Humans were annoying.

He had believed in this philosophy for who knows how long. Since he was 15? Since he was 14? Whatever the case, it was all the same to him, so what did it matter now?

Humans that were ugly,

Humans that were attractive,

Humans that were skinny,

Humans that were obese,

They looked all the same to him.

People who were from Asia,

People who were from Europe,

People who were from America,

People who were from Africa,

What did it matter? They were all the same type of「humans」.

And they were so noisy. So loud. Sputtering out from their mouths words of nonsense for attention that held no meaning.

Words of praise,

Words of scorn,

Words of love,

Words of hatred.

It was truly disgusting. Human voices, like the squealing of pigs in their excrement, hoping that the insignificant「them」would be ‘noticed’ in this indifferent world.

What a joke.

It truly was sickening. When they were content, they were ‘friendly’ to their fellow humans, acting with arrogance and ignoring problems that didn’t have to do with them, claiming themselves superior. And when they grew unsatisfied with their petty lives, they complained to the world, in hopes that someone would pity them and give them what they wanted, and became violent if no one did.

Such was the state of the Earth. There was simply not enough to go around. What someone gained, was something that someone lost. And so humans, in their trivial squabbles warred and fought, ‘justified’ by their own greed and ambition. Bleeding and dying for their own desires, both material and immaterial.

For honor,

For enjoyment,

For wealth,

For power.

Humans were revolting. Talking to them was a waste of energy. So I ignored them without discrimination. Standing off to the side, ignoring it all.

That official, who oppressed the poor,

That construction worker, who was incapacitated,

That judge, who replaced justice with money,

That mother, who neglected her children,

That man, who was run over by a drunkard,

That addict, retching up in some unnamed alley,

That soldier, who was shot and lay dying in the mud.

Oh! The list goes on, and on, and on...

There were too many desires to be fulfilled in this planet, too many people that needed something. Try to help some of them, and the others accuse you of discriminating. Getting angry at others who were not suffering like them, this was the true nature of the human race.

Gloating to others of one’s own misfortune, cursing venomously at the others who were lucky, laughing at them when they fell. They were so short sighted, so ignorant, so selfish, so absolutely easy to manipulate.

Just like that fellow just now. How easily he was fooled. Pretend to be unwilling a bit before saying something, and practically everyone will believe the bullshit you just fed to them.

How stupid that person was.

How idiotic he looked when he walked away, whistling happily.

Did perhaps stupidity and happiness have a correlation?

If that’s the case, how grateful I am that I’m not stupid.

There was no point in happiness. Happiness was simply just another thing that people grew addicted to. Fighting and working endlessly towards it, and having no reason to live if it was gone. Making people content and lazy, such a thing it was.

Like a drug,

Like a lover,

Like an alcohol,

Like a sweet tasting poison.

Indeed, I should be glad that I’m not happy. But I can’t, because then I would be happy.

Ahah… What a paradox, being happy at not being happy means that you are happy, no?

Whatever, whether I was happy or not did not matter, the only wish I had for now was to leave. Perhaps you are wondering, just how did I end up in this situation?

I am Alex Baurhenn, the head researcher of the Modern Artificial Intelligence Administration for Spacecraft, or MAIAS, for the Paragon Federation. Really a stupid name in my opinion by the way. Before the catastrophe occured, I was part of a medium-sized spacecraft research company known as FinSpace that was based in Southern California. How that became the Paragon Federation I have no idea. After the cataclysm and warring started, a group came to us for funding, as well as maintaining and building more vehicles. Since at that time we had absolutely no military power, we agreed.

Slowly, one by one, our group defeated and integrated the factions that tried to attack us. Even though we ourselves were not fighting, we were the leaders of this faction, the people from the first group were just figureheads. Without us, the infrastructure of the newly named Paragon Federation would have fallen apart and resulted in the fracture and downfall of our organization a long time ago.

And, all the while, we had not abandoned our original goal of creating a spaceship to send into outer space.

Eventually, the only real groups left in the western U.S were us, and the United Coalition.

It wasn’t as if we were actively expanding. The only reason we aimed our rifles and tanks at others was because they had aimed towards us first, wishing to loot our supplies and resources. All the ‘peaceful’ groups had long been conquered, leaving only the violent ones who raided and robbed as they wished. Except for us, of course.

In the end, the Coalition was the victor of those groups, scavenging and attacking other groups until they emerged victorious atop a mountain of corpses.

And then, those leeches set their sights on us.

Leeches truly was a fitting term for them. They had absolutely no industry aside from their military and their scavenging. And so, in order to survive, they had to plunder foodstuff, which we grew in hydroponic plants, powered by the few nuclear reactors that we had built.

I don't blame them though. That's just how humans are after all. That was how we ended up engaging in constant warfare.

We, the Researchers as they called us, left the pointless fighting to the people below, while we we scouted in talents that had the ability to help us in our projects. Said projects included construction of research bases, improvement and production of weaponry, and the never forgotten goal of sending a ship into space.

Somewhere along the line though, our goal was labeled as the ‘salvation’ of humanity. Really, how ridiculous. What retard would want to save the human race? Nevertheless, I kept to myself, as I always have, and continued to work silently.

Our group of scientists began to be filled with delusional people. Giving lectures to the common people about how we were the hope of mankind, and pestering me to do the same.

In the end, it grew so bad that I moved to a separate base inside a soundproofed room to continue my work. Who could work in a raucous environment such as that? That was how I ended up in this remote center.

A few weeks after, a Coalitions raid took us by surprise.

I did not communicate by talking and rarely came out. If something was needed of me, the person could simply send a message via their personal tablet.

In the surprise of the attack, however, it was likely that no one remembered that I was there, and because of the soundproof walls, I couldn’t hear the sounds of guns. I do not know how the battle progressed, but it ended up with our loss, and as you can see right now, the situation I am in.

I sighed in relief after the door closed. That man really did talk too much. I waited a few seconds after he left the room, confirming that he really did leave. ‘Likely sending a message to his superiors.’

As for himself? He would likely be sold off to some greedy, rich weapons seller. Just as most of us Researchers were crazy, the people with power in the Coalition didn't lose out to us at all in terms of insanity.

Too bad. He would have to pass on experiencing some creepy person’s fetishes.

He was tied completely, legs and arms bound to a chair. His feet still had some freedom of movement left though, but just that tiny negligence was enough.

I lifted the heel of my shoes, pressing down on it once, twice, three times before waiting a few seconds and repeating my actions again. Once I lifted my foot again, a thin mechanical disk popped out and fell onto the floor. With a soft murmur from me, it grew tiny spider-like legs and climbed up the chair. With another command, it began cutting the rope with the sharp side of the disk, sawing itself back and forth using its small legs. After two minutes, the rope finally weakened enough to the point where I could easily break out of it. I picked up the now motionless disk, put it in my pocket, and walked over to his personal terminal. The screen turned on, asking for a password.

‘H1ZH41021JP19159JA’ “Beep! The password you have entered is incorrect!”

‘AOIH1OHT10HGHG0N’ “Beep! The password you have entered is incorrect!”

‘1JDJG1PGJPH2PY02H’ “Beep! Too many failed attempts! You will now be locked out!”

The screen turned red and the password bar was locked, preventing you from trying any more times. For normal people, they would’ve given up at this point. If one wanted to access the regular terminal, all they had to do was type in the correct password, which none of the above were. But for Alex’s purposes, this was all proceeding normally. He started typing again.

‘SHAF-1G13-XJ0T’

Even though no characters were shown on the screen, he kept typing.

‘GEGQ-13UG-GH1I’

Then he stopped, and reaching out to the screen, tapped the top right corner of the metal frame very lightly, just once, and held it there for five seconds.

“Fingerprint scanning, please standby……Error detected, please retry.”

But he didn’t. If the same person pressed their finger to the scanner again, then the terminal would electrocute the person. Quite a sad and painful death indeed. Instead, he leaned closer and placed his eye right in front of the same spot.

“Scanning…… Authorized personnel detected. Welcome, Doctor Alex Baurhenn.

It was an exceedingly complex and tiring process, and was different for each base. For the purpose that it was used for though, you could never be too safe. Taking a small USB drive from his desk and placing it in his pocket, he pushed away the roller chair and crouched down in the area below his desk. A few seconds later, a click was heard before the floor underneath him opened up and dropped him on his rear into a small room below, closing back itself above him.

Alex stood up, fumbling for a few seconds before he found the light switch in the dark room. As a dim bulb flickered on and cast the empty room full of pale, yellow light. Opening the one and only door, the only thing in front was a long, narrow corridor. As Alex walked down, the pale light slowly receded until he was proceeding in pitch black darkness.

This was a hidden tunnel that lead to a small safe spot outside of the base. After walking straight for a few minutes he suddenly stopped, and turned left towards the smooth wall.

If one continued walking, the only thing that’d await them was a dead end and a bullet in the head.

Pressing a small indentation on the wall, the entrance to a dim room opened up. Waiting for him inside was a small, camouflaged vehicle. It was like a motorcycle combined with a car, low, narrow, and could just barely fit two people. A personal transportation unit, PTU it was called. Pressing a button on one side of the room, a part of the wall slowly slid open, exposing the dark cave to the blinding sun and harsh winds. Shivering, he quickly got in the PTU and pressed his ID card against the keypad, and the engine quietly came to life.

A wave of tiredness and lethargy finally hit him as he drove into the snowstorm, and letting out a long, drained sigh, he headed towards the next closest base.

Robert swore as loud as he could when he’d opened the door, startlingly enough that several soldiers came dashing up the stairs with their M16’s to see if anything was wrong. After shaking his head and confirming several times that nothing serious had happened, they went back down the stairs, himself not that far behind them.

‘Shit! Where the fuck did he go!?’

After ordering several squads to search the base under the pretense of looking for hidden intelligence for a whole four hours, he finally accepted that Alex was gone for good. As much as he scolded himself and wished that he’d left someone to watch over him, there was no changing the past.

Meeting up with the rest of the squads where their transport trucks were stationed, he relayed the order that they were to keep marching. Nobody responded, but he could see the anger and resentment in their eyes. How could he blame them? He was just as angry and hateful of the people that ordered him to do this, but what could they do? He could only begrudgingly continue on towards their next set of coordinates and attack the base there.

After they got into their trucks and left the base behind, Emily walked up to his side and whispered quietly in his ear amist the rumbling of the vehicle. “Where’s the researcher guy? Did you kill him?” It was frightening to see the changes in her. The girl who once called him to kill spiders, now talked about killing someone without any reaction. How far away the sister was that he once knew.

Shaking his head slowly, he mouthed silently, ‘Gone.’

She let out a small ‘Oh’ and sat down heavily next to him.

“Hey, when do think this will end? Why are we even doing this anyways?” She sighed exhaustedly, pressing both of her fists against her face. She looked so dejected, so sad, so lonely that for a second, he saw his younger sister again, so realistic that Robert just wanted to hold her in his arms and comfort her.

He couldn’t though, not in front of all of these soldiers. So the only thing he could do was murmur, “I don’t know,” softly, listening to her quiet sobs as the truck continued on towards their destination.

After meeting up with another separate group and attacking a base, they continued marching to meet up with the main force. After receiving Robert’s message about a new vehicle possibly being produced, the people in command decided that they would try to take down as many Federation bases as fast as they could before it was introduced. But, as they kept advancing and Federation bases kept falling easily, it turned into a full out attack to try and end the war.

And still, the Federation did not react. Even though everything was going well so far, Robert couldn’t help but feel uneasy. ‘When did it suddenly become so easy to win? The Coalition didn’t get stronger, is it because the Federation simply doesn't care about it’s losses?’ He, now the permanent leader of twenty-five squads, still followed orders however and continued on.

After successfully defeating dozens of Federation bases over the course of three weeks, all available units converged on the last remaining base in area. The higher-ups had promised that after this, they could stop rationing food supplies and take a long break before heading over to other the next region that needed help. Soon, the entirety of Western America would be under their control.

But once the base came into view, everyone’s heart sunk.

There were so many of them. The Coalition, which normally had overwhelming numbers, was now looking at a battle where they only had twice or three times the number of soldiers, not as high as it usually was. Thousands of white-uniformed troops in trenches and cement bunkers lined wrapped around the base. Numerous tanks loomed ominously in the distance. Just thinking about the how many people would die before they could even let loose a gunshot made everyone’s faces go pale. For now, though, they simply set up camps surrounding the base. The battle everyone thought would be an easy attack had turned into a long siege.

At first, they had sent in a few squads to try to infiltrate the base in the darkness of night, but they had all been consistently shot dead by snipers before they even got a shot off. It was likely that the enemy had long range heat-vision scopes or binoculars. The higher-ups still kept arguing about what to do, all the while their food supplies were being consumed.

And then, when they finally did pass the order down, all of the soldiers nearly went into an outrage. The so called ‘plan’ that had taken three days to figure out was a frontal attack. A fucking full on assault. How many people would die in this attack? Not their superiors obviously, who sat from the safety of the back lines, only coming forth to reap to rewards when all the bloodshed was over. Dozens of soldiers were shot for attempting to desert, and even more wanted to rebel.

But how could they?

The Coalition was a massive military force, and if they rebelled here, they would only be annihilated by reinforcements from neighboring states. Even if they decided to side with the Federation, they would eventually be destroyed. So, all they could do was grit their teeth, wait for the time they attacked, and pray that they would survive.

[Northern Nevada: May 15th]

The assault was decided to be during the day. Since the enemy could see in the dark, there was no point in handicapping themselves. At 8:00 AM, all sides started the attack towards the base in the middle.

‘If this isn’t hell, I don’t know what is.’

At first, when the snipers had started firing at them, it wasn’t too bad. They could use their trucks and jeeps as cover, and the distance from the target meant that bullets more often injured than killed.

Then the tanks started firing.

The wave of approaching Coalition soldiers was shattered apart as men broke away from formation and dove towards the ground and whatever cover they could find. The motorcycles and jeeps that served as cover against the snipers now only served as targets for the massive cannons of the tanks that fired without end. Now that they were closer, bullets from the Federation could easily penetrate through the flimsy makeshift vests that the soldiers wore.

Perhaps the only good thing was that now we could fire back, though it didn’t take long for a firing soldier to be focused down and turned into swiss cheese.

Thus, the only thing Robert and his squadron could do was dash madly towards the base while letting off the occasional bullet.

1200 more feet, another tank shell blew up the squad next to his,

1000 more feet, duck as a bullet just passed over his head,

800 more feet, can finally make out the faces of the enemy troops,

600 more feet, let out a stream of bullets at a soldier that was aiming towards him,

400 more feet, a bullet hit Chris in the thigh, have to carry him with Matthew to keep up our speed,

200 more feet, I can see the doorway to a nearby bunker,

100 more feet, toss a grenade into the bunker filled with white-uniforms,

50 more feet, an explosion blinds me momentarily and deafens my hearing,

10 more feet, jump into the bunker and drag Chris in with us.

Inside the bunker, there were still a few Federalists still alive, so Robert pulled the trigger, spraying randomly until he was sure they were all dead. Left and right, Coalition troops had begun taking over the first line of defense, clearing out enemy soldiers and occupying bunkers.

Looking towards an extremely pale Chris and and seeing Matthew right by his side, he took guard over the entrance. Half a second later, he watched in disbelief as the bunker right next to them was demolished by a tank round, burying the soldiers inside within with layers of rubble and steel.

‘There’s no way we can stay here.’ He realized instantly, and shouted at his squad to get out while slamming open the steel door. Three seconds later, a massive boom tossed him forward onto his face as shrapnel rained down around him. Looking back, he saw Emily also thrown into the snow, Matthew and Chris a little bit behind her. Running towards them, he saw Matthew curled up, a massive concrete fragment sticking out of his shoulder with countless other slices and wounds over his back. It seemed like he had borne the brunt of the explosion while pushing Chris out the door, who was now laying on the ground, groaning softly. One look was all it took and Robert knew Matthew was dying. Even as he bent down to try to remove the fragment, the life was fading from his eyes. Cursing loudly while tears began to appear in his eyes, he dragged Chris over to where Emily was and with her help, was able to pull him behind a small hill, where at least their whole bodies weren’t exposed.

All the while, soldiers from the Coalition never stopped their neverending charge, running towards a wall of bullets and shells.

At this moment, he never hated the leaders of the Coalition more that he did now, feeling unbridled fury rising in his chest at them for making them do this. For making humans charge towards their deaths just in order to kill other humans. For their stupid honor and glory.

It was at this moment that a large rumble shook through the ground, shaking the very land itself, and when he looked towards the base that they were attacking, he was shocked to see a large cloud of smoke rising from the center of the command center.

All eyes turned.

All eyes stared,

As a single gleaming point emerged slowly from the growing cloud of smoke.

Rising slowly,

Rising steadily,

Gradually climbing towards the distant, skies, despite the frigid winds that battered at the hope of humanity, like the cold wind blowing at a flickering flame contained in a small, glass cylinder.

At first one cry, then a second, and then a third.

The Coalition soldiers watched, dumbfounded, as a deafening cheer arose from the troops of the Federation, as if their voices could reach the slowly ascending shuttle that headed straight up, towards the sun that was in the middle of the sky.

That rocket, that held within the 「hope」that the Coalition never had believed in.

The rocket that held the 「future」of mankind.

That was the day it left the remnants of the Earth, never to return.