We knew right away we were in problems. When generators went down, right away our hydrogen backup system came online, and everyone stopped breathing for a second as the lights started to flick. But then, it all seemed to go back to normal.

By our fourth winter, we had constructed almost ten thousand square meters of underground shelter, divided in five areas, all connected by an underground tunnel.

Good point was that not all of them needed light. Like, in one we cultivated mushrooms and had fish tanks stuffed with three different varieties of bottom-feeders, all of which did not require much light and energy at all. That chamber could feed us even if we had to use candlelights.

But the other four had vegetables of all sorts. In the largest one, we split it between growing potatoes and movable chicken coops. It worked really well as the chickens would eat anything, even worms that we used to make a fertile compose. And in return, those chickens would fertilize the ground, keep the weeds and bugs out, and give us more eggs and meat than we required.

So, the fresh food was so plentiful we were never hungry. I think we could have fed two, three dozen people there without much problem. We were even thinking how we were going to market our extra supplies once the snow stops falling down and we could come out with our flyer. Come to think about it, we had so much fresh food that we really had to think about things, were even afraid where and how to market it. You know, afraid that people would come after us if they saw how much food we actually had. And if they saw our cold storage packed with thousands of 50-pound bags of rice and wheat floor, rows of shelves filled with canned and dried meat, I think none of us would be safe.

But that was all good while the energy kept on flowing and keeping us warm and lighting our green produce so it could grow. When our wind turbines stopped working, at the time, we had enough energy to last us two months without any rationing, or about six months if we just grew enough to sustain a healthy diet.

“Father, we do not need to go anywhere. Let’s just stay down under the snow, and wait for things to get better,” I told my father when I saw how concerned he suddenly got. “You yourself said that we can expect someone to try and raid us and that those wind turbines would be the first to go.”

“Yes, I know. It was only logical. And it must be someone with good equipment, much better than what we have at home. The choppers and flyers powerful enough to fly in this weather and to take down our wind turbines. Might be military-grade, certainly something you cannot easily buy on a secondary market.”

“Does that scare you?” my mother asked.

“Of course it does.”

“How much snow is there on the ground now?”

“The snow is now ten meters tall. On top of our heads, we also have about a meter of mostly frozen ground. That’s not enough to deceive the military-grade scanners. They would know we are here if they use them. They would be able to see through it all. We should have gone deeper. Twenty, thirty meters deep. And use a scanner blocking material or something. And go vertical so to hide the exact extend of our habitat. If we get another chance, that’s what we have to do. Dig deep like a water well. Make ourselves invisible.”

“And how sure are you that it was a military that took our power away?” My mother asked.

“That’s a good question.”

“Could the wind do it? Knock it off?”

“No.”

“Temperature?”

“It’s not that cold. But…”

“What?”

“I have not maintained the turbines for the last six months. It could be that they need just a regular maintenance.”

“Could that be it? For both of them to go off like that at the same time?” my mom asked.

“Maybe. Unlikely, but still possible. We will wait for a few weeks, move and sleep inside the vault. If they try to come in, we will see them. And then we can confront them, just like we practiced. We have enough weapons that they would need hundreds of soldiers to try and take us. Hundreds and hundreds of soldiers.”

My parents really tried to think about everything. Ever since the winter came, they started to prepare us for all the troubles and adversaries they thought we might have to face. Needless to say, we all learned how to handle power weapons, flash-consuming plasma sprayers, and old fashion metal-projectiles guns, and rifles.

Now that I sit here and rot in this cell, I understand that back then really did not have any spare time. Maybe they intended to keep us that busy.

First thing in the morning, the stretching and flexibility training, then a few urgent tasks around the compound, then a breakfast break. Then, two, three hours of gymnastics or power training, combined with the yard work, then a light brunch, then an obligatory meditation and studies including math and biology, chemistry, sociology, and psychology that came later.

Then, it was time for weaponry and hand-to-hand combat training. My father had built a whole dojo, and when my brother had asked me, “Why we need to learn how to use a knife and a sword?”, my father had asked him in return, “So, what, you think you will have a high-blaster rifle always tied to your back?”

“No, but if I don’t have a rifle, I can carry a handgun. You can really hurt someone more with a single bullet from that gun than you could from a sword.”

My brother was ten at a time, but I guess my father did not think he was too young to learn some lessons. So, he gave him a gun and ask him to draw it against him. But before my little brother even was able to take the gun out of its harness, my father snapped his arm with a wooden sword hard enough to make him lose his balance and fall down.

“You think I was unfair because I attacked you too fast?” my father said as he saw my little brother being all upset.

“Yes, of course.”

“Fine, then take the gun out of the harness.”

My brother took it slowly out, pointing it to the ground.

“Prove me wrong. If you can shoot me, I won’t ever make you do a single strength training again.”

“Ever?”

“Yes.”

“But, father, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Fine, if you are worried about hurting me, use an energy weapon, and put the setting to a stunt from a kill.”

As my brother walked to the armory and picked up his favorite energy handgun, my father stood in the same place. “And just to give you an extra edge, to compensate for your age or mine, let’s say you will shoot me from there. What do you think it is? Like twenty meters?”

“Yeah. I think that would be fair. Just be warned, father, this was your idea."

“Talk is cheap! Are you going to start shooting or am I going to get old here?”

“You’re already old,” my brother said as he squeezed his eyes to try and look dangerously. “And you’re going down now.”

I had a problem with all of that, made me nervous as I considered all the wrong things that might happen. But, I just could not find exact words to say and try to stop what was to happen.

So, after a moment of dead silence, my brother finally raised the gun and squeezed the trigger, but, instead of spreading my father wide over the wooden floor, the energy blast flew above his head as he ducked and rolled over the floor, then jumped to one side to miss the second shot that tried to find him.

My brother squeezed the trigger again and again, the green light illuminating the whole space around us, but it seemed my father would either roll down or jump to a side where he was not a second ago just as my brother would squeeze the trigger.

I have to say that I was very surprised. I knew my father had some trick up his sleeve. I thought it was a power shield that he placed there that would have deflected all the firing, but it seemed it was his agility and speed that he was counting on.

Now, I know the old rule of the sub-D universe, that the speed of light is the top speed, and that my father could not seriously be faster than the speed of light, meaning he could not see the light and react to it. I figure he just moved around, ducking, rolling, spinning around, all in one endless motion, hoping that my brother was shooting where he was instead of where he was going to be the next split second.

Now, my little brother was a pretty good shot, could nail a buzzing fly from ten meters away. But my father moved so fast and so all over the place that it seemed he just could not lock onto him.

At one point, my father decided to advance on my brother, moving and jumping through the air just above my head.

“No!” I screamed as I saw what was going to happen with my brother firing the gun again, very angry and upset by this time, this time missing my father again but hitting me right in the chest.

Everything went in a slow-motion for me then. I saw my brother's popped-out eyes in shock, father closing on him and slapping the gun out of his hands with his wooden blade.

Then the pain that I have never felt before as if my chest had opened up and all the energy of my body had been sucked out of me through that hole.

I fell straight down, knocking the back of my head against the wooden floor.

“Do you see now why you need to learn a hand combat?” my father had asked my brother who rubbed the reddened part of the hand that got slapped by the wooden sword.

“Yes, father, I do,” my brother said obediently.

“You did that on purpose!” I muttered from the floor, feeling only enough strength to move my lips.

“Oh, relax, sis, I put it on the minimum setting.”

That was the first time I got hit by an energy weapon. If that was the bare minimum, it frightened me to think of what a notch-up blast would do. I guess there was a lesson in it for me as well. Knowing my father and a little smile that crept on his face, he thought how smart he was.

“There is another lesson for you here, Tocky,” my father said. “Do you guess what it is?”

My brother looked at my father but just shook his head. He was not much of a thinker. I could have come up with ten of them.

“By using the gun, you have accidentally hurt the person that you cared for. Once you fire that thing, you can’t take the charge back. But with the sword, you can learn to control it to strike down as hard and as easy as you want it to be, and to strike only a person that you intend to strike. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I do.”

“And even more so with your bare hands. The more powerful the weapon is, less we can control what that power does to the environment around us. So, the point is to learn to manage the power within your own hands.”

“I think, father, Toky will need to learn to manage the power within his own head first,” I said as I was growing very frustrated and upset of just laying there helplessly, none of my muscles listening to me at all.

"Yeah, and there is a lesson for you too," my father said as he turned around to look at me. "Don't scream, 'No' and think that can help you. If the shooting starts, it's always best to get the hell out of the way! " he added a lesson that I have to admit I did not even consider.

Eventually, in that fourth year, when the snow did not stop falling down and the month of losing the power generators had passed by without us being attacked by intruders, my father had decided to craw out from our happy den and go and see what is wrong outside.

He did not come back. And for the first time, I realized I should be afraid for my own life.