章 1: Chapter 1: Tragedy
December 1st, 2052
RING! RING RING! RING RING RIN-
"Ugh, I hate mornings." Getting up, the boy groggily waddled over to the bathroom to do his usual morning routine. Once done he glanced at the mirror making sure everything was in order. What appeared was a five foot eleven young man with black hair and dull blue eyes.
Once done he walked to the kitchen greeting his mother along the way, "Morning Mom."
His mother busy making breakfast glanced at him before greeting back. "Good morning Ben, have a good sleep?"
"Yeah it felt great. Why do you ask"
His mother just glanced up at the clock before answering causing Ben to do the same. What he saw made him pale with realization. "Mom its 7:40!"
"Yes."
"First period starts in twenty minutes!"
"Yes."
"Shit!" Then Ben busted ass to his room to gather his pack and papers.
"Why the rush?" His mom shouted from the kitchen as she continued making cinnamon toast since it could be eaten on the way.
"I promised Michael I would get there early for the last touches on the project, Shit!"
"What did you two make?"
"A lightsaber and blaster!"
"I see. Well do they work?"
"They did yesterday!"
Ben then appeared from his room. His mom simply handed him the toast and sent him on his way. "Ben be careful, we've already had three different shootouts this morning and one was on the bridge!"
"Which one?" Ben shouted from the garage turning on the engine to his homemade motorbike.
"Brooklyn!"
"Ok. Don't worry I'll take Manhattan. See you later, Mom!" Then Ben rushed to school.
….
As Ben pulled out of the house he was greeted by smog filled sky's populated with a myriad of hovercraft.
Ben jacked into his phone to listen for morning traffic.
What was said made him curse, there was a shootout happening on the Manhattan Bridge right this second!
"Great now I have a chance in hell to getting to school on time. Screw it I'll just have to drive through it!"
Speeding down the bridge Ben could see the shootout between two gangs and the cops. One of the gangs had a cybernetic hooked up to a railgun, the other had a member hooked into power armor equipped with a minigun firing explosive rounds! The cops were vastly out numbered and outgunned.
"Fucking wonderful the big guns are out and about today, just what would I do without you!" Ben dryly commented.
"Well looks like I'm gonna need a distraction if I don't want to die." Ben scanned around for anything he could use with his cyberware optics. Then he spotted a MKV automatron.
"Yes, you will do just fine...." Ben then hacked his way into the bot with his ocular enhancements and set it to go into meltdown making time for Ben to speed through the chaos.
"Heheh, space marines would be proud of the chaos that I cause." Then Ben gunned it at seventy miles an hour.
The automatron started to heat up causing the gang members and cops to stop and panic at the realization.
BOOM!
The ensuing explosion was akin to a mini nuke causing all the participants to be blown off their feet. Leaving Ben the opportunity to speed through.
Once off the bridge Ben glanced at his watch.
[7:50AM]
"Breaking all driving laws and causing an explosion will lead to you saving five minutes? Man you learn something new everyday huh."
Then he arrived to school, parking his bike and rushing through the halls for class with minutes to spare.
….
In the classroom two boys were standing before two objects. One was an underweight blond hair boy and the other a slightly overweight Hispanic. Both dressed with glasses and checkered shirts, the classic nerd duo.
"When do you think he'll get here?"
"Don't know but Ben better have a good reason for being late, I don't even know if the lightsaber will work."
"You know it's not really a light-scimitar right? It's more like a beam saber."
"It's about the meaning behind the action okay? Geez Jose you are so slow sometimes." Michael muttered glancing at the clock.
[7:59AM]
'One minute, where are you at Ben we have got a project to show you bastard.'
Then just as the bell was about to ring the door busted open revealing Ben drenched in sweat, panting for breath. "I made it suckers."
"Yeah just on time Mr. Wilson. Now will you move so I can enter or will you continue to impede class time?" Bald man riddled with wrinkles asked stoically.
"After you Mr. Palmer." Ben then moved out of the way making way for the teacher.
Walking up to his friends Ben greeted them. "Sup guys how is life?"
"Bland."
"Late."
Jose replied with a bored look and Michael replied still pissed off at Ben. ""How's yours.""
"Mine? Hehe, mine was fan-fucking-tastic! That's what! I had to drive through a triple way shootout between one gang with power armor and another a railgun cybernetic. The cops were so screwed." Ben replied still high on the excess adrenalin in his body.
"How did you get through it?" Jose gaped.
"I hacked into a crippled automatron and made it go through a critical meltdown!" Jose and Michael looked at him in shock.
"Damn you loco amigo."
"Verrückter bastard."
Then Ben perked up, remembering something. "Hey you guys wanna know something neat?"
Jose and Michael glanced at each other before nodding. Ben beamed "Well if the route you are taking is preoccupied with bullets and dead bodies then all you have to do is set off a huge explosion knock everyone off their feet, letting you cruise past."
""Or we could just take a different route."" They both said.
"Boys! Are you done or do we need to wait till you three get referrals hmm?" Mr. Palmer asked.
The three boys shut up letting class start unimpeded.
"Now then the project was designing and creating a fictional piece of technology from various media in the sci-fi genre. Who here is confident enough to present first?" Then Mr. Palmer picked a group and got on with class.
….
"Mr. Wilson and Mr. Fischer, you're up."
The pair got up to the front bringing a hilt and blaster. "Our project was a blaster and lightsaber."
Then Michael shot off the blaster onto the floor leaving a black mark that slowly receded to its original color. "That was on low output, I designed it so that at max output the blaster bolts would go through things leaving gaping sizzling holes behind."
Then one student raised her hand at the back making Michael point at her. "But don't blaster bolts not go through their targets? That's not very arcuate is it?" She said with a stuck up grin.
Michael looked at her like she was an idiot. "Sherry, the only reason blaster bolts were shown as lasers and not their true counterpart is because the original trilogy was made for children in mind. The crew couldn't have people exploding or else the rating would go up."
Sherry then shut up leaving Ben to show his side. He calmly walked in front replacing Michael lifting the hilt in front of him. "This ladies and gentlemen is the dream for all men to one day wield at least once." Then he turned it on revealing a purple beam of plasma.
Michael face palmed at the display and asked Ben "Why did you pick purple? Red, blue, or green would have been fine."
Ben then looked at him grinning "to stand out."
He waved the saber around then got a piece of metal that was one foot in width, melting through it. Ben then looked up at Mr. Palmer and asked "we got an A, right?"
….
Ben hummed happily on his way to lunch with Jose and Michael arguing behind.
"I'm telling you dude wetware is the future, you can only add so much cyberware to your body before the brain and nervous system is overridden with malware and the like. Plus wetware is a technology that improves the body and brain, not damage them!" Jose seemed adamant on the fact that cyberware was a dying technology and that wetware was the future.
Michael shook his head "you can only add so much cyberware before you damage the brain? Dude soon we won't even need our bodies or brains when we could download ourselves to the net."
"And risk the threat of the sentinels literally destroying your personality and replacing you with their own! In fact, the second an A.I. acquired sentience was the second cyberware should have been thrown in the garbage! Because now not only do they have sapience, they have sentience too!"
Ben glanced at the duo in silence before comforting.
"Jose no need to get worked up over A.I. on a debate about better technologies ok? You need to let go about the death of your mom, she wouldn't want to see you like this nor would she appreciate the whole revenge idea. Revenge is an empty goal for foolish people, and it never ends well...."
Ben said to Jose as they sat down at their lunch table. Jose simply sat beside him calming himself before he had another outburst. Once Ben saw that he was done he continued the conversation.
"Both technologies have pros and cons, restrictions and limits. But hey, look on the bright side, they complement each other very well!"
Michael looked at Ben stoically still a little peeved about the debate from before. "Such as...."
Ben looked at Michael dryly before sighing and answering. "Cyberware is a technology commonly known to having hardware parts implanted in the human body and acting as an interface between the central nervous system and the computers connected to it. Wetware on the other hand is technology involving the brain and all of its faculties such as neurons, hormones, and overall bodily control. Must I go on or can you put the puzzle together yourselves?"
After that they continued onto eating lunch before the television in the cafeteria was abruptly switched to the news channel. Featuring a mourning on the cyberspace attack in England caused by sentient A.I.
"We bring you live to the mourning ceremony of the attack on the Palace of Westminster on December 10th, 2042 which claimed over fifty thousand lives. The subsequent attacks on England's net and power plants led to a further two million two hundred and fifty thousand lives in the country." The students in the cafeteria were muted as they listen solemnly on massacre that happened ten years ago that everyone now calls the Marionette Massacre, although it's taboo to say it in public.
….
"Alright guys I'll see you tomorrow. I have some much needed sleep to catch up on!" Ben hopped on to his motorbike and strapped on his helmet before being stopped by a hand on his shoulder, Ben looked over at Jose questioningly.
Jose seem to hesitate on his words before sighing. "Do you really think I should let go or are you just saying that?"
Ben looked at him thoughtfully before replying. "Jose revenge is a never ending chain of death, especially since your target is sentient A.I. it makes it the same as killing another human. Look I'm not telling you to forgive and forget ok? I'm simply telling you to not let your mothers death dictate your life and how you live. Its destructive."
Jose looked at him blankly for few seconds before sighing again and thanking Ben for his words. Before he left, Ben reminded Jose "Don't forget that I'm here when you need me and that I'm sad and angry about Mama Vida's death too, it may not be as much as you but I miss her all the same."
Jose nodded and Ben sped away on his homemade motorbike back home.
….
"Electric avenue~"
Ben sang along as he crossed the Manhattan Bridge and was almost home before he spotted smoke in the distance. "Hmm, looks like a pretty bad fire, I wonder if the inhabitants got out safely..."
Then Ben realized something horrid. The smoke was coming from the direction his house was in. Almost as if on que his phone went off.
RING! RING! RIN-
"Hello, Mom are you alright!"
"Ben! Mom is... there's this big metallic man he busted into the house and he...he...he took m-m-mom, and threw her across the house and I-!" Then the voice stopped as her breath hitched.
"Bell?! Bell answer me! Bell!" Then screaming was heard as he heard his sister drop the phone and run away. The only noise he could hear was the rapid footsteps of his sister and the slow footsteps of someone else.
"Shit, damnit, you want to mess with my family well fuck you then." Ben shifted gears and went full throttle all the way home as fast as he could. when he arrived he opened a secret compartment in his storage container on his bike before revealing a .44 magnum revolver fully loaded.
"I'll show you you bastard-"
CRASH
when Ben looked up at the now smoking, broken window he saw his sister falling from the second story riddled in cuts!
"Bell!" Ben rushed forward and cushioned his sisters fall cracking a few of his ribs in the process. "Bell! Wake up! Wake up right now!" He cradled his sister before hearing the door bust open reveling a pair.
Bens mother was being hoisted by her neck by a giant shiny metallic man. The mans 'skin' seemed to ripple as he moved and his footsteps seem to shake the earth.
"Mom!" Bens mother, who is still struggling with the metallic man glanced up at her son, paling at the realization that he was in tremendous danger. "Ben leave! Take Bell and get as far from here as possi-" She was then cut off as the metallic man tightened his grip.
The man then looked down at Ben. "Look at how you have grown up. Too bad you won't be living passed this point. And to think this is your fault Isabella, our children must suffer for your mistakes."
Ben laid down his sister before pulling out his gun, pointing it at is supposed father. "Let go of her you shiny bastard!"
The man looked over stoically at the boy. "If anyone here is a bastard its you."
The man did not even get a reply before Ben pulled the trigger on his gun hitting man straight in the chest! Only it seem to cause nothing but a ripple and stagger but he lost his balance dropping Bens mother.
Ben tried prying his way into this metallic monsters ports but the RAM for his operating system didn't seem to be enough. "Damn what are you some kind of off brand terminator?"
Ben then rushed to his mother to help but before he could.
BANG!
Ben for an instant felt his skull being penetrated before black consumed his vision relaying his death. His mother gaped at her sons death. She had just talked to him this morning, made breakfast for him and sent him off to school, and now he lay dead in front of her with his gray matter oozing out of his head.
"You!" She wrathfully glared at the man in a suit walking up from behind the boy. The man seem to be filled with such positivity that you could never associate him with murder. "Mrs. Wilson! How good to see you! We need you you to come back and finish the project if you don't mind."
"If you help us we will spare your other child from an untimely death as well as bury the boy next to his grandparents! Of course the parents from your side not from Vincent's side." Isabella was still in distraught before ultimately agreeing to the demand hoping to save Bell now that she was the only family she had left. The death of Ben was not something she would get over anytime soon but she was not worried.
"Great load them up we have soo much work to do and get done." The man then turned around and walked joyfully back to the vehicle.
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