"Drinng....drinng...drinng"

i hate mondays, i should switch the alarm clock sound to something more bearable. On other side, this would probably be a bad idea. Once i had the brilliant idea to let my home AI wake me up in the morning. Never again, this gone horrible wrong and was late for work. Just imagine a nice womanly voice tries to wake you up while always listens to your commands... like 5 more minutes please. Do you realize how much more of that 5 minutes the AI gives you to get up? Lets say.... to much of that 5 more minutes for sure and end that thoughts. I have to get ready for work.

Putting the alarm clock to sleep, i start my daily during the week routine. Brushing my teeth, shaving my beard, visiting the bathroom. This let me almost feel like all that different kind of robots that roam the walkways of that concrete streets between the different Mega-complexes. Yep, i am proud to own my own flat in one of that complexes, and not even a basic one. It comes with his own home AI program and other different comfort technologies. I don´t even have to go out for dinner like most of the people living in those technical high end complexes. I probably should tell the AI what i would like to eat for dinner that evening. Printing cultured meat still takes a view hours, better set the order.

Finishing the shaving and looking into the bathroom mirror, i cant stop thinking that i probably should get a haircut again, my last one was months ago, cant even remember exactly when it was. My dark-brown, really thick hair already looks like as i would carry a bird nest on top of my head.I also should start my gym training again, i don´t want to end like other people who never leave there flats. I absolutely understand the convenience of working from home. This Virtual reality gadgets that come as a whole extras for entertaining proposes like games and movies, or just to use them for controlling the robots and machines from mining to maintenance work for like everything.

Sometimes i wished that i also could work from home. Leaving this Mega-complex to get to the research facility that is about 20 km away from the city because of the safety reasons is sometimes quite bothering. Who the hell likes to get out of the complex and into that extreme weather conditions that started about 58 years ago as my mother still was young. Good bless her soul! Most people at that generation did not get old because of the toxicity that the air started to contain.

No one is exactly sure what the real reason was for that drastic global changes, just that everything went quite fast at the end of that age. There were multiply natural disasters like a chain reaction that was not stoppable. Everything once got better as the technology evolved and fusion generators worked in tandem with the still working nuclear reactors to get the very energy intensive filter system to work. Yep, as always life comes from water and we get a lot of stuff for living out of molecule combinations and Atoms from that processing plants. Without water no independent life would be possible. That's why no-one lives on the moon. Because of the limited time that generation had, the semi-automated building machines which are responsible for building this mega-complexes almost made all the complexes with the same design and layout. No one even has windows anymore in there apartments. Why should we build potential weaknesses in that complexes? Too look outside? Whats there to see? If you would get a flat that is next to the outer wall, the best you would get a higher electricity bill because of the higher temperature in your home that would be caused because of a window to see the gray foggy outside world. Nah.. windows are nonsense!

On my way to the research facility with the shuttle bus, they talk about the 100 people that won in the monthly lottery for the next flight with the Star-ship to Mars, nothing really special. Never would play the lottery for that trip. They would have to pay me a lot to even get me started to realistically think about making the journey there. But the advertising from the politic is working nicely it seems. Nice pictures of very big greened caves, with the promise for a better live is enough it seems to get people there. Seems none of them has a far sight about what will happen when they arrive there. Nothing special again..... on earth at least we have a stable atmosphere and not that -80°C temperatures outside like there is on Mars. That planet is to small to hold a stable atmosphere and also has even more extreme temperature than earth. So what will they do there? Same as on earth, stay in there apartments, doing the same boring stuff as here on earth.

Arriving at the airlock of the research facility the shuttle-bus smoothly went in and the the doors closed behind to beginn the change of the air in the hall. Yep... You can watch the whole process through the cheap nano OLED screens that decorate the inside of this electrik metall shuttle bus. Would be nice to have a sub train connection, but they are only used as connections between the mega complexes. The farther away complexes are connected with underground Hyperloop systems. Flying is almost impossible with that unpredictable weather outside.

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

It took humanity a long time to even get satellites into the orbit again, and 5 years ago they started with the colonization of Mars. It is still not risk free, but that's not my problem.

Getting through the security check, on my way to my underground lap, I hear someone shouting my name behind me and turn around.

(Voice behind me) "Hey Greg, already on your feet again? Saturday evening got you really hard, pretty sure your sunday sucked. Hahaha.."

(Me) "Joe, you little bastard, don't shout the hallways, we are not alone here. You still can't differ between freetime and professional behavior."

I swear, sometimes I could kill that guy, Johnathan can be so insensitive about his surroundings.

(Joe) "Come on, don't be like that... You already put the stick back in our arse it seems."

You would not believe it, that walk-in Meter with unnatural looking Muskels and broad shoulders could drink his alcohol like water without falling from his seat. Should start to call him dwarf. In that fantasy movies they would be described like that. Nah... Just joking. He is about 1 Meter 60 high and is missing a beard, so a little hard to see him as a fantasy dwarf.

(Me) "Haaaaaa... Just please, can we at least walk to the elevator while chatting, I have a lot of work to do until I can start my next experiment"

I tell you sometimes that guy really gets on my nerves. But he means no bad, he is just a little insensitive at times. Also in my free time when we go out bar hopping and have fun trying to pick up girls, he really rises my mood with his character.

(Joe) "As you with buddy, we have to head in the same direction anyway. You know, Saturday evening at Sorrows bar, you really were down, shortly after nonstop talking about that space distortion engine test they will perform today in the moon orbit. I was just a bit worried about you."

(Me) "Yea... Sorry about that, I don't know what happened, somehow got a moral one. I am terrible stuck with my research about the quantum coupling communication system. If you even could call it communication at this point. You know how imported a instand quantum teleportation communication would be an absolute scientific breakthrough. Just imagine controlling the drilling machines, building machines and robots on Mars from earth without the radio delay. That would be so awesome."

(Joe) "Greg.... You are 'brabbeling' again,... I know I know, you already told me this on Saturday over and over again how imported that would be in combination with that space distortion engine that compresses and expands the space around it to travel faster than light."

(Me) "Yes you got it! This technology would make humanity a interstellar race and we could travel to other star systems"

(Joe) "Still, that experimental ship lookes really weird if you ask me, a silver capsule as big as a 4 story building which would have enough space for about 15 apartments would be okay, but that stupid looking black umbrella thing on the back pointing in the wrong direction looks not really elegant, if that even is the back of the pill-ship. The 2, umbrella looking sails, tied together at the handle, what you say should be the front of the ship just looks totally like a patchwork. At least the black metall tubes that connect the umbrella closest to the pill look somehow cool."

(Me) "Everything has to look cool for you. Your gaming characters, your technical designs. Joe...., the most important thing is functionality, not the optical design."

Ahh, that dickhead, everything has to look cool for him, probably comes with his job.

(Joe) "I wonder 'Cu..' you still here 'Cuu...'Cuuuuu' watching the test of the deep space ship."

(Me) "Joe.. is everything alright with you? You are making funny sounds. What were you talking about?"

(Joe) "What funny sounds? Everything alright in your head? I told you, that on Sunday morning they announced, that they wanted to perform the test monday morning"

My heard started to race faster, did he say today morning?

(Me) "What? Tell me! When did they say they do they start the test? It is Monday morning now!"

(Joe) "Yea, that's why I was wondering you are not starring at a TV 'CUUU'."

Shit shit shit shit... I have to get to my lab, there is a TV screen. I started pressing the elevator button in rapidly with the floor number my lab is on.

The elevator doors open and I rush in the direction my lab is, open the door and switch on the TV as fast as I could.

The TV screen starts and the channel was already locked on the right channel.

I could see that experimental space ship Infront of a what seems full moon.

(Me) " Puhhh...."

Seems I got here in time.

The next thing I see is a bright light that comes from the front of the space ship between the space compression sails... That should not happen... In theory there should be the place where you only should 'see' an absolut black part in space. Something definitely goes wrong here!

(High pitched Sound) "CUUUUU"

A bright light engulfed the whole tv screen now and than it goes black......

A massive shockwave runs through the underground bulding and the the lights gone dark.

I open my eyes and closed them immediately again because of the bright light that blinds me

Where am I? I am completely disorientated, what happened?

'Ohhhh right', I fell asleep after eating that delicious peace of meat! Seems I overslept, that can't be the morning sun.... Much too bright!

Feels like I had a really strange dream, but I can't remember.

(High pitched Sound) "Cu..Cuuu Cu.. CUE"

Something is pushing against my side....