Chapter 1
Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are
But the thing is, we don't anymore.
Wonder
, that is.
We haven't for a while because science has figured out all that there is to figure out.
Mankind has come too far,
too
too far, crossed too many points-of-no-return and kept on barreling through till the last bits and pieces of
wonder
were shattered.
People don't wonder anymore.
People don't dream.
People just
know
.
We
know
that there are 42, not 48, other civilizations in our galaxy; Arthur C. Clarke must be
so
damn proud (and the Drake Equation was always more of a guestimate anyway, nowhere
near
as accurate as Science Fiction).
Then again, reality has always been stranger than the mind has the capacity to imagine.
Maybe that's why it stopped imagining.
It got tired of being outdone.
"Cole!
C'mon!
You're gonna miss the game!"
"Shut the fuck your face, I'm coming!" Cole takes the steps by bounds and leaps, jumping up to tap the wooden doorframe even as he zooms through it to crash onto the old, worn couch in front of a holographic projector.
Leroy is perched right next to it, chewing on his nails.
Cole swats at him.
"Stop that."
"You're not my
mom
."
Cole quirks an eyebrow, fixing Leroy with a look.
"Really?
You wanna go there?"
"Alright, alright, I'll stop.
Wait, wait, it's starting--I swear to every single galaxy in the entire universe that if Belvaria takes another Championship I'm gonna stuff an entire shuttle up my ass."
Cole lets out a bark of a laugh and elbow Leroy in the side, "You sure you'd be able to fit that shuttle in?
Your head's already taking up so much space in there."
Leroy shoves Cole's face through the hologram and it looks like the opening shot goes right through his forehead.
Zero-gravity football (
soccer
some people used to call it) is kind of outdated, but still a crowd favorite.
Well, as much of a crowd as there is left.
Most people have already left Earth and they can't get signals beyond Jupiter so there's literally
no
chance of the Higher Classes catching this game.
Not that the Higher Classes still
watch
zero-grav football.
They've probably come up with something classier and indefinitely more expensive by now.
"I used to want to be a football player," Cole says, settling into the couch, reaching across Leroy for a bag of fries.
"I thought you wanted to be a pilot." Leroy doesn't even take his eyes off the game, but his fingers dig through the fry bag and he shoves a handful in his mouth.
Cole shrugs.
They both hoot as Derwyn takes a shot.
"No
you
wanted to be a pilot," Cole corrects.
Leroy pauses with another handful of fries halfway to his mouth, a tiny frown creasing his forehead.
"Oh, right, I did." Then he shoves the entire handful in his mouth and chews.
Cole is licking his fingers clean of the salt, smacking his lips.
"Goal!" Leroy punches the air and Cole crumples up the empty fry-bag and lops it over the hologram straight into the garbage disposal.
It hisses as the bag disintegrates and lets out a small puff of oxygen mist.
In 22010, there isn't much that humans haven't achieved, not much that we have not conquered or destroyed.
No
last
frontier of science because that was ages ago, literally.
But one thing hasn't changed--things live, and things die.
And well, if the Earth is a living body, then humans were the cancer that it couldn't find a cure for.
And so, it's dying.
But not before the universe put up a pretty good fight.
How do you fight cancer?
Well, radiation of course.
When The First Surge of gamma rays hit from Antares, people weren't ready, though they thought they were.
Billions died, millions more were diagnosed with diseases that all culminated in fatalities.
Plants withered, birds and animals littered the streets by the hundred thousands, what few scientists remained not so much as crossed off species from the list but ripped out entire pages and
burned
them.
The world population was cut down by more than half, almost overnight, and the results were nothing short of devastating.
In the years that followed, that half was once again halved by the aftershocks of the radiation, and then halved again by the fallout, reducing the world population to barely an eighth of what it used to be.
Everyone thought it was finally time for humans to go.
But cancer isn't that easily cured.
And neither is humanity.
We might call it resilience, the world might call it pestilence.
Either way, the people who did survive came up with plans, answers,
ways
, as we always have, and life carried on, under clothes made to deflect gamma rays.
Mechanics and scientists even developed a way to turn that radiation into usable energy and civilization thrived again.
Up above the world so high
.
And
that
was when we really started looking up towards the stars.
That was when people started to realize that our time here really is coming to an end, and that if we don't
get out
, the world
will
die, and we would die right with it.
Some people might call it a noble way to go but most people just wanted out, nobility go screw itself in the backseat.
So, the Council for Global Affairs came up with a plan, a desperate, crazy plan, but a plan nonetheless--send 42 ships off into space, towards the known civilizations in our galaxy and hope against hope and against hope that some of them make it.
Of course, there are safer civilizations, the ones that people have made contact with, weak as the radio signals were, strange as the messages were, long as it took to decode, but contact
was
made.
And, given the significantly lowered population of the world, it wouldn't be a far shot from splitting what remained of the world into 42 different ships and sending them off.
And that's exactly what happened.
Only, it's more complicated than that.
It's always more complicated than that.
How do you decide who gets to go first?
Who gets to go to the "safer" civilizations, and who gets sent on a joyride towards the edge of our galaxy without knowing if the ship will ever reach the civilization we've never made contact with?
Rewind 20 thousand years, give or take a century or so and a ship named the
Titanic
sunk to the bottom of the ocean.
And, while history doesn't repeat but it sure as hell does rhyme.
The rich and influential go first, go to the safest.
The lesser fortunate go last.
So it's been for all of humanity, and so it shall be till the end of the world's days.
Literally.
Oh the beauties of social hierarchy.
A ship goes out about every half year or so, because that's how long it takes to recharge the power plant with enough energy to launch a ship into space far enough for it to reach wherever it needs to go; the second to last ship left about six months ago.