Terra Nova Papers

Earth is now a cracked shell which sputtered its internal organs into the galaxy like a raw egg imploding. Oceans have run together, creating unrecognizable geography. Refugees exist, but not because they had foresight of the destruction, except for one.

This is his story.


YEAR: 2052

PLACE: TERRA NOVA STAR SYSTEM


This is a story of mankind’s final days on earth. It began in the autumn of 2011 and ended before leaves had a chance to mature and fall again.

It was a time of machines- good machines that could think, teach and obey. Bad machines were also part of the equation. They created weapons, sustained wars, built empires and extorted humanity. They offered quick logical solutions to problems only men should solve, disassembling humanity in the process.

I impart this story of mankind’s past to ensure history is not repeated. Tell it to your children so they never forget the lessons.

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I recall the clarity of that Tuesday morning in November. Change was in air, and it had nothing to do with autumn breezes. The United States elected Michael Bush as its 47th president. He was a young thoroughbred, with a good reputation and the integrity of two previous presidents coursing through his veins. Both his grandfather and his uncle had proven they could run the country through wartime and peace. In 2011, muted rumblings of war loomed on the horizon. Technology was the master of the sleeping nation, along with the rest of the global economy.

My twentieth year was perfection. I lived a carefree existence with my parents in a quiet Mississippi town. During my first ten years, we lived in an overcrowded, crime-ridden city. My folks were convinced urban life wasn’t the answer and I was young enough not to care. School and friends were all that mattered. Virtual games, computer cliques and holographic cyber dates were my recreational activities of choice. On weekends, my friends and I would hang out at the campus café just to meet girls we could later invite into the privacy of our virtual lives. During the week, we pretended to learn, but it was really about figuring out how to pass the course. That was a decision I'd later regret. So much accessible wisdom wasted, like everything else we took for granted.

Mom and Dad were all about nature and the gardens. I remember everything being wonderfully lush and fertile. The greens mimicked emerald forests, the reds like luscious rubies. The southern skies were cerulean seas of rolling alabaster waves. The summer rains were cool showers that mingled with the smells of fresh cut grass and wafted through the thickened air with dewy tentacles. Mom did a lot of meditating and planting and Dad stayed busy picking all the fruit and vegetables she could grow. Ignorance was bliss. Looking back, I realize how clueless I was, and how much of a visionary my mother had become. She’s the only reason I’m alive to tell the story.

At first, no one knew about the plan.... the “Axis of Evil Plan”. That monster was born in 2002 after the nine-eleven disaster in New York; then all but forgotten for almost a decade. It only took three months for things to start unraveling. Statewide blackouts were common– but not in Mississippi. Thankfully, our state was ignored, at first. Keesler Air Force Base closed just a few years earlier, extracting the military and their state-of- the-art equipment. Stennis Space Center managed to fly below the radar while maintaining a brilliant public relations facade as a tourist stop. It is the sleeping giant in this history lesson. And I thank God everyday for that. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

As mentioned, in the third month of Michael Bush’s presidency, the bottom fell out. Second and third generation enemies gathered their generals and geniuses and scientists and terror squads to attack the western hemisphere. Satellites were jammed, stocks tumbled, banks fell, super powers dissolved globally. One morning, the world woke up, and someone else was in charge. At some point, many Americans theorized that it could have all been avoided if Michael Bush hadn’t been elected, awakening the Axis , a middle-eastern vendetta just waiting for an excuse. Sins of the father revisited was their agenda.

The new president was rendered powerless, forced to comply or watch the entire country go through immediate melt-down. We were given ultimatums about our freedom. Corporations and personal property were confiscated, making all legal documentation null in void by invisible oppressors. Anyone with status, power or money was a target. Soon enough, everyone became their prey. Bit by bit, the cancer erroded our internal system and spread like a plague inside a decaying body. Other nations looked to us for help, but we couldn't even help ourselves.

Military efforts were powerless in the paperless siege. Reliance on a flawed system, supported and managed from cyberspace, delivered swift chaos by its undoing.

It didn’t take long for the riots to start. When certain luxuries were removed— things we’d always taken for granted, like electricity, heat, gasoline, medical resources and decent food, America rebelled. They rose up in massive numbers from every city and gathered strength. Freedom was the common cause and for a brief time, we weren’t fighting each other. All races, religions and cultures merged to recapture the keys to the kingdom.

Living away from the city proved a blessing. And all those vegetables and fruits my parents stockpiled to the ceiling in parafin-sealed jars were put to good use. We didn’t starve. In fact, our food was used to sustain other families. It was as if Mom knew all their labors had a purpose from the beginning.

Angry Americans converged in town halls, school gymnasiums and churches, hidden beneath the cloak of midnight. One agenda propelled them all: destruction of the enemy. Assaults were precarious, well-planned events that could impregnate viruses into their data base systems. That only slowed them down. Their mastery of the technological beast was absolute and he never slept. By then, anyone that still had electricity, was suspected of being a traitor or a spy. America's blended cultures and swinging door society allowed enemies to walk freely among the oppressed, many times, escaping detection. The few that were discovered, were blugeoned to death on the spot.

Enraged Americans began using force. But with diminished medical supplies and dwindling rations, little could be achieved. Our monetary system, a useless, paperless virtual word, captured by pirates, ceased to exist. Bartering chicken eggs, when you could get them, for drinking water, if you could find some, was common trade in a stock market that dealt with survival.

Broken Americans became victims of their own undoing. The highest heads rolled the quickest. Names like Chase, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller and Hearst appeared quite often in the death rosters. The middle class faired better- at least the resourceful ones. Rural communities actually experienced a brief resurgence. Cities like New York, Dallas and Los Angeles became concrete jungles, left to the devices of gangs and looters.

Survival was hard work and not for the weak of heart. Those who clung to their faith were the most resilient.

Until the first assault occurred. Machines of madness took revenge on our ability to rise from the ashes and developed a new line of defense— nuclear armament.

Distant countries with dubious pasts were the first to feel the wrath of alias Allah, created to appease the sanctity of barbarians. China got a first hand reminder of the new super power delivered through their only source of misinformation. Fragments of propaganda were distributed via air mail to tent cities and shanty towns as rewards for compliance.

Once a week, desperate citizens reclaimed their dignity by catching a copy of the news, dropped from the sky like unholy manna. Death rosters, ration notices, and unjustified illusions of normalcy baited frantic Chinamen to run in zig-zagged patterns, hoping to capture one of the coveted winged messengers delivered by the familiar roar of the metal whirly birds hoovering overhead. China was a coveted acquisition of the axis, her resources and beauty enthralled, her geography voraciously pursued.

On a day that was cursed by all things dark, China’s sons and daughters sighed their final breath. Black fuel, bounty of fools, fed the thirsty dark metal hawks of black-hearted assassins. The black ink, embedded with blackest chemicals, laced death in the very ink touched by the innocents. The compliant masses, devalued in eyes of their oppressors, now victims of the airborne chemical virus laced in black symbols of the ancient Chinese alphabet cast down from the darkened skies. Dark monster eyes gazed down, peeking beneath masks of death while watching the reaper choke their victims.

Within hours, millions suffered the black death plague of chemical inks, leaving a wasteland grave of human remains.

China cried black tears that day. The rest of the world wept her eulogy, while trying to escape target practice.

Inside their dark chambers, sleek predators took aim on targets of unsuspecting souls. Mankind succumbed to the fate he was programed to believe. North America held no appeal for legions of self-appointed grim reapers and within hours it would cease to exist. Canadians, Mexicans, and Americans were all expendable, fated victims.

Dad and I were frozen numb from fragmented news and the look in Mom’s preponderant gaze. She disappeared, seeking remedial wisdom lurking in the gardens.

Within minutes, Mom returned. I’ll never forget that moment. She embraced wisdom, strength and grief, while gazing intently at me,“You must leave right now, son.”

“Leave?” I questioned, knowing my place was at home with them.

“We have five hours to live. But you, Matthew, have the rest of your life. Go to Stennis. Gather as many people as you can and take them to Hanger 24. There’s a shuttle there. It can take you far away from here. Tell them what I said. Tell them they must leave or suffer a fate worse than China. If you leave now, you can escape.”

Her telling eyes left little doubt. But to walk...no run, from her like a coward abandoning an injured lamb, was inconceivable to me. Still, she persisted. Dad agreed with her decision just based on the look in her eyes. Sorrowfully, he insisting I comply.

Within ten minutes, I had a tote filled with some rations, a change of clothes, a few family photos, personal possessions and The Good Book. Good bye was impossible. How does one walk away from life? To this day, I still question the final moments of that decision.

But somehow, when I arrived at Stennis, people listened. Good people listened. All twenty-six of us climbed inside a hidden shuttle at Hanger 24. Today, we are seventy-two and our numbers continue to grow here on Terra Nova.

We watched North America blow as we made our ascent. Soon after, Europe and Australia suffered similar fates, customized by the whims of madmen. Mushroom domes viewed from above evoked strange emotions that placed us all in safety of the third person.

Fuel reserves didn’t allow our return. Truth be told, no one on the shuttle wanted to go back.

One day, someone might attempt a return home. And if they do, may God help them.

Matt LaRosa





Author's note: Last Update: 12/13/ 2006

"Terra Nova Papers" is an evolving story and has been reposted in book form to facilitate it's continuity.

ID: 762022   (Rated: GC) Title: Terra Nova Papers II  Description: What if human existence ceased as we now know it? This is a story of our future survival By: RubyThroughTheLookingGlass

Please check back from time to time for updated chapters.

Thanks for taking the time and having the courage necessary to consider my point of view. It comes from a place that I can never explain.

Ruby

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