lost in time

One fine day it opened

The year 2856

The world is a ruin. The single state of Union and its citizens betrayed by people it had trusted.

It all began in the 21st century. The world was dying due to the excessive pollution and radiation from nuclear devices and power stations. Its people were slowly dying because of the diseases caused by the toxins in the air and water, killing animals and humans alike.

The Sickness started in the same century. A virus had evolved to adapt to its radioactive surroundings. It had evolved so fast, that the human body had been unable to fight against it. Thousands died from the Sickness, and those who had managed not to contract the disease demanded that the world leaders do something to prevent the deaths.

It was decided by the United Nations that they would try to save as many lives as they cold. The cure was soon administered to all the surviving humans. But there were those who had not agreed to those terms. They believed that it was too late to save everybody.

And the world went to war.

The Great War stretched for 75 years. The nations tried to come to an understanding after which there were only a meagre number of people left, compared to the population of the world before the war. They came together to live as a single state- the Union.

The people healed the wounds of war over time. They learned to trust one another, and soon rebuilt the lives that had been destroyed in the war. They settled into daily routines, and for a while, all was peaceful.

The 26th century onwards was called the Dawning. The succeeding years were full of brilliant inventions- holograms, teleportation, interplanetary travel, Artificial Intelligence, a power station built on sustainable energy, intelligent machines, levitating modes of transport, and the list is endless. Telepathy was achieved in 2804, and it was the crowning achievement of all.

But there were those that were sceptical. How was this all possible? How did they adapt so fast? Why was it suddenly so easy, when technological advances in the present age were ten times as fast as it was after the Second World War?

They were right to doubt it all.

A scientist, Dr. Abraham Wichting, broke away from the governing authority, called the Scitum, and brought to light a massive conspiracy.

The world had never been really healed. After the Sickness in the 2100's, scientists had known the world was going to end. The damage to their surroundings was too great. So a group of the most gifted researchers and professors, UTOPIA, was created, funded by the richest people during that time- business tycoons, arms dealers, and -shockingly- political leaders as well.

UTOPIA was meant to be a safe ticket for the funders- whatever disaster would come, the rich would be equipped with the cures to live out safely on the safe zones. Thus the men and women within UTOPIA worked to synthesise substances that would prolong life, increase immunity, and slow down the deterioration of the earth. Long enough for them to build safe zones on the planet, in which they could live their lives, or long enough for them to discover a habitable planet in the galaxy.

After the War, UTOPIA experimented on the Union's people almost ruthlessly- exposing them to low levels of radiation, lacing the water source or the food with synthesised chemicals, administering vaccines that were untested in the labs themselves. The citizens became the lab rats.

After the unearthing of the conspiracy, it was pandemonium. The Scitum was exposed as being controlled completely by the businessmen who had funded UTOPIA. People had no idea what to believe, or who to believe. The department of research within the Scitum, called Repertum- for scientific discoveries- split into two, allying themselves with the governing authority, or with the rebelling group of citizens, called the Resurgence.

The scientists in the Resurgence developed vaccines of their own- to safeguard the lives within the rebellion against future attacks by the Scitum. They experimented on children who showed no adverse effects to these administrations, like me, to make us far more intelligent, and stronger fighters, training us with exceptional skills in combat and strategy. We were called the Survivors which you will later on see is a very apt name. They built wave-scattering mechanisms to prevent the Scitum from entering their minds using telepathy.

The citizens fought against the Scitum for as long as they could. They are still fighting. But they knew such precautions would hold only for short term of time. So they created the Portal.

Stolen from the archives deep inside the Scitum, the Portal could make time travel possible. Creating a wormhole between two points of time had never been thought of- because there had been no need for it until then, and also because it was extremely difficult. The research was scoffed at by many within the Resurgence. But if it worked, then the entire timeline could be altered. The mistakes done during the 21st century could be undone, and the disasters that the earth had endured could be averted.

So they built it as quickly and as quietly as they could. The Survivor pack- the most lethal of the mutant species- were chosen to be the ones who went through the portal. They embedded a chip in our brains, the AI-20. This version of Artificial Intelligence, christened Joan after the warrior heroine of France in the Old World- was the fastest, most advanced evolving mechanical conscious ever created. She was to help us uproot UTOPIA before they could do damage to the human species.

And one fine day, it opened.