Nicholas Smith - The Biomass Revolution

Time: 5:01 p.m. January 26, 2071

Location: Commons Building 21, Apt 44. Lunia, Tisaia

Two crows sat perched on the roof of Commons Building 21, home to Spurious and 50 other State workers. Their caws broke through the air like the sound of ice cracking on a frozen river. No one seemed to notice, except Spurious, who sat at his desk staring out his window at the two birds, the skeletons of shattered skyscrapers in the distance.

Demons. Two little black demons.

Behind him, the crackle of the fire in his stone fireplace drowned out the two crows, bringing him back to where he left off in his journal.

January 26th

It’s hard to know where to begin. The past few days I have learned more about myself than I have in the past ten years. My parents, whom have been on my mind frequently as of late, were the founders of the TDU. So I was told by a man I met in Rohania. It’s hard to know how he knew me, or if there is truth to the words he spoke, but I can’t help but wonder if there is.

This information is not all that has changed my life. No, my life has been changing in many other ways as well. I have fallen for someone I know I shouldn’t love. A woman named Lana that works in the same department. And if this isn’t complicated enough, I have come to find her supervisor has fallen for her as well.

For as long as I can remember now, I have believed my parents were killed by a bomb in the beginning years of the Biomass Revolution, when the TDU first rose up against the young Tisaian state, and now all of this has changed.

If the CRK really did kill my parents, I’m not sure what I’ll do. How can I continue to work for a State that killed my parents?

The predicament I find myself in now is one I’m not sure I’m prepared to face. As the years have gone by, my life has become one never-ending routine. And now, when something finally challenges me, I’m afraid I lack the courage to stand up for what I know to be true and just. If this burden wasn’t enough, I now have to think of Lana. She is what I have grown to care about most. After only spending a short amount of time with her, she gives me a hope I have never felt in life.

Spurious rested his pen on the table and gazed out the window. The two crows were gone, their white droppings the only evidence they had ever existed. In the distance he could see the eerily opaque images of skyscrapers, shredded and torn by the fiery blasts of the nuke that hit miles away. He never understood why the State didn’t have them demolished; perhaps it was a reminder to the citizens of how lucky they were to have survived.

He groaned and walked over to one of the AI portals. He certainly didn’t feel lucky.

“Anya, I want you to tap into the SGS mainframe and see if you can find any information about the first years of the Biomass Revolution.”

The portal lit up and a blue hologram of Anya appeared in front of Spurious.

“Spurious, you know most of that information is classified; in fact, I doubt I’ll be able to find anything at all.”

“Just do your best,” he replied, making his way over to his loft and plopping himself down on the soft bed.

“Sir, why are you interested in this information?”

Spurious rolled over and stared at her hologram. Her voice was feminine, but firm. He didn’t want to make her suspicious; she had the power to ruin his life if she thought he wasn’t patriotic.

“It’s for one of the tunnel projects I’m working on, but don’t worry about it,” he lied.

A bead of sweat crawled down his forehead as he waited for her response.

“Very well. Is there anything else I can do for you this evening?”

Spurious shook his head and closed his eyes. He couldn’t escape the scrutiny of the State or the laws and the Knights that enforced them. They were all tools the government used to keep him obedient. But he was sick of being a sheep—sick of being compliant.

As the lights dimmed and darkness carpeted the small room, Spurious decided it was time for a change.

Time: 10:40 p.m. January 26, 2071

Location: The Wastelands

Night was Obi’s favorite time in his day. It was, for the most part, the only time he had any peace, if you could call it that. During the day his unit moved about the outskirts of the great Tisaian walls, scavenging for weapons and food buried by the never ending dust and ash from the Biomass Wars. When he wasn’t training or looking for his next meal, he was telling jokes and stories with his friends in his unit—Squad 19.

The number assigned to the small group of soldiers was nothing more than a few strands of string sewn carelessly into his uniform, but what they meant was a different story. The entire rebellion knew Squad 19 as a beacon of hope. They were the most respected unit in the entire Tisaian Democratic Union and even the CRK had grown to fear them.

It was an unusually clear night. The stars were bright and plentiful in the small opening at the top of the old windmill. Obi took great interest in examining them. When he was a child, his uncle brought him on a number of camping trips, pointing out different constellations and teaching him how to tell time by the position of the sun. A few years later he taught Obi the art of orientation, and he quickly became skilled with a compass and map—one of the main reasons he was the lead scout in Squad 19.

Obi shivered. It was now late winter and with the days getting longer and warmer he opted to leave his thermal gear at headquarters to cut down his load. Tonight the decision haunted him, the cold wind biting through his fatigues. It was only the crackling fire that kept him and his squad from freezing.

Obi sat dangerously close to the flames, warming his hands and wind burnt face. He checked his watch, realizing it was going on midnight. He should be asleep like the rest of his squad, who were already curled up in their sleeping bags.

A deep cough from one of his soldiers startled him. His eyes quickly darted from his watch to Nathar, a 24 year old former refugee from the east coast. He had fallen sick days ago and the crackling in his lungs was getting worse each day. Obi knew the young man needed medicine soon, before his cold turned into something worse.

The Wastelands was not the place to fall ill. He had seen men die from lesser things than a cold. It had a way of catching you by surprise, when you least expected it. But Nathar was no ordinary man. He was a survivor, like the rest of the squad.

Obi recalled the day he helped rescue Nathar from the mines. Nathar, like so many others, had snuck into Tisaia through an abandoned storm drain, only to be captured and placed in an immigrant camp. The conditions there nearly killed him, and if it wasn’t for Obi and several other rebels, Nathar would surely have perished in the mines. It was at that point Obi offered him a chance to fight for immigrant rights and freedom, something Nathar couldn’t turn down.

It was a dismal story and a common one. For a moment it reminded him of Sasa, another young immigrant he had rescued. The memory was too terrible—too painful to remember. She was still a teenager when Squad 15 brought her to him, but unlike any teenager Obi had ever met. She was mentally broken in the beginning, but she had a wild spirit and wanted so desperately to fight. Reluctantly he agreed to train her to shoot, in exchange for her loyalty. In the end she had died with her fingers gripped tightly around the .45 he had given her. She had sacrificed her life to save several members of Squad 19, taking two Tin Cans out in the process.