Welcome to the Reality: Deployment Day (Art Prompt Writing Contest #7)

Photograph by @agsttne

---

This is my entry post for Art Prompt Writing Contest #7 by @gmuxx

---

Welcome to the Reality: Training Day

Year 2064, Jerisville.

May heard rapid steps outside the room. The sound of steps got more rapid and louder. Guards opened the door and Commander Blake walked into the room followed by a crew in white robes.

"Recruits, I congratulate all ten of you for making this far. If you are here that means you have successfully completed witness preparation program and passed all the tests." - Commander spoke in a loud and clear voice.

One of the guards handed him a red folder. Commander opened the folder, skimmed through the documents inside, softly cleared his throat, and looked up at recruits.

"Today is an important day for all of you. You will start your field training today and witness the world beyond. It is unlike anything you have seen or known before. There is no turning back at this point." He took few steps towards the window and stared at it as if something caught his attention. He pointed at the window with his finger.

"Look at this view. This has been your entire life. Everything around you is represented with these artificially generated views, holograms and augmented realities. You are lucky to be one of those who will get to see the beyond. I am sure you have learned about it from your witness preparation classes and prepared for your tasks. But you need to know, nobody is truly prepared until they see. Good luck to you all. Dr. Hanaka please proceed."

Commander handed over the red folder to Dr. Hanaka who was standing by her crew of scientist. Guards opened the door as commander walked out of the room. Sounds of steps slowly faded away.

"We will be administering you two shots of nanites. First one to the side of your jaw. These nanoties will serve for visual and communication purposes. Second shot to your arm and will provide comprehensive body sync function with the witness network. They will be used for tasks such as monitoring over diagnostics of your physical state, healing during medical emergencies, and transferring data."

Dr. Hanaka ordered her crew to start administering the shots and continued.

"As you have already been told. In no circumstances and under no conditions you are allowed to speak about your duties and mission as witnesses to anybody in the world, other than of course other witnesses. Such violation will trigger immediate termination of your life. After two hours please report to deployment center, where you will be assigned to your field mentor."

As recruits were sitting in the waiting hall of deployment center, the door in the font of the hall opened. Tall and athletic build man came out and yelled out.

"Witness 3854!"

May stood up and responded waiving her hand - "It is me."

"Grab your things and follow me." The man opened the door and waited for May to go in.

As they were walking the long bright corridor the man uttered:

"I am Abel, witness 3711. I am surprised you made it, you are so tiny." He smiled.

"My name is May."

"I know."

They reached the end of the corridor, Abel opened the door and they walked into the team's quarters where three other team members were sitting and having lunch.

"Gang, meet the new girl. This is May. May this is Alice, Roy, and Jake."

Alice moved a bit to clear some room on the couch. "Come May sit. Take your load off."

"So how is it like in the Beyond?" said May in a quietly.

"Oh man, it is brutal. Every time we got out there, I think we won't make it back." laughed out Roy.

"Don't be a jerk!" - exclaimed Jake - "May, as you already know from your prep classes old world was destroyed back in 2033 as result of the nuclear war. What nobody knows is who really started it."

"It was the hackers." - plugged in Roy.

"You don't know that. There are tens of conspiracy theories. But anyway, the surface of the planet became completely uninhabitable for us. Thanks to the AI, our underground cities became our new world. But everything around us is a simulation and augmented presentation of the reality." continued Jake. Then Alice interrupted and took over the conversation.

"You see our lives are dependent on AI now, that runs on autonomous blockchain network. Survivors had to deploy the AI in order to create underground cities and build the new reality for human survival. There are thousands of them. Jerisville is just one of them. Even though AI is completely autonomous, it needs power. Power plants are on the surface, and if they are not maintained we might lose power. That's when we come in"

"We have robots that maintain the plants on the surface. You are exaggerating Alice" - said Abel.

"Robots do all of the work. But since power plants and robots are at the mercy of nature, we need to make sure everything is functioning properly. There are natural calamities on the surface all the time. Basically we are a maintenance crew." - Jake added.

"Ok boys and girls. It is time. Gear up." - said Abel looking at his watch.

Alice took May to the lockers and helped her to put on the gears what resembled space suits since this was her first time. They all got ready and headed the deployment elevator.

"This is it May. Are you excited? I still remember my first deployment day" - mumbled Alice.

They got into the elevator. Doors closed. Few seconds passed and they were on the surface in surface station building. Roy pointed to the door "Let's go, let's go."

As they all walked out Abel turned to May:

"Welcome to the reality May! This is where Beyond starts. You are witnessing the true reality now."

"Is that why we are called witnesses?"

"You are damn right!", exclaimed Roy.

May started taking slow steps and was trying to sink all of that experience in. Everywhere was gray: sky was full of gray clouds and trees looked grayish because of the fog or smoke. It was quiet. There was no movement as if space froze in time. There was no direct sunlight, lights seemed to be filtered through the thick layers of clouds.

The team loaded into the military vehicle parked next to the surface station building.

"Come on May, Let's go. We need to go" yelled out Abel.

May froze in that moment, it was truly unlike anything she has seen before. However bad it might have looked compared to what it was before, it was the reality. Surreal reality.

To be continued...

---

If you like clicking arrow-shaped buttons facing up, feel free to do so down below :)