Chapter 1
“Wake up, sunshine!” Lileame said as he entered my room. “The sun is up, and so should you, there is work to be done, you know.”
“I know, now get out of here while I dress.” Lileame closed the door and I stood up and walked to my closet. It was a small ornate cabinet that has probably been on the ship for a few decades. I opened the left cabinet and choose the cleanest of the work jackets. I looked out the dirty porthole. A little sunshine was flowing through a small crack of the asteroids, as it always does.
I opened the door. The small hallway was cramped with horrible lighting and cobwebs. Although almost no one was in these quarters anymore, the leader of the compounds gave me this room, explaining over communigraph that there was no more room in the middle of the space—sub.
As I walked into the third chasm , leading into the injection chamber , there was a crowd in it. I walked over to the gathering, questioning people about what is happening. Every time, it was the same answer. “The leader is here!”
Now, as nobody has ever even seen the leader’s ship, it was a huge surprise. Only the commander of the ship was working, and urging people back to work.
As the huge vessel docked, the ship shook with years of not moving. The bay doors opened, and a crowd suddenly filled the first chasm, a crowd not seen in that chasm for years. A group of officers stood around an apparent leader figure.
The commander ordered us to our rooms as soon as the bay doors opened. I took a while, wanting to see who the leader of this ragged place was. He, or she, was filthy rich off of our hard labor, while we don’t get more than a qilsh a year. Nobody followed me as I made my way down the winding tracks to my abandoned deck.
I lay down on my bed, thinking that at least we didn’t do anything today. Maybe I could’ve caught up all of the sleep I didn’t get all of these days.
The sleep enveloped me dearly, and, as my mind succumbed to the wonderful dreams, a thud shook me from my subconscious, far away. I opened my eyes halfway. Nothing in my small room was damaged. I frowned and closed my eyes once again. The tentacles of dreams wrapped its silky smooth arms around me. Another thud sounded through the room, getting closer.
Groaning, I turned in my bed to face the wall and the small porthole. Another thud sounded right outside my door. Pulling the blanket from myself, I got up and inched closer to the door. The door cracked as something outside pounded on my door.
“Relax, relax, I’m opening the door.” I said as I grabbed the handgun on my weather—worn desk. Taking the safety off, I unhitched the five bolts and opened the door. No one was there. Nothing was there but the dent on the door across me and the broken furniture thrown across the hallway. Someone was definitely there before. I peeked my head out of my door and was almost beheaded by an ancient sword. I leaned back quickly and grabbed the hand that was holding the sword.
I threw the person into my room and onto my bed. It was a woman with dark red hair flowing down her back, like a waterfall filled with blood. She spat on my bed and turned to me. “Who are you?” I said, wrestling the sword away from her.
“No one you need to know! You witch! Give me back my sword!” She spat again, this time at my shoes.
“You sure do have a lot of saliva, mind not relieving yourself of it on my floor. Look, I don’t care who you are, or who you’re ‘working’ for. I don’t care. I’m exhausted, so I really don’t care.” I said grimly.
I don’t care if you’re tired or not, traitor! Royal blood has been spilt because of your kin!” She spat again. I rolled my eyes and lazily stabbed the metal ground. The sword got stuck and I leaned on it.
“Do I look that old to you? I don’t have kin, not that I want to. “She growled at me. “You better not spit again. “
“You have battling experience, have you ever fought in a battle?”
“No, I haven’t.” I sighed.
“Liar, I know who you are. You are the brother of the once leader of the rebellion. “
“Ok, so you know me, tell me a little about yourself.”
She sneered. “Not enough time. The leader of Wonders wants you. “
“You almost killed me just to send a message?”
“He wanted to see if you are worthy.” She grabbed her sword, blindingly fast.
“So let’s go then, or am I qualified?” She smiled and walked out of my room. “Wait!” She didn’t. I sighed and ran after her. “I guess that’s a yes.”
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I walked to the chasms and let out a breath. The floor was swept cleanly, the walls were washed. In the middle of the room there was a large cube, enough to fit about five people. Guards were around it, staring off into space.
The woman with the sword appeared behind with and pushed me to the entrance of the cube. The door looked like a small submarine door. It was clean but I could see scratches and worn metal.
“In you go!” The woman said as she smiled and backed away. Two guards appeared at my side as I opened the door. I walked into a white chamber and the door closed behind me.
Air filled the room and showered me with a cold feeling. A door on the opposite side of the one I entered opened. I entered a huge cavern of a room with people milling around with importance. In the middle of the room, a huge circular table sat with a dozen or so people around it. The door closed behind me with a loud thud. Everybody stopped and stared at me. Only one person moved, and he walked towards me.
“Ah, cousin, it is so nice to meet you! It’s been a while hasn’t it?” He smiled and walked towards me to put his arm around me.
I backed up and punched him in the nose. The guards rushed towards me from out of nowhere and seized me. “Release him. That hurt, Michael. “
“You are no cousin of mine, Matt!” Thinking about punching him again, I clenched my fist. “You’re the leader of Wonder?”
“Yes, but let me explain everything before you get mad about your living conditions. “He walked over to the circular table and dismissed everyone. “First of all, I only kept you in this ship so Firenze wouldn’t come after you, he knows me, and so I kept you under my wing without ever doing it in public.
“Now, let me be clear why we are here together, and I need this to be short. I have been researching technology, and I found out how to make room with a small amount of space. This cube that you’re in, inside, it has the space of a small country. “
He walked over to me. “This is why I decided to come and talk to you today. I am going to do something very stupid, and you are going to hate me.” He laughed. “Heck, I am going to even hate myself. I am going to continue the rebellion.” He hushed me before I could say anything. “I want you to lead it, as your brother once did. Before you say anything, it is too late to back down; I am announcing my secession of the primary member of ores. That will bring them down, but not for long. I need you to go among the stars to bring back the Council of the Rebellion. “
He said nothing else as he walked out and to another room, probably to talk to his press, to announce his secession of his mining company.
He probably just started the rebellion.
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Matt sighed and walked onto the stage. Over two dozen reporters were gathered from top news stations like UNTN and CNSA. Holocams were around the room, recording the entire thing, studying Matt and the other representatives on the stage.
Matt cleared his throat and the room became piercingly silent. All eyes studied him as he looked at the words his department made for him.
“I’m really no good at speech making, so I’ll just wing it with the cards or without.” He laughed silently. The reporters did nothing, just looking into his eyes.
“I’ll just start right off. Philip Monitors, the president of Powers Cabinet, recently noted the power crisis in the community of the world. So to make changes that probably would have profited, he sent taxes soaring in the mining company. However, it clashed with the budget cuts that the head of the Parliament, Alex Jefferson, the leader of the world, mentioned. The budget cuts started today, so I have no choice but to renounce the title of Wonders compounds as the leading ore refinery in the world. We are shutting down temporally to do reconstruction to improve the output of our profit. This will take a few weeks. Thank you.” He walked down and out of the room, not waiting for the shocked stares to waiver on the audience.
Walking out, he muttered to himself, “The rebellion has started.”
Chapter 2
The press had left the building, only to mass in the main room to do interviews and Live Action reports. I looked out my window to see the reporters like tiny ants in the main room.
A small knock on the door startled me and I looked over there. It was the same girl as last time, with the same sword at her side. She sneered and walked away.
I sighed. “Nice greeting, shouldn’t we hug or something?”
“No need, you know we well enough already.”
“Ok? So why does he want me now?” I asked as we walked out to a small hallway.
“We need to leave immediately; and he wants you to go with him. The place is ‘shutting down’ and we need to get you out of here.”
“And why would that be?” I stopped as we entered the regular living quarters for most of the workers and looked around. The men milled around, packing their little clothes into half-made suitcases. The rooms were barren.
“ We are closing down, so we need to get you out, now come on and quit asking me questions, I don’t know much, sorry.” She walked to the intersection of the hallways and stomped on the middle tile.
A staircase opened up, leading down to what seemed like nowhere. “What is this?”
“A ship never reveals all of her secrets, Michael.” With that she scurried down the stairs. I ran down the hallway and into the dark staircase.
A familiar hand grabbed my shoulder. “You have got to stop doing that!” I screamed.
A small light cam from a device the woman had. She ran up the stairs and closed the tile. The light only illuminated a little in front of her and she was no where near me. I stumbled my way downstairs, trying not to think if I fell. Keeping my mind occupied, I look at the light still above me.
“So, where do these stairs lead?” I almost tripped over what felt like a banana peel, but it squeaked.
“Old emergency exit. We’re taking it to the ship Matt is on.”
“To?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.” She said nothing after that, no matter how much I poked and prodded.
As I walked along the staircase, I saw what looked like hieroglyphics, but some more things caught my attention. Blood covers most of the walls as we walked down the mossy stairs.
“What were these stairs used for?” I asked.
“About thirty years ago, before the McFarlane Laws were passed, prisoners were dragged down here to be put into the asteroids forever, no matter what condition they were in. Or the state of mind.”
We walked on in silence. Finally I spoke up, after thinking about it a while. “You still have never told me your name.”
“I have no reason to, for I have always been taught that giving somebody your first name is a sign of weakness.”
“I must be very weak to you then.” I waited for her to speak. She said nothing and I sighed.
“We are close.” The stairs started becoming elongated almost as soon as she said that.
We soon reached a door. It was a long small door, with scratches and blood all around it. The air got cold as we walked up. I didn’t know if it was from the horrible wretchedness of the vacuum of space, or of the wretchedness of the things that happened there.
“I must warn you, the airlock here has a horrible, so you might want to hold your breath.”
I shivered.”Don’t you have a rebreather?”
“Only for myself.” She sneered as she searched through her pouch, which I had not seen before.
“Great, just great.”
She grabbed the old hatch and struggled to turn it. I smiled. “Need some help from an actual man?” She looked back at me.
“Wasn’t even trying.” She effortlessly opened the rusted hatch. Air rushed past me to some small holes in the cramped walk space. I tried to sustain a breath and ushered her past. She smiled once again as she clicked on the last bolt for the rebreather. After that she pressed a blue button that emptied out the rebreather into the room.
Taking her sweet old time, it seemed like, she leisurely walked to the next hatch. I would’ve probably rushed to open, but I noticed it required a keycard. Of course it required a keycard.
The door finally opened after what seemed like hours and I ran in, only to have the breath sucked out of me by the scenery on the walls.
It was a comfy circular room with a small, antique door adjacent to the now closed door I had just ran through. Two violet chairs with low backs and high arms sat around the door, facing the middle of the room, where an oval-like crystal table sat low to the floor. It was a two-tier table, both see-through, with small marble statues of pets on the bottom shelf and an ornately decorated silver platter that carried little triangle sandwiches and two glasses of what looked like blood.
A tall cabinet made of the finest greenwood trees in the corners of the world. It had one sliding door, which was open. Inside were dresses made of the silkiest fiber from the baobab spiders. Although all of these items were magnificent, it was the wall that had stopped me in my tracks.
There really was no ceiling, for the wall curved at the top to cave in towards a marvelous and elaborate chandelier. The wall was carved from the silky smooth Carvelline wood, with pictures carved into it. The pictures were of victorious moments in certain wars, detailed perfectly from the glint of the famous sword fight in The Mendelum War, to the grim face of a certain someone who entered the capital of the world for the last time.
At first, I had no clue who this person was, for the author put such perfect details in his face. Then I realized it. My brother, Neil.
I sat down, studying it. Memories flooded into my mind. Memories that I had tried to forget.
Neil had started the entire rebellion, convincing The Council of Members, a rich community with friends in big places, to fight against Carl Moderns, the once leader of Power Cabinets. He had gone to nearby planets and persuaded the usage of a huge navy to overcome the military of the world. He had also scrambled up some Delete class tanks to stop the army from advancing to defend the shell of the world.
The shell is the crust of the world, defending the hollow world underneath it. My brother was the one with the idea to break it. He was always the one to come up with the brilliant ideas. Ideas that ended up with his death.
Matt had walked through the elaborate door and leaned silently against the dresser while I was amazed by the pictures.
“Almost real, isn’t it?” He dismissed the girl who directed me.
I stood up. “Why is this here?”
“I don’t exactly know, but I do know it is there for a reason.” He sat down next to me. “Listen. What’s done is done. There is no going back. We only have a little bit of time to do what is needed.”
“And what would that be?”
He straightened himself. “We must, no, you must finish what your brother started. “
“Destroy the government?”
“Not just that, but re-unite the leaders that rebelled against him. Whether you like it or not, this is happening. We cannot turn back. I’ll be waiting for your answer.”
I groaned and sat back down. The grim face of my long-lost brother stared at me in disappointment as I walked out of the room to face my next mission.
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