Chapter 1: We Were Doomed From The Start
The sound started as a faint hum from the distance. Lorilla wasn't quite able to tell what it could be, perhaps it was an incoming Lodis Transport van, or one of MacroMinute's many delivery drones. Lorilla usually didn't give much notice to noises that happened outside, as she was usually engulfed in her work. In her dark, small, one-bedroom apartment, she usually stayed hidden with blackout curtains as she worked, relaxed, and slept. Ever since Theria locked down, Lorilla's apartment unequivocally became her personal, rented prison cell. She was never able to get out of the apartment because she wouldn't risk debt camp just for a few minutes outside. So, here was her home, and where she worked as a virtual real estate agent, where she visited other clients virtually using a NoyPadd and gave them a virtual tour of properties, as well as negotiated terms with them. She usually kept no less than three monitors up at all times, managing property tokens, performing transactions on the market, reading client details, and performing many other vital tasks. She would stand on the NoyPadd, which displayed a 360 degree holographic screen around her, essentially acting as a virtual reality space.
She was in the kitchen when the sound started, while standing in her kitchen reading a market report on her tablet and drinking a mug of black coffee. She set the tablet into its holding rack on the counter and stood for a brief moment, listening to the hum. It seemed to be getting slightly louder, though not loud enough to warrant her interest. She took another moment to stand, sipping her coffee and observing the room. The kitchen, like the rest of the apartment, was in a dingy, unappealing state that could hardly be helped. Her apartment was undoubtedly decades old, with many cracks and deformities in the walls and floors, and leaks in the ceiling. When she moved in, she deep cleaned the whole space and tried to make it lively; it helped to some degree, but what the apartment really needed was renovation. However, of course, that would be too much of a burden on the tight budget of the complex.
As she finished her last sip of coffee, she deposited her mug into an auto-washer machine installed on her wall and enabled it using a screen with dials and buttons. In under a minute, the mug was conveyed out of the side, where it was picked up by a small carrier drone and brought to its proper place in the dishes rack. The drone returned to Lorilla and started beeping in a sequence of three at a time. All of her many other devices in the distance beeped as well, gaining her attention. Lorilla knew this meant there was a company-wide matter that she must promptly know of. As she returned to her office, the humming seemed to gradually be getting louder. There was a red message on her company device that flashed and demanded urgent attention. Upon opening the message, Lorilla's concern grew into immediate panic. In bold white text against a red background, the message read "Fighter drones and electronically altered humans produced in secrecy by Macrotel have taken total control of the Theria Incorporated Orbital Station, where they are holding the Stockholders and many important figureheads hostage after a bloody battle. 256 armed guards in total were killed aboard the station, leaving 58 in custody of Macrotel. It was an easy battle by Macrotel as a majority of security members aboard the ship were their own employees. We assume the situation will be the same back on land, which is solely surveyed and monitored by Macrotel. We don't recommend fighting against Macrotel; doing so will promptly result in imprisonment or death. Drones are currently sweeping the nation - we recommend complying with Macrotel and working with them while we negotiate the takeover deal. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, and we thank you for your cooperation in these changing times. Reporting, WowNow! News."
Lorilla had seen something like this coming for a while, she just didn't expect it to be so sudden and dramatic. With drones becoming smarter, more powerful, and more dangerous, it's easy to see how they could control a nation of people with little effort. Macrotel would have seen this as well, and eventually utilized it to gain complete control. The humming grew into a droning air jet noise outside as security drones flew closer. The sound was accompanied with loud sirens and distant bright, flashing red lights. Lorilla knew she had to leave now or she would become prisoner to Macrotel. With great haste, she reached into a box under her bed, where she kept a backpack, baseball bat, water bottle, and pepper spray concealed, and grabbed it. With only the backpack and her clothes, Lorilla fled her dimly lit apartment down the stairs into the vanishing daylight of the back alleyway. She could hear the sirens getting very close, as well as gunfire, shouting, glass breaking, and periodic explosions in the distance. She had very little faith in getting out of her situation alive, but she would rather come to terms with the freedom of death than to live under increasingly unfair, corporate policies that will render her a prisoner.
Being a decently wealthy property manager with multiple properties across various regions, Lorilla has rights to own a personal travel jet to travel the far reaches of Theria Incorporated. Thinking of this, she got the idea to travel to her personal garage and escape in her jet. The only problem was that her only garage was in a small, slummy warehouse building quite a few blocks from her. However, it was in the opposite direction of the incoming drones. If she could avoid the people, the drones wouldn't be of much issue. She continued down the increasingly dark alleyway, constantly looking around her. She could hear a large group of people in the street ahead of her, but upon getting closer, she could see they were all mostly distracted ruthlessly damaging cars, security drones, and other people with baseball bats, planks, machetes, knives, and sometimes guns. Lorilla silently rushed across the street in the safety of disabled street lamps, and continued towards her garage.
Upon approaching a silent, dark alley near to her garage, Lorilla saw a faint, circular silhouette approaching her from ahead. She ducked behind one of the dumpsters and waited for it to approach. There was a steady stream of silent clicks as it took images and moved closer to her. When the silent hum got right on her, she jumped out from behind the dumpster and swung at the drone with full force. The drone was swung into a brick wall on her left, shattering both its interface and eye cameras, as well as removing some of its paneling. It lie there for a moment, still silently glowing, before it went dark. Lorilla now ran from the scene, assuming the dead robot probably alerted others when it died.
She then arrived at the garage, where she fumbled for a moment with her keys at the side door. She entered the small garage, which had a rough concrete floor and brick walls. The garage reeked of oil and dust, as well as a whiff of sulfur from one of the nearby factories. The garage housed her secondary car, a black, polished SUV, and a Korrite Co personal fusion propulsion jet. The jet was a sleek back underneath with lemon pastel yellow paneling extruding slightly above. Lorilla activated a digital interface in the office area of her garage and one of the garage doors slid themselves open. She set the door to close in ten minutes and walked back to the jet. She slid the cockpit door back and climbed in, before closing the door shut and inspecting the interior. It had been a while since she had used this jet; the last time she could remember was when she had to travel to the far reaches of District 1 to sell a piece of land. Other than traveling far outside of her home at Theria Headquarters, she hardly ever used the jet prior to the lockdown.
Lorilla activated the jet and began taxiing it out of the garage. Once she did, a swarm of drones equipped with machine guns entered her garage side door. As the drones neared the jet, she maxed the throttle and the jet barreled out of the garage before turning onto the roadway. The drones opened fire as she took off, and a few bullets pierced the jet. Lorilla still took off fine, though she was very shaken and uneasy. She figured her best course of action now was to escape over the river to nearby Choslow, where hopefully she could be free. As she breached the cloud level, she lowered the throttle and set the jet on autopilot. The condition of the jet seemed to be dropping, but hopefully she could scrape by until she reached Choslow.
