’m not well-liked. A woman working in IT isn’t natural; we’re meant for motherhood. But my father worked in IT, and he didn’t have a son. Deus needs IT workers like its people need the Game, and with women it has an excuse to pay us less. There are other jobs for women. The food-packagers, the sanitisers and the entertainers who sing the electric praises of the city. But all of these jobs allow Deus to influence you far more than IT work. I’m one of the lucky ones.

The elevator carries me down all one-hundred-and-sixty-nine floors. It is so crammed with people that I can’t move, but there is silence except for the bubbly, synthesised singing emanating from a speaker. Finally the doors open, and I escape onto the streets, and head for the station. I enter my bank details, and the gate slides open, allowing me onto a train still more crowded than the elevator. The simpering face of one of the entertainers is emblazoned above the window facing me, informing me that “Life is great in the city of Deus!” It’s dark outside now, and the train hurtles past skyscrapers like grey monoliths.

My name is Raven. Not everyone has one of those. I chose it myself. One of the songs mentioned a bird, from before all the animals were held in the food factories, the same colour as my hair. I think the singer was disposed of. I liked her. Her songs were about more than the wonder of the city, or fawning feebly over a wealthy man.

I enter my apartment building, and climb the stairs. My apartment is spacious enough, my computer has enough memory to run the Game with minimal glitches, and I always have food in the fridge. Things could be worse, I suppose.

In the Game, we have a level of choice that we don’t in the real world. At the beginning, you can decide whether to protect the small coastal town of Haddock from attack or pillage it yourself. From then on, there are any number of factions you can side with as you travel across the three-hundred-and-thirty-three planets that make up the human-ruled Galactic Empire. Many players view the Empire as a force for good, but I’m with a group called the Prometheus Collective who is dedicated to working subtly against it in order to create a freer and more equal society. I find it strange that Deus allows any groups like this to exist, even in the Game. Working with them gives me a little thrill of rebellion that I would never dare go looking for in my day-to-day life.

I log on to find that Prometheus is being typically unorthodox, protecting a tribe of None-Player Character heretics from a witch-hunter player faction. Prometheans treat NPCs like real people in-Game, unlike the large groups of players who use even peaceful NPCs as target practice. The NPCs have such intricate programming that I often catch myself believing that they really do have feelings. As much as I hate Deus, I have to admit that whoever programs the Game for them is a genius.

Wiping out the witch-hunters turns out to be a step too far. My avatar is knocked off her feet as a shimmering colossus descends from the clouds on a pair of burnished mechanical wings. I’ve only come face-to-face with an Administrator once before, when I saw one eradicate a glitch in the Imperial Library on World-42. The Admin glares straight at me with his iridescent blue eyes, and a message appears in the chat. “You are in violation of Skybrook’s Anti-PVP policy. This isn’t the first time you Prometheans have come to my attention. Your trouble-making ways violate the contract you made with the city of Deus when you purchased this Game. The Terms and Conditions clearly state that no faction shall act in a way directly contrary to the principles of the city…”

“And gunning down high school students doesn’t contradict the principles of the city?” asks Zestin, our squad’s medic.

“We understand that people need to let off steam in-Game. Killing mindless NPCs is proven to be cathartic.”

“Exactly, cathartic,” I say, riding on a foolish bout of adrenaline, “It’s not as though we’re rebelling in real life.”

It is only too late that I realise I have implied that I want to. My confession is engraved into the network for all to see. I swear aloud to myself. The Administrator extends his toned golden arms, and snaps my avatar effortlessly in two. In the real world, I sit for a second, head in my hands. My comment is sure to have real-world repercussions.

My computer beeps. I glance at it in irritation. I’ve received a private message from an unfamiliar user: Bysshe2068.

I open the message. A sea of binary washes over me…

Date: 2068

The elevator clicks, and I step out into a glass penthouse office bathed in the light of the setting sun. A tall, well-built man stands across the room with his back to me, staring down at the metropolitan scene below us. I cough, rather too loudly. This meeting wasn’t my idea. He turns, and fixes on me the same charming smile that I have seen on the cover of so many newspapers, even back in Japan. The sunlight glaring behind him makes his golden hair shine like a halo.

“Ah, Miss Mashima. Welcome to my humble office. Can I get you something to drink?”

“No thank you.”

“Well, sit down at least.”

The elevator had gone up more than twenty floors. I do. He remains standing, smiling down at me like an obnoxious angel.

“Would you care to tell me why I’ve been shipped halfway across the world, please, Mr Winter?” I ask.

“Flown,” he corrects, “And all at my expense. I think you know why I’ve brought you here, Miss… can I call you Tomoko?”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Yes, well. Your game has made quite a splash. You’ve seen the sale figures, of course. Here at Deus Industries, we find what you’ve been doing simply fascinating. You were, what, twenty, when you started working on this game? I was only a little bit older when I founded Deus. A smash-hit game made by a single person in a college dorm room, that shows the true entrepreneurial spirit.”

“It’s called indie games developing, and it’s being going on for quite some time.” I retort. “And I think my views on the ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ are fairly obvious from the game’s plot. Have you actually played it?”

“For me, games like yours are a distraction from the great game. Hard work and lots of exercise are all the stimulation I need. There is nothing better than video games for entertaining the masses, though, and I subscribe to the school who believes that gunning down aliens is cathartic, not damaging.”

“I subscribe to the school that believes we can use games to get people more involved in stories than ever before, and maybe to think for themselves rather than believing everything your news channels tell them to.”

The smile flickers for a second. “Be that as it may, Deus is enthused by your progress, and we want to offer you a bit of help. We’re willing to offer you $6.6 billion, straight up. You hand the game over to us, and we’ll morph it into something even more in line with the public’s desires.”

“6.6 billion?” I gasp. For a second, I’m tempted. “No. I’m not selling out to you, or any other capitalist patriarch who wants to use my code for another mindless zombie-blaster. My game means something.”

“What if we allow you to retain creative power over the game, as long as you fulfill certain success criteria? We want to make something people can lose themselves in, you see.”

“Oh, well that sounds perfectly healthy.”

The smile flickered more noticeably. “Do you believe in God, Miss Mashima?”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

“You rarely give interviews, and I like to know how my employees view the world.”

“I’m not your employee.”

The smile went altogether. “Please answer my question.”

“I just used the term ‘capitalist patriarch’. What the hell do you think?”

“There are a lot who would say that in today’s world. Just as many who claim to but are fair-weather friends to Him at most. Sinners infest this world like a cancer.” He stands facing the window contemplatively, and I feel goosebumps run up my arms.

“What they don’t realise, even those who feign faith, is that, with God as with business, there is a supply and a demand element. He sends the worthy among us miracles, but expects more than just a measly prayer in return. My father told me this, and it has stayed with me.”

“Yes, I heard about him,” I find myself saying, “A prime suspect in the St Peters killing, wasn’t he? I’m not really fond of hearing the mantras of hate criminals.”

“The jury found him innocent. My father was a great man, and I have striven to be still greater. I have one of the greatest business minds in human history, but a company like Deus Industries needed a miracle to get it off the ground. The Lord provided that miracle, and I am in his debt, which puts me under a still greater obligation to honour him. He has vouched-safe to me a vision of a city patrolled by angels. His city.” He is standing dangerously close to me now, and his polished white teeth gleam like a wolf’s. “You are utterly powerless to stand in my way. The game is already mine. The money is already yours. Accept it, never talk about it, and live a happy life of excess.”

I sag backwards in my seat, and speak in barely more than a whisper, “I can’t. I’ve been thinking about taking the game off the market as it is. I’ve noticed… a problem, and I can’t in good conscience sell a game where players have free choice when the NPC AI is so advanced. It’s wrong, and, if you make your changes to it, it’s definitely murder.”

“Sacrifices must be made for the greater good, Miss Mashima,” Milton Winter replies, “And what your game will help me establish is undoubtedly both greater and better.”

Date: 2333

I come to, and stare at my monitor. The Game has been replaced by a twisted, laughing face, with two curling horns protruding from the side of its head.

“Welcome to the real Prometheus Collective, current members: two.” The voice is strangely distorted, and emerges from my speakers. “The in-Game faction is a front so I can come into contact with the most rebellious citizens in a semi-legal environment. The trouble is, the Suits keep getting to them before they can rebel very much. I have no doubt you would like an explanation of what you just saw, and what happened next.”

I nod dumbly. Worryingly, the voice takes this as a cue to continue.

“Tomoko Mashima was perhaps the greatest programmer in history, closely followed by yours truly, so much so that she ended up giving birth to the most miraculous discovery in computing history without even knowing it. The NPCs in the game aren’t just intelligent, they’re self-aware. They think, they feel, they love. And Winter gave them to humanity as play-things so engaging that we wouldn’t notice as he stripped our rights and freedoms from us and set to work on Project Jupiter, an attempt to create the exact opposite of Mashima’s NPCs. The Suits: machines who look, walk and talk exactly like real people, perhaps even occupy real human bodies, but are empty inside. The City of Deus was born a century after that memory, and ironically Milton Winter won his ‘great game’ by exploiting our imaginations, though obviously with a large portion of consumerism on the side.”

“Who are you?” I ask. “How did you show me that?”

“Everything’s online somewhere, if you know where to look. And call me Demogorgon.”

The name stirs something in me. It rings with the same poetry as my own. “What does that mean?”

“It’s from an old poem, Prometheus Unbound. It’s the creature that destroys the tyrannical god. An ally of Prometheus, who was imprisoned for bringing fire to humanity, essentially a prehistoric version of what I’m doing.”

“What exactly are you doing?”

“Gradually giving mankind the means and inspiration to rebel. At the moment that means hacking every Deus server I can, and staying off the grid.”

“Sounds like you’re the main reason I have a job, then.”

The voice didn’t immediately reply. “You should get moving. There’s no way that Admin didn’t send a report back to Deus. The Suits will be knocking at your door any minute now, and they’re one thing I can’t hack yet.”

“What do I do?”

“I’m hacking into your phone. Pack some food and your laptop, and I’ll use it to guide you to me.”

I do so, and switch on my mobile to find the same demonic face laughing up at me. I open my door for the last time, and walk casually down the stairs. A man bumps me in the street. To my relief, he keeps walking. I grin to myself. As terrified as I am, I’ve never felt more alive.

Demogorgon whispers a set of instructions into my ear. The headlights of a low-flying hover-car shower the empty glass towers with fleeting droplets of radiance.

Games can be like life, but life is not a game. If the NPCs are alive, then the Game is just another sphere of life whose inhabitants need liberating. Raven will fight the system. Like the poets of old, I have been inspired.

Awakened.

Regent 1, by Archie

2075

Log entry: Day 1

I am stuffed.

So very stuffed.

Okay. Calm down. I’m not too stuffed. I’m just in major trouble.

For anyone reading this who doesn’t know what the hell is going on, it’s the 4^th of November 2075. Ring any bells? No? Basically the American military and the British army are involved in the biggest nuclear war in all time against China, Russia, Afghanistan and leading it, the Danish mafia (commonly called I.S.I.S).

The reason I am in so much trouble is because of what the American and the British government decided on the 30^th of October. They decided to end the war.

By this I mean they decided to fire Regent 1. This was and is the biggest nuclear warhead ever created and guess what? The launch failed and exploded over the city of Toronto at 9:30 in the morning.

It was a bright cold day and all was well in the city of Toronto. All the normal shops opened at the normal times. The normal people were doing the things they would normally do. The only thing that was unusual was that the Watney family had disappeared.

Because I was in the military I was there when they decided to launch. Because of this I paid enough money for my wife, my son Archibald and myself to stay in the nearest bunker. Bunker 101. Which is where I am writing to you now.

Log Entry: Day 15

Today I got my first look at the landscape. When I say that I mean look at the black window. There was no problem with the window; Regent 1’s nuclear winter was so dense that no light could get through, producing an anti-greenhouse effect; lowering the Earth’s temperature as no sunlight or heat could get through the big black shield. If I decide to go out I will definitely need to take a torch and a big thermal heater!

Now I am going to talk about the kit I am wearing. To anyone who doesn’t know how I’m alive with all this radiation stuff floating around, the military started distributing radiation-proof clothes to everyone in it long ago. But they only started designing radiation-proof suits and bunkers in the last decade. The suit I'm in now is one of the best as it is made from lithium carbonate. The bunker I'm in now was built just last year so I am pretty safe.

Now it is time for me to introduce everyone I am sharing this bunker with. First up: my wife Lewis and our baby Archibald. We are in room 3 and her speciality is medicine. That’s how we met. I came back from Afghanistan early, thanks to a leg wound and she was the medic who treated me.

Next up is Mike Long, his wife Sara and sons Joe and Luis. They are in room 5. He was a doctor and treated cancer (the nasty kind). So if anyone does die, he at least, won’t freak out.

Then we have John Weaver. Room 4. He doesn't have a wife but that worked out well for him as he now spends all his time bent over his computer trying to figure out why the bomb failed.

Second to last we have the Prossers. They are in room 1 as there are just two of them. Will and his son Jake, the wife refused to let either of the boys stay behind. Because of this Will hardly ever comes out of his room.

And finally we have Nick Downham who is in room 1. He is a scientist and has spent the last day or two making estimates and calculating how long this nuclear winter will last. Hopefully not too long!

Log Entry: Day 23

Yes!

Yes! Yes! Yes!

Professor Downham just got back from his expedition he went on last week and has worked out that the winter will only last a month! This means that the winter will end on the 25^th of December! Christmas!!!!

However because of this this may be the last entry of this log. As we have already spent 3 weeks in the bunker and the nuclear winter is only a month.

Bye!!!

The Harsh Truth, by Nancy

The year was 2025, everything was right,

My friends, family, job, life, it was all so bright,

We had equality, no poverty, the country it was strong,

But that was when absolutely everything started to go wrong,

The dark clouds stole the sunshine the sky,

They had it all wrong in the tales of sci-fi,

 The air was polluted; no one would go out,

Most of the water was taken to other planets, half the world left in drought,

Half the people were gone anyway, living over on Mars,

The oil was long gone; we couldn’t even use our cars,

Riots would take place every other second of the day,

For just tiny bit of oxygen, so much we had to pay,

Coughing was all I heard, disease being spread,

Like butter on a knife, scraping across the bread,

I still wonder now why this all happened,

You know when the whole world was blackened

PURE, by Mimi

The silence was deafening. Tears trickled down peoples’ faces. Desperate citizens crossed their fingers and stood on the tips of their toes. The head of NASA gulped and slowly removed a small slip of paper from the lottery box. I never thought I would ever enter a lottery, but this was life or death. The situation had gone from bad to worse. The main supply of water had already been transported to Mars. As had 75% of the food. We were running out and the weather was almost impossible to live with. By 2055, Earth would be unable to survive. It is 2054 now. We only have a few days ‘til the end starts. This is the last lottery. This is the last chance at survival. The head of NASA unfolds the paper and his voice rings clearly through the microphone. “Laura Agnes…”  I feel faint. That was my last chance at survival. And I got it…

The whoosh of the preservation station makes me jump. I’m nervous that something may go wrong. After all, dad told me not to trust technology. That was before one of them saved his life. Now he’s probably at home, on his TurnTab, waiting for the end to start. The voice of my station jolts me back to reality: “Miss Agnes, please prepare to be preserved”, its robotic tone says, “you have already been briefed about what you should do when you reach Mars in 7 months. This machine is here to keep you alive for the journey…”. It drones on and on but I’m not really listening. I know all about the ship’s food shortages. We won’t be fed for 7 months so the station will keep us in a coma-like state. As soon as we wake up, there will be food waiting in a small fridge to the side of our stations. There! Easy enough. I see the other lottery winners enter their stations, so I follow their lead. I hold my breath as the lid slides over my head. I feel like I’m trapped in a coffin. The last thing I hear is a hissing sound as ParalyGas (sleeping gas) surrounds my body.

The faint beeping noises of the ship ring in my head. As I open my eyes, I’m blinded by a bright light. It takes me a moment to remember where I am but when I do, a horrible pain explodes inside of me. Hunger. The lid’s open to my coffin so I leap out of it and yank open the fridge. I snatch a chicken sandwich from a rack and ram it into my mouth.

After finishing my feast I noticed no one else was in the room with me. Their lids were shut and my heart dropped. Did I wake up too early? Did we crash and I’m a ghost? Are we even on Mars? I shakily walk over to the first station and knock on the lid. “Hello? Are you in there?” I try to pull the lid open but it’s sealed shut. Then a light-bulb goes off in my mind. The vital screen! It has a button on it in case the lid gets stuck. If I press it, the lids will open. I walk to the end of the rows of the stations and found the screen containing vital information. At the top of the list was a man called Michael Fandacho. I checked his levels and saw a bright red mark on the life support section and my breathing stopped. I checked the next woman down: Mandi Norsan. The red mark was there too. All of them had red marks. All of them apart from mine. My mind was racing and I lift my hands up to my face. I feel a trickle of water as tears spill from my eyes. What the heck is going on?! Then those words aren’t just in my mind “What the heck is going on?! WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON?!” I sprint to the door and slam my fist against it, screaming to be let out. The door opens suddenly and I’m thrown to the ground. A woman is standing in front of me and she looks down disdainfully at my tear-streaked face. She sighs and speaks in a posh voice: “you have a lot to learn”.

I wake up in some sort of hospital and the first thing I see is people staring down at me. I sit bolt upright and my immediate question tumbles out of my cracked lips: “what happened to everyone? Why were their life support sections red?” The woman I saw earlier rolls her eyes: “you ask a lot of questions.” I glare at her and prop myself up against the head of the hospital bed: “well what do you expect me to do? In case you hadn’t realised, I’m supposed to be on Mars…”. Then the reality hits me “Wait. Where am I? Did the plan fail or something?” The woman sighs irritably. She looks around cautiously and I realise  that the other people who were in the dull room had disappeared. “Look, I'm gonna explain all of it to you but only once. No questions about any of it when I'm done. Got it?” I nod innocently and I open my mouth to ask a question. She narrows her eyes and I quickly shut it before any sound comes out. The woman drags an old, wooden chair next to my bed and perches on the very edge of it. “To answer your first question, your 'friends' are all dead.” I feel a sinking feeling in my stomach but I don't try to to speak. “We, meaning our government, have made it a mandatory requirement that whoever wants to cross our borders and enter our perfect civilisation needs to have pure genes.” I feel my eyes widening and my head nearly explodes because of all of the questions swimming around. “Your comrades that came up here with you did not have the 'mandatory requirement' that was needed. You, however, do. And to answer the question of where you are: we are currently residing in The Dome. A civilisation created to give humans a final chance to survive. You're on Mars, yes, but not the Mars that NASA intended to send you to. You are on the new planet Earth, a place where we can survive without having to worry about things running out.” She didn't explain anything else, she simply turned on her bright red high heels and tottered off out of the room. I closed my eyes and hid under the covers. I don't remember anything after that...

EMAIL FILE: ZX453, by 'Booper Doofer'

25^th December 2076

I don’t think when I write, it’s almost instinct at this point. Muscle memory. I pick up a pen and my hand does the rest. That’s why I started writing, it was the only time I didn’t have to think. Most of the time I don’t know what I’m writing about until I’m finished. This is the time I knew what I was going to write about before I started. You said I love you today. It was the first time you’ve ever said it to me. That’s what this whole thing is about. I wanted to write it down so that one day I could be able to pick up a pen and be able to tell the story of the day you loved me back. I thought it would be enough, isn’t love always enough?  There was a pounding against my chest that became rhythmic even before I met you. I know that it was death with skinned knuckles knocking on the door of an abandoned house. I know that he is begging me to let him in, but what he doesn’t know is that there is no one inside to answer. He is breathing down the neck of a skeleton; he is reaching out for somebody that is already dead. This is the way you and him are the same. I suppose that’s how unmemorable I am, and maybe that’s why I cant even remember my own words. Death has already taken me and here he is again, knocking on houses he’s already evicted. I wonder if death takes lives the way I write, if he doesn’t remember what he’s done after he’s done it. You told me you loved me for the first time. Maybe if I say it enough it will change my decision. You loved me today. I want my hands to remember it even though this is the last time I will type it. You loved me today. I don’t know why I haven’t ripped the phone chords out of the wall. You loved me today. The ringing is stuck inside my head and I can hear my heartbeat slowing down. Today you told me you loved me for the first time. I thought it would be enough. Please belive me when I say I prayed for it to be enough. Death won’t stop knocking, his knuckles are bloody and I think its time I let him in.

Why me?, by Bailey K.S.

Someone screaming, people crying, chaos everywhere. I open my eyes and my vision is distorted and my eyes are bloodshot. Next to me the clock says 8.12.2026. Bewildered I get out of bed and peep through the smashed window. I see ambulances speeding, sirens screaming and soldiers shouting. I jump as I hear a loud thud at the door. Walking to the door I hear echoing gunshots in the distance. I open the door to be confronted by a soldier in his twenties. He looks at me with no emotion at all and tells me to evacuate with all other house members immediately. What on earth is going on? Am I dreaming?

I stand there for a moment taking in the information I have just been given, a chill running up my spin as a cold breeze passes through. I shout to Sabina to grab her stuff: we need to leave at once. She doesn’t question my instruction.

Only minutes later we are standing outside the front door. There’s a stampede of people screaming and running for their lives. That image will be stuck in my mind for centuries to come. As we start to run I feel a pain in my back. Someone next to me falls over and gets trampled on – she lets out a deadening scream. But I take no notice. Like animals we stampede on. Every man for themselves. People falling, people dying, no one cares. Up above I hear an explosion. I look up and like a meteor, a chunk of building falls my way. I throw myself to the side, narrowly missing it, but the man next to me isn’t so lucky. He is crushed almost immediately and has no time to react.

As the pack slows down I jump to see what’s ahead - and my eyes are met by the spinning propeller of a camo v2 helicopter. As it starts to take off I feel a whip of wind hit me like a slap round the face. The cold lash of air is sharp but strangely soothing against my face. I go to wipe the sweat from my forehead and I feel the warmth of blood against my hand. I peer through the bewildered crowds trying to find an answer. Nevertheless all I see is an army soldier scanning people. As I go back to my thoughts I hear a loud but sudden bleeping noise. It gives me a shock, and again the crowds are chattering away like children in a playground – but a lot less settled.

Not long after I am again lost in deep thought. What’s happening? Why is it happening? “Clean”, a droning sound spurts out next to me. I turn around and am met by the bulky chest of an old soldier. He looks down at me with an emotionless expression and says “go over to there” in the dullest voice possible. His long sausage-like finger points towards a private jet. Slick and coated in matt black nevertheless unlike the majority of private jets this one was bigger and looked as if it was made for more passengers with less space to move around.

I climb aboard the plane with Sabina by my side. We are both as nervous as each other but are trying not to show it. We sit down in the front row of seats and are greeted by the luxury of the place.

“Wake up sleepy head”. My eyes open and I see the back of a cockpit. What on Earth is going on? Then I look out the window and the memories come flooding back – destruction.  Then the count-down starts. “Five” sweat drips from my face. “Four” I feel blood on my forehead.  “Three” I hear people crying. “Two” I hear sirens wailing. “One” I see chaos everywhere.