Prologue

May 2, 315 AC

The figure on the small screen adjusted his glasses, his prim, crisp suit doing little to cover his awkwardness as he began to speak, the academic vernacular streaming forth, a jumbled rhetoric of facts and theories that he hoped would hold his audience's attention.

"No one can say for certain how the golden age of technological progress in the early twenty-first century abruptly ended, any firm proof that existed was lost in the aftermath of the unknown cataclysmic event that took place somewhere in the Midwestern area of the former United States of America. The event sparked nearly half a century of natural disasters that mankind barely weathered, but we did persevere. The world has certainly transformed since the 2000's, but we have adapted, grown, even. If our ancestors could see what we've built on the ruins of the past, I believe they'd find us worthy of their legacy. It is that legacy that we must carry into the next century, as the effects of the "mutant" phenomenon have-

"Turn that crap off, Poe."

Luke Garrison, a man who looked beyond his years thanks to a life of hard labor and hard drinking kicked the rickety old wooden stand holding the holo-screen generator, disrupting the signal his long time drinking buddy had been watching.

"You know how I like dem smarty-pants shows, Luke." Poe belched and pulled himself off the flea-ridden bed he'd been sprawled across.

"Ain't nothing good comes from stick'n yer head in the past." Luke popped open a beer can. "Mark my words Poe, leave the thinking to dem smarty-pants."

"Well," Poe popped open his own beer. "Ain't that kind of ironic, seeing as how we out here in the Arizona jungle to dig up some old junk for some quick money?"

"Hey! If some old fool can stumble over some old building in Vada and the Republic gives him 1,500 credits, there's gotta be something out in dem jungle ruins worth least that much, you know what I'm say'n? Now, let's get crack'n. Can't make no money drinking this shack underwater."

With the thought of quick money, the men quickly packed up their gear and tossed it into the old fossil-guzzler. People in the city may drive around in fancy self-fueling ego-cars, but the rural and poor folks still got around in things their ancestors might recognize. They'd been out in the jungle for days, and they still hadn't found the ruins they remembered stumbling across as boys, but Luke was determined to collect some credits, so they fired up the FGV and headed into the foliage.

It wasn't long before the jungle became too thick and they had to abandon the vehicle and continue on foot. Poe started hacking a path through the dense green as Luke worked on finishing the last of their beer. When after a few hours they were running out of daylight, were completely out of alcohol, and nearly out of water, Poe paused in his hacking to wipe the sweat from his balding head.

"Iono, Luke, maybe we should head ba-"

"Look, Poe, look!" Luke jabbed his finger excitedly at a spot to the right of their trail. A dull grey something peeked out unnaturally from between the greenery.

"We gonna be rich, boy!" Luke whooped, grabbing the machete from Poe and working frantically toward the off-color object, which turned out to be a large block structure, almost buried by the jungle.

It took them nearly an hour to figure out how to get into the mysterious ruin, and when they finally slipped into the cool, stale interior, they were surprised to find lights running along the floor flickering on, illuminating a long, bare, grey corridor.

Luke shook his head in awe and took a step forward, more lights flickered on, running along the wall next to the ceiling. "Must be motion-sensored." He whistled.

"Geezus!" Poe exhaled. "That gave me a start when they came on! Who'd think they'd still work after a couple of centuries!"

Greed gnawed at Luke's brain. " yea, but Poe... if they had the kind of money to spend on such high-tech stuff back then like these self-illuminating lights, there's bound to be something big here!"

"Hot damn!" Poe gave a toothy grin. "We are gonna be rich, huh?"

"C'mon!" Luke barreled forward with a laugh, the hallway illuminating before him like an open gesture. "Let's find some "old" gold, Poe!"

They slowly made their way through the silent and sterile building, their initial jubilation giving away to a frustrated unease as every room yielded no hidden treasure, and every door seemed to grow more ominous than the last. It didn't help that the hallway only illuminated in front of them, and the path they'd come from would go dark again. Energy conservation, Luke had sagely explained when Poe had noticed it, but it still gave him a little shiver. As they came to the end of a hallway with nothing yet to show for their efforts, Luke was starting to get pissed off.

Poe began to tremble, his unease tripling into panic as they rounded into a corridor where the motion lights didn't light up as bright or barely flickered on.

"I don't like this, Luke." Poe whispered as they found a staircase and Luke was leading them down into darkness. "I feel like we're in a tomb. I don't like it."

"Don't whine." Luke growled, making his way slowly down the crumbling concrete stairs. "Look, this isn't going as well as I thought, we'll go down a bit further, and if there ain't nothing on that floor, we'll figure out something else."

Poe bit his lip as he followed, unwilling to risk Luke's wrath by further complaining about how he didn't like it underground, and they were going down, down where things that never see the light live. He was about to buckle under the pressure of panic and complain again when Luke suddenly veered right on the platform before another set of stairs, scrutinizing a plaque on the wall. He frowned at the dusty words, wiping them off. Perhaps, if Luke had paid more attention in school as a child, he would have been able to discern the old-speak. As it was, he'd wasted most of his state mandated education slacking off and chasing cute girls, so he merely shrugged at the message and motioned Poe to follow him, pushing open a set of doors that would have been electronically sealed back when the building was a high security science facility.

They wandered from room to room, finding much of what they'd come across on the other floor, pieces of scrap paper and electronics that may have been worth something at some point back when. Just when Luke was beginning to believe this whole scheme had been for nothing, Poe saw it.

The lights in this part of building were worse than the stairway, dim and flickering like little sparks unable to ignite. Poe had gone stiff as a corpse, his beady eyes threatening to bulge out of his skull. Luke, confused, followed his frozen gaze to the corner of the room as pops of light randomly lit the walls. There, in the corner, a black mass floated in a tube of green liquid. When he saw it, fear closed up his throat and he lost the strength to move. Not a muscle twitched, he could form no words, not even a scream.

Poe's voice cracked through the silence, barely a whisper. "Luke, what is it?"

Luke stared at the tube, unable to reply from the paralyzing panic seizing him. Some part of his brain acknowledged he should answer Poe, but he could feel ice creeping into his brain, cutting off what little comprehension of the world he had left.

"We should get out of here, Luke." Poe's whisper was edged with terror. " We gotta get out of here!" he broke away from the paralyzing hold of the thing in the corner, bolting for the exit, but the door slammed shut, the room instantly drowned in white hot light.

Poe fell on his knees, crawling back towards Luke.

"Luke!" he cried, tears running down his face. "Luke!"

Luke couldn't hear his friend's strangled cries, he was staring into the black mass. In his head he could hear a voice crawling over his brains like maggots. So many questions, so many promises... Luke trembled, but the maggots dug deeper.

"LUKE!" Poe screamed as the glass cracked.

"And now," Luke's lips moved as he stared forward. "My time has come again."

The glass shattered, and the room pitched into black.