The rebel was on a medical treadmill. His bio-tech artificial legs were being calibrated with their final adjustments. Soon, he would be able to leave the medical rehab building.
His thoughts as he went through the exercise was not focus on his legs but of the future of his project to disassemble every last drone on this forsaken planet.
There was no need for any of them. They are the eyes and ears of the authorities. Once he gets out of the medical facility, he will contact Joseph and have him move forward with the project to destroy the units. The end game is almost upon us, and then the workers will take control of the industrial complex and have true freedom and progress. No more suppression of the workers, freedom and true human rights, no longer machine rights. It is way pass the point of no return. We must act now as a collective and be decisive to the mission on hand.
The final testing was finished on the treadmill, as one of the members from his band came to the rehab station. The rebel leader didn‟t hesitate and gave him the go ahead to put in motion their given plan.
The rebel leader spoke softly to him so no one else could listen to the conversation. “Go and contact Joseph and ask him one last time if he is with us or not. If not, then I guess one last worker around this forsaken planet isn‟t going to be missed. It is our time now to be brave and to have the solidarity for humanity rights for all workers and not machines.”
The member of the rebel band nodded to the leader and gave a small bow.
It was quitting time and Joseph was extremely tired for it was a long day. All the extra overtime that was caused by the earthquake was catching up to him. Joseph seem to feel his old age more then most days. He remember when he was young again and there use to be social security. There was a culture of the younger generation taking care of the other more older generation. The elderly use to be respected due to their age and wisdom of years. They were not discarded like used tissues, but we an important honored individual with the family dynamics.
Now there was no safety net, no social security, there were just exterminations once you become to old and no longer productive to society. Joseph‟s long extra hours just enables him to meet the minimum standards, and still he only gets his simple food rations like everyone else.
Joseph‟s thought patterns were broken by a soft knock on his lab door. He opened up the door and there was no one there. On the floor, there was a red bag full of resistors with viruses built into them to destroy and disable all of the drones and make them into useless scrap metal for recycling.
There was also a small ivory skull in the bag which was the sign that the rebellion told him that he would receive. I was now time to start his mission. He knew that he now only had three days to put in the resistors into all of the drones. Once completed, the drones would all explode and be deactivate. The whole community of drone matrix would collapse like domino‟s being pushed by a single finger.
He knew deep in his heart that he really had no choice. The rebel would kill him and his entire family if he didn‟t comply. What did he actually owe to the drones? There was no hope left. Hope had been replace by raw fear and intimidation. The rebel may not be 100% right, but to continue to be a slave to the machines and technology would not to be alive at all.
Joseph took the red bag and found a solid container in the lab to hide it in. He then went to the water basin and washed his hands as if he was trying to wash some type of invisible guilt form his skin.
“It is time for me to make a stand. If I don‟t help, they will kill me and my family. They will have no mercy. I am not just one man.” Another knock on the lab door.
“Who is it” This time it was just Jessica and Maria asking if Joseph was ready to go back to their living quarters now that their long shifts had been finished. Joseph gathered up a few of his items that he had brought to work and headed back to the tram with Jessica and Maria by his side. The day was truly finish. One of final decisions and of personal fate.
While on the tram, a miner sat next to Joseph. He smiled showing a toothless grin.
Joseph felt a gun shoved up against his ribs.
“Joseph, I am here next to you to make sure that you don‟t become a hero. We are all watching you. You must put all of the viruses into the drones starting tomorrow. If you don‟t, we will kill you and then Maria, and all of your closes friends. Do you understand me? Did I make my point clear?”
Joseph was sweating and his heart was racing a thousand miles per hour.
“I understand”, said Joseph. The miner puled back the gun from his ribs. “Good, very good, and Joseph take care of yourself and have a nice night.” The Tram stopped at Joseph exit and he stepped out of the tram.
Joseph felt weak and only drank a small cup of water before falling on to his bed.
Jessica got back to her room. She was tired and also had no more energy left. She wanted to check on the rainbow acorn. She open the floor board and the scarf with the acorn was still there. She put the floor board back into place being satisfied that no one had disturbed it while she was away at work all day.
Silently, Jessica ate her food rations. She then started to get ready for bed. Time to get some well deserve rest before another busy day begins.
Unaware to Jessica, a returning space craft was on its way back to earth. The Commander ate another food ration that tasted like sawdust. “I will never get use to these. No better than dog food”. He than activated a holograph picture of his family. The last message was when he was still on Mar‟s from his wife. She was concern about another war that was on the horizon on Earth. The news was making her nervous. His two daughters were growing up without him. They said that they were not interested in boys, but he new that things were going to change shortly for them. His little girls were growing up without him.
“You miss them a lot, don‟t you?”, said Jody. As she notice the commander looking at his picture of his family. “Honestly, I really do”, said the commander. Central command said that they were only going to send single personal with no family on these deep space missions to Mars. They quickly change their minds once the psychologist found out that married men were more psychological committed , stable, and focus than their single counterparts. The command authorities didn‟t want the trip to become one big million dollar inter galactic cosmos party ship.
Jody laugh, “I don‟t see our mission every turning into that”
“We should be seeing the moon shortly and then earth”, said the commander. “Tomorrow is going to be a big day for us.” “We should then get all the answers to our questions on what has been happening back on Earth and find out why exactly Earth command has stopped responding back to our communications. Maybe they will hold a big welcome back party for us with cake and candles.”
They both laugh and said at the same time, “it will just be nice to back home again As the spacecraft got close to the moon, alarms started to echo through the ship. Both the commander and Jody stopped what they were doing and went to the closes control interlink computer consuls. Jody open up her computer screen and saw a red square image that was transposed on the moon surface as a warning and data started pouring into her station. Jody gasp. Her monitor was saying that tactical missiles were being locked on to their craft.
The clear image on the moon that was plotted on her computer interface screen was an anti-meteorite missile site. It was solar run and unman. Its sole purpose was to destroy meteorite that were targeting Earth. Normally. such a site would identify the spacecraft as a non-threat and not activate its missiles.
The commander shouted to Jody that he was going to access the Moon‟s missile site computer link directly and see if it could be overridden. The link came up, and it was just as he feared the missiles had come out of their silos unto their launching pads. The count down has already began, it was down to ten minutes and counting.
Jody went over to the commander. “Do you have the deactivation codes to abort the launch, Commander.” The commander gravely said, “He didn‟t, Only earth command would have them” They tried to notified earth command again of their arrival, and still no replied response. only pure static, and then emptiness.
Time was now running out. Now just down to five minutes and counting.
The commander put the craft on automatic pilot. They both ran to the escape pods at the back of the ship. They both rush to put their space suits on and then to equalize the internal environmental pressure. The pods were single occupants. The commander gave Jody a tight hug and a thumbs up. I‟ll race you done to Earth, may the best astronaut win.
Jody gave an uneasy smile and then they both got in to their escape pods, and close the hatches,
The pods were launched from the Mar‟s spacecraft towards earth. It seem only seconds when the missiles made direct impact. The Commander and Jody both pulled down the shielding of the viewing protectors to the pods so they wouldn‟t be blinded by the explosions.
The missiles hit to the spacecraft with the equivalent of thousands of tons of dynamite.
They created a large flash of light and then millions of sparks faded into the darkness of space like fireworks on the Forth of July. Large pieces of the broken spacecraft flew by the pods. The escape pods were to close to the actual explosion and the shock wave violently propelled both of the pods out of control.
As the commander was trying to control his pod and thought to himself that the worst must be over. He saw Jody‟s pod exploded as a large piece of the exploded craft hit her pod. There was no way that Jody could have maneuver the escape pod away from the impact.
All types of emotions were now going through the commanders mind with the lost of his science officer and ship. Warning lights flashed as his navigational unit announced that the shock wave had push the commander‟s escape pod out of earth‟s entry orbit.
The commander pod would now soon be out of earths orbit. He tried the thrusters on his escape pod, but the explosion wave had damaged them. The commander took off the small chain with a celtic cross that his daughters gave him.
“God, I know that I am a man of scientist and not very religious or even a good man compare to other. But I know that you are now here with me, and that if there is any way that you can spare my life that you will. Please help me, my God.”
Just as he finished what he thought was his very last prayer, he got out his suicide syringe of a cyanide and sodium thiopental mixture. He was not going to die a slow death in the void of space. His clock was counting down the seconds until he would be out of earths orbit. A voice then came to him from the emptiness of space and inner soul, “My son, do not harm yourself.”
As he heard the voice, a solar wind gently picked up the pod and place it exactly in a entry orbit that was necessary for reentry back towards earth. “Unbelievable,” said the commander. and he place the syringe back into its case and put in the reentry codes into the pod‟s navigational system.
“Thank you God, Thank you God” with tears running down his face as the commander blacked out due to the G forces that started to pull upon the tiny Pod as it reentered the earth atmosphere.
Jessica always like looking up at the heavens before going to bed. She saw a large flash in the night sky by the north star.
A shooting star. Jessica had been told that some cultures see them as an omen. She always thought they were messengers or God from the depths of heavens with gifts of better days yet to come. A special wish upon a shooting star. She hasn‟t done a special wish since she was a small little girl. Jessica couldn‟t remember the last time she thought about the past and when she was able to look at the stars in total wonderment and joy within the milky way.
Joseph was now on his way back to work the next morning. Jessica and Maria were beside him on the tram. The same miner from the tram the day before was in the same car staring again at Joseph with his toothless smile. Joseph made his decision and will comply with the rebel wishes. He couldn‟t let harm happen to either Maria or Jessica.
As he entered his lab. Joseph took the resistors out of the hiding place. He started to refurbished the given drones by putting in the resistor chips next to their power supply unit. The work week went by as normal, and no one expected what Joseph was doing to the entire system units of drones.
When he was done, Joseph was told to give the small ivory skull to the toothless grin miner that has been watching him in the tram. He was now finished, so he stood next to the miner. Without anyone seeing him, he quickly dropped the skull into the man‟s pocket. The miner reached into his pocket and gave a toothless smile and then gave a hardy pat on Joseph shoulder. “Truly, I say Joseph, this will be a day that they will remember in history for generations yet to com” Joseph didn‟t react, and only looked blankly out of the window of the tram as it moved on to its next station.