Makeshift dormitories littered the streets of Marina Port. The lamp posts in this shady town centre barely functioned, but nobody cared or paid attention. Best of all, it was the reality of the United Atlantea Federation’s decrepit infrastructure when the grid’s electricity supply, the centralised powerplant based in the North, known as the Smart Grid, forcefully shut down during the final days of the Singularity War. To resolve this issue, the United Atlantea Federation's government laid out plenty of grand projects in the pipeline during their annual budget speech.

Yet, the projects had not begun nor shown signs of commencement.

The neverending scene of nature, with wild animals roaming around, filled his eyes every morning. If one were to think of freedom, nothing captured the essence of liberty than animals roaming about without caring about the manmade, self-imposed issues humans have. They could go anywhere they pleased. They could enjoy the thrill of the hunt without worrying about tomorrow. Compared to this daily trip from the North to the South that became a part of his rigid, mundane life, Neptune always wondered, what true freedom would taste like. Even with the bright overcast of the rising sun, the scene he feasted upon had no hue. Emptiness. Mundane. Pathetic. To him, the world had only two colours.

Black…

…And white.

Even his growing years seemed like a lifetime ago, for he could barely remember what he did as a teenager until his life ended a year ago.

The weekends were the only time to savour what remained of civilisation. Even with scraps of free time available, there was nothing to do apart from reading torn-up books left behind by their ancestors and completing brain-wrecking theoretical homework, those state-mandated spreadsheets forced upon the youths to instil national identity had plenty of holes and information deemed as relevant by the authorities.

Roads to nowhere, with massive signs leading to defunct attractions, littered through the junctions of the North; also, the closest recreational parks and shopping malls weren’t accessible to where the average citizen lived. The best the citizens had was a seaside park where families roamed about.

Venturing into the great outdoors sounded fun, but had too much of a hassle. Since nobody knew when someone last conducted maintenance on the faulty lamp posts, going for these expeditions carried far too much risk for a day trip. Nobody wanted to have a return journey cloaked in darkness. And those shining eyes of mammals rumoured to glow in the dark stalking their every move. How scary indeed.

"How are we going to carry out maintenance with them?" He shook his head slowly, knowing his contemporaries did not share mirroring thought processes.

That’s if anyone alive past the Singularity War had the technical skills to do so. Nobody would work weekends; the population had shrunk to such a degree nobody could carry out the hard labour–or desire to learn the skills–to restore the rotting infrastructure around them. The transport vehicles had to operate with minimal capacity, for the oil rationed by the Federation meant that every drop of liquid gold carried heavy rationale for its utilisation.

The subject matter experts refused to teach the citizens who wished to pick up these skills anything, especially from the Southern parts of the Federation, who carried disdain toward the former North Atlantean survivors who cast aside their ideologies in favour of a unified supernation to save their skin. Despite the merger, the three great countries still lived their respective lives based on cultural differences, where the only thing binding them was by law and nothing more.

“What did you say, Neptune?” One of the youths called out to him.

“Nothing. You must have heard a ghost.” Neptune quickly brushed off the fool before using his forearm to cover his eyes.

The youth shrugged his shoulder before resuming his lighthearted conversation with someone else. “...Sure.”

Life in these times, in A.W.30, was fantastic despite the physical labour involved, according to the men in white. When the trip takes them to the South, Neptune and his fellow citizens must get to work in the hot sun. The thought of restarting strategic pipelines made the citizens lose their appetites, but in the name of a better tomorrow, they would do anything for their homeland to rise from the ashes again. In the name of rebuilding for the future, everyone looked forward to ushering in an eternity of peace and progress!

Except for him, the lone mind of sanity in an insane world.

“This is bullshit. This reality. Nothing makes sense.” Muttering under his breath, Neptune quickly fell into a deep slumber, hoping this reality was a bad nightmare he could wake up from.

*

“...Guys, where are we now?”

Neptune yawned as his waking vision caught an oddity. Everyone’s eyes fixated upon him like he was a prime piece of Ribeye steak, a delicacy he once heard tasted like heaven. Realising he’d been watched, Neptune cried out in frustration. “What’s wrong? Why are all of you staring at me like that?”

“Nothing.” Everyone answered in synchronous unison.

Eyeing his observers incredulously as light entered his eyes, Neptune raised his eyebrows. “Then, explain why all of you are looking at me like I’m lunch or something? Hope you guys aren’t cannibals…”

“H-huh?! It's nothing.”

“You guys aren’t good liars.”

There are certainly more things than that being one of their inefficiencies.

“Yoyo! Carmelo said he wanted to shake you up while you were sleeping!” Bronston admitted while slapping Carmelo on the head.

“Hey! It was your damn idea, Bron!” Carmelo leapt from his seat toward Bronston, putting him in a side headlock. As they fooled around, everyone began to erupt in loud laughter.

Here we go again.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

The same sequential event repeated as their faces faded into a blur. It then transformed into nothingness as thick, heavy greenish-blue scribble-like lines messily filled their disfigured faces.

“...Whatever suits you all.”

Ignoring the Faceless beings, his attention shifted toward the scene sprawling from his window seat, the vast fields of greeneries and the almighty ocean, with its pristine clear-blue water. Dark thoughts filled his mind as he closed his eyes from reality, for the dream world he fantasised was more fun than this meaningless life. The dream of a utopia resting in the far North, where its siren call allured him to awaken them from their graveyard of mechanical hell–

“What was that?”

Neptune suddenly shifted his attention toward the sprawling landscape, beyond what his vision could see, as if he heard someone whisper his name.

“–I’m starting to wonder how humanity ended up in this mess in the first place…”

Since Neptune and his batchmates turned sixteen, they had received a mandate to register for the General Education Program, the GEP, a visionary plan created by the Federation as a holistic education program for the youths to equip themselves with theoretical and hands-on skills.

Like a good slave reporting to the plantations to serve his sentence, he had no choice when the notice arrived on his doorstep. He had long given up hope in this world upon realising he was just another flesh heap with a predestined future to become a cog in this machine.

Was this the same fate that the next generation of Federation citizens would have?

Would he condemn his siblings to this fate? This macabre existence, a life of utter hollowness that crushed the souls of the living with each passing day?

Neptune started drifting into a dream world at his meaningless work. The table he was working on to inspect the gold coins belonged to the Bronco Mining Corporation. Heck, the entire operation was the property of Bronco Corp. From the uniform he wore down to the boots, everything belonged to them. And even his life.

When he first stepped into this mine, the GEP Administrators had given him a mind-crushing task: inspecting the excavated gold coins. As inspecting coins became more mundane, he began studying the intricacies of each gold coin’s design. The realisation started to set in when these coins shared a similar trait.

Why does every coin have a face on it?

He would survey his surroundings to answer his questions. The more he did, the more questions started to arise. Each gold coin inspected had intricacies carved into it that belonged to a distant era, a chapter of humanity lost in time.

Unless my eyes are playing tricks with me.

There was a date when the coins stopped minting, perhaps signalling the Singularity War’s beginning. It was an unprovable theory, just another musing that made his day more bearable.

With a sleight-of-hand trick, he held onto coins that had duplicates, pocketing them upon sensing nobody nearby within his peripheral vision. He took precautionary measures despite the inadequacy of the citizens, not out of carefulness but hoping these mindless walking drones would catch him in the act one day.

To his disappointment, one year passed, with nobody calling him out.

He was spurred into action to steal these coins out of curiosity, hoping a day would come when someone could answer the questions he harboured in his heart.

“Interesting…I hope someone can answer this.”

The rays of sunlight reflected onto that coin he held up high into the skies, creating an illuminating effect akin to a flamed torch wielded by athletes in history. The face on the gold coin belonged to an individual held in reverence during the minting year.

"What did you say, Neptune?"

A voice called out which he quickly disregarded.

"Nothing."

As Neptune spent more time in this mining facility, the rabbit hole continued to go deeper and deeper–both figuratively and literally.

*

With the North’s past littered with connecting cities scattered throughout its grid system, it formed a cloud of interconnected systems, acting as nodes similar to a computer network system. Ever since the Singularity War ended, the survivors escaped the unfunctional cities to the forested areas near Marina Port.

Some questioned why and how the War started. Even fewer asked how the War ended. With the lives of the Federation’s citizens filled with social activities and national programs from sunrise to sunset, there were no times apart from the weekend for them to bother with the past.

“The President of the United Atlantea Federation, Janus Nicola, is the hero that saved our nation from eventual collapse…”

The lecture theatre stood as a testament to North Atlantea’s technological might as one of the last vestiges of its dominance. Without the GEP, this university decked out with megalithic air-conditioned facilities, would never have become utilised, becoming living proof of the North’s luxurious times. Some historians, if they dared challenge the narrative, would cite this as a reason never to allow an elastic monetary policy again.

“... How many times have I heard this?” Neptune groaned miserably, knowing his brain cells had become culled by the mind-crushing adlib.

Janus Nicola, the hero of the Singularity War, became the President of the United Atlantea Federation when the three countries of Atlantea signed a decree uniting them under the same flag.

That was the official tale of the Federation’s formation, force-fed down his throat since birth. He knew there was more to his life than the fate of spending his time in the hot sun during the morning, indoctrinated in this lecture hall until dusk and ending his day in the same conversation with his brethren in the bunks.

But what could be done? He wasn’t a military general with the authority to participate in the battlefield to change the status quo.

Also, he wasn’t born into the Temporean family.

And he wasn’t even part of the political regime, for his family was not part of the founding government responsible for rebuilding Atlantea.

There was an idea. But ideas don't carry weight…

…Unless a brave soul gives it life.

“I must be kidding myself.”

The concept of war seemed out of the question. Neptune's eyes widened in excitement until the thought dwindled, casting him back to reality. The tragedy he faced gave him suicidal thoughts from the nights staring at the horrendous, decrepit ceiling of his bunk bed. It was funny how things could change when another surviving nation makes the ultimate proclamation and names them as the guilty party; not that it would ever happen, considering they were the only survivors of the Singularity War. To even entertain the idea of another survivor would be–

“...Ridiculous.”

That was when Neptune’s daydream came to an abrupt halt.

“Greetings, United Atlantea Federation. I trust you’ve been well.”

The world seemingly came to a standstill when an unfamiliar commanding voice echoed inside the lecture theatre’s four walls. Neptune's eyes froze in shock as he slowly raised his head, seemingly stunned by a voice he had listened to from old audiotapes.

Recognising the traits from the tales of their legend on the projector’s screen, Neptune felt his heart beat so quickly it felt like an impending stroke would overwhelm him. His worst fears came to light as the impossible became possible. The distinctive features of a man whose warrior bloodline he thought had ceased to exist with the Singularity War’s outbreak.

“Drazen!”

Despite that, an opportunistic, sardonic grin found itself on his face.