DISCLAIMER: I do not own Star Wars, nor do I own Macross, so don't sue me! Go worship Lucasfilm and Harmony Gold for that. There's a lot of unexplained scientific stuff so please don't kill me for that. This is a SCI-FI fiction, so actually a lot doesn't make sense, but well, don't kill me on it please.
Shadow of Light by Linus11VF1J
It has been a while old friend, and now you would like to know how I lived in those war times, a repeat of Germany, and thus a repeat of history. Of course I will, first read this, and then I'll continue onward.
(begin journal)
April 26, 2008
War is nothing new, but it being where you live is new. United States has changed from its democratic society, to being totalitarian because people there BELIEVE their almighty president is doing everything for DEMOCRACY and Canada DOES possess a WMD program. Stupid people, the only things here are raw stuff and oil. So because we possess raw uranium, we're automatically now declared a threat to Democracy.
Currently the only people I can see rignt now are my colleagues. I am a traitor, to my family and friends because they were to be sent away somewhere because of some new "efficient reloaction" that I bought into. It's propaganda for slave separation where if you can do a certain task, then they relocate all of you to a certain part of the country to do that everyday without relaxation or social support. Apparently I'm lucky because the government wants certain research close to the city to make sure the high people in the city are safe. I'm still a hard worker, and I enjoy it, but there's always that sense of loneliness now. I wonder what is happening to everyone outside of our little world here in Research.
December 14, 2008
I think this dictator of ours is crazy, but he does know when he sees a good idea even though it is fantasy. That old Star Wars movie with all the droids and robots that my brother and I always fantasized about has all of a sudden become a reality. Robot droid troopers are everywhere, inspecting everything, and they really are effective in weeding out liars and smugglers. That is if you're not one yourself. My colleagues and I are pretty good friends now, and we're are all kind of sure that by the time we achieve the government project, that we'll become disposable soon. Anyways, I have to rip this page out and I can't write too much because those new droids keep checking everything.
(end journal)
Well of course that's not the end, but I couldn't write a lot more after that. My colleagues and I in actual fact did finish the project before the deadline of April 2009, but we knew we'd just be disposed of right after because this project, is not named Shadow for nothing. Before we gave up our livelihoods, we were discussing ways to escape. Unfortunately, we only have 1 perfectly working prototype of The Shadow. Sorry, I mean invisible suit, I'm still very comfortable with what we use to call it. The last 4 months of our project we spent evaluating and criticizing each other on who was the fittest and most likely to survive in society within the Shadow. As you can see, I still have Shadow with me, so you can probably conclude that I was top of the class. However, this is of course not by my own talents. I am very thankful to a few friends from high school, who gave me the strength to survive and a few others the inspiration to not lose hope. My family, even though I still can not find them just yet was always my security that I could be relaxed, and secure in a place somewhere.
So I am the one to be the Shadow. An asset that helped us all make that decision was that I had a few custom droids built in my home, They weren't inspected because I kept them stashed in the floor of my apartment. Here, in the small glass display case here is my masterpiece. Yes it is a Veritech fighter from the 80s show Robotech, but it served its purpose as my Physical Guardian during the battles later on. Even throughout US rule, it was never created. I kept all that I needed to reproduce them when they had gone, and I took the few articles that were still of worthwhile memorbillia. In other words, I had a quite a few things in my backpack.
Well the day came, when it was time for that great escape. All my colleagues knew that I had to kill them to ensure they didn't reveal anything, and they told me it was like training to kill enemies too. They had all written letters to their loved ones, their to be loved ones, and family. During our research, we overheard a few security officers talking about resistance freedom factions in the camps, this gave us all hope that our loved ones would still be alive.
It would be a first experience of actually destroying life by my hand. I wish I could have not done it, but I am thankful that they too in a time of despair gave me hope that they lived their lives doing what they had set their lives to, and had completed their purpose in life. They left me a letter as well, and I still keep it with me.
(begin letter)
Dear John,
Hah, we are still so formal in times when we will be coming to our end. We know that if you ever reveal yourself on this side of the world, that you'd be labelled a killer and a thief in this country. However, look at the other side of the battlefield, the side where we use to live by. The true meaning of peace and freedom, we would all like to come, but then the probability of all of us getting through is close to none. Even if we trained ourselves during this time, we'd strain you more than you could keep us safe. Thus sacrificing yourself as you always do. We've made 1 last modification to the Shadow, remember that disease of yours SLE, well you did find a cure, but you never applied it. Shadow cloaks the entire body (including heat signatures and sensor wave bouncings such as Sonar and RADAR), including anything you're wearing except for the ground and it even silences all the internal sound that you make by default (Hey this isn't new, why are we explainig it to you?! Hahaha!). During that time, we'll apply the retrovirus to every single one of your cells in a single bound when you activate the cloak. Be careful though, you will be disabled for about a day while the treatment does its work. However, it will only happen once and anytime you deactivate and reactivate, that won't happen. It is the fire all-at-once mechanism you were looking for. Think of it as a wedding gift from us to you and whoever you may find if you survive. Our lives have found that complement, and they are somewhere else, some of them escaped, some of them haven't but we believe they'll cross your path soon. You were always the one with bad luck, to go to the hard projects and being the cursed for the first recruit for this project among a generation still watching "The invisible Man." Also, you seem to have a niche for picking the project associated with Apocaplypitic end. Therefore we hope that you can one day find that person who will be your complement and bring you out of this wretched cycle. Thank you for bringing our lives to peace, and we hope the absolute best for you, and from God.
Sincerely,
Research and Development Team Omega, Project Shadow
(signatures of the team)
(end of letter)
Well I read the letter after they had left this world, and they helped me in ending them by getting themselves high and attacking me to make sure that my instinct for survival overtook rational thought. They were great people, and I really wish there was a better way. Well the ordeal didn't end there, shots of any kind would immediately call security. So a few battle droids came and entered the room (they have access to every room, even if they have to shoot the door). I had my droids boot up first, and at first it was 2 droids coming in. The droids serving you now are exact replicas of those that fought alongside me, and you very well know were involved in the battles later in the war. They are better equipped since I did not consider them disposable like what the Government meant to think. Dispatching of 2 enemy droids was easy, as there were still bugs in the government designs such as wait for a confirmed lock rather than fire when it looks like it'll hit. So rushing through, I let my Destroyer pretty much drive and boulder a path for me to run through. I had run through out of the house, and by that time, there were tens of government droids around. I am glad for the defensive nature of my servants to help fend them off to allow me to escape to the suburbs. During my escape, I had a gatling side-arm to mow troops following me. Well, I had eventually escaped to a an old age home, and activated my cloak in a flash of black light. There was a patrol after me, but thankfully Shadow worked, and I was not seen, or heard otherwise I'd be dead and not here telling you this story.
I woke up almost exactly 24hours later feeling refreshed, and I was very hungry, I realized how much SLE bogged my performance down, prayed form my team, their relatives and thanked God. The home itself was meant for high ranking and useful seniors, anyone else I think was "dispatched accordingly." So entering the facility was very easy when you are cloaked in invisible attire. However, I was not permeable and I had to wait for people to press the auto-open door buttons to allow myself in. I had a close call when I was about to enter the kitchen door, but I just missed hitting the nurse by jumping back. When I finally got into the kitchen, I already knew that my bag was not optimized for space maximization as things could still jingle if I ran and turned the sound off. I know I'm not going to have a lot of time to travel and eat, but I should be healthy to ensure that I survive so I stole bread with no yeast (compact and lots of starch), a bunch of vitamin bottles, some beans, a few sticks of celery and a big brick of cheese from the storehouse of the kitchen. When it was time to get out, I really needed to get out before they lock the doors, so I was desparate to escape once I filled my supplies up.
I couldn't very well run to the border, as it was almost 200km away. But I could take a train to the slave camps around the border where most of my team's relatives are. The camps were set up there as hostages so Canada couldn't very well run a scud missle attack or an aerial bombing raid. Well I was at the suburb station bound for around the country. This train is actually used for suburb and supply transports, but there are still a few outlying estates and cottages for those wealthy lobbyist. So as I came to the train station, it was very easy to pass station security as it is still not prepared to find Shadows. I waited alongside a wall to make sure that even if someone hit me, they'd think it was the wall. While everyone was waiting for the train, there were not many people there because this is the 2:00PM express. Everyone leaving on time took the 12:00PM and the 1:00PM (if you missed the 12:00PM) trains.
I noticed a few school girls that were waiting to go up to their relative's place cottage country (hmmm they must be daughters of some high up people). They were chattering like regular school girls do, but they seemed entirely clueless of the situation around them and what is going on outside of the city and cottage country. Well they found out eventually I'm sure, when we pressed back into York. They were greeted by what seems to be their guardian for the trip, and he was well dressed and seemingly in a very high class of a business. I noticed the girls were very happy together, and whenever one of them went a away to do something, they'd all wait patiently and silently for that person to return. It brought on to me something that I rarely felt, but perhaps it was because circumstances before were not very urgent. Over the past 4 days I have been trying to escape with my life, and the mission I've been set out to bring happiness to those that I have taken the lives of. It brought me an acute sense of loneliness, and I was almost tempted to deactivate Shadow just to talk with someone. But then that would be nothing more than a waste of time since they would run from me, and my train ride to freedom would be dashed. I wondered, and hoped that there would be someone on the otherside of the border who was hoping I still existed. The train arrived, and people were loading on to the passenger cars. I went into a cargo freight car full of rice because those are sent off to the camps, and the passenger cars are detached at the last stop in cottage country. I stayed in the freight car, refilled my bread supplies with rice, and stared out into the scenery as the train went onward to its destinations.