The Transit Route to Heaven

Prologue

It's 5:56 A.M. and a petite, delicate woman, dressed in the regular uniform of everyone else working on Earth X12, black blazer, matching pants, and a bright red shirt tucked in, rushed across the subway station. She's obviously on her way to Building 27, as she's heading straight for the Blue Line, bracing herself for The Impact. The Impact is a powerful force, stronger than anything you can imagine, working to keep out bad people. In case you weren't aware, bad people include, abusive humans, psychopathic humans, racists, cheaters, and *Forgotten Heroes. It's so strong, even most good people feel some of it. However, it does work, meaning bad people are unable to take The Subway and get a job, for the only jobs on Earth X12 are the ones in Buildings 1 through 1,803,619 (and they can only be reached by riding The Subway). The smaller the Building number, the closer you are to becoming a successful Worker. This woman was quite near success already.

As soon as she ran through The Impact and climbed breathlessly onto the car, the steel doors began to close slowly behind her. With a screech, the wheels pushed the ancient subway forward. The ride from the station to any of The Buildings is exactly 172.49 seconds long. Then, one must walk 8 yards across the Square to their building in exactly 18 steps within 28.51 seconds, since the elevator at each building only comes down once at 5:59 A.M. and reaches each and every floor of the building within 40 seconds.

This obviously was not the petite woman's first time traveling around the Square, for she knew to avoid certain cracks on the terrain and not to stare at particular strangers on the sidewalk. As she weaved her way through the Square, her gleaming red heels clacked against the metal ground, causing others to stare. Only elite officials were privileged with those gleaming red shoes (dress shoes for men and heels for women) and were earned when they killed or defeated an Insane, which, by the way, were the reason Earth X12 is known as The Quarantine Planet. The Insane spread the disease of death.

Strutting into Building 27's only elevator, she confidently pressed "83", which was the highest, most illustrious floor of the building. She smiled at her coworker, a handsome man with red shoes like hers. They'd known one another for quite a long time and both ended up as respected members of society. The mundane elevator music played faintly in the background, but the pair couldn't tear their eyes away from each other, even as other Workers filed out of the elevator on to their own floor. Why you ask? Well, because that was just one more unique feature of Earth X12; soulmates. On Earth X12 every baby is born with a distinct marking carved into their flesh on the small of their back , with only two babies bearing matching etches. These, like the two in the elevator, were soulmates.

Realizing they were alone in the elevator and left with merely 28 seconds more of privacy, they threw themselves into each other, wrapping their arms around and touching every inch of the other person. Their gasps were loud and they screamed each other's names inside the sound-proof elevator. However, as soon as the elevator came to a full stop, they did too and fixed themselves up quickly, sharing a special glance only true lovers could give each other. Then, the massive elevator doors slid open, revealing a sea of computers, hundreds and hundreds of them, and small cubicles meant for everyone else that used to work at Building 27, where everyone used to work hard, searching for Insane and trying to put an end to the Quarantine Planet's disease. About a third of the people that used to occupy the empty cubicles had been killed trying to battle an Insane, while the rest of them had been demoted for whatever reason the Head Boss had come up with. Now, it was just the woman, her soulmate, a few new interns, and the 12 advisors assigned to each floor on level 83.

*These were the Heroes before Earth became a quarantined planet—they were gifted with immortality for their heroism.