What should have been Utopia, by Nathan

The future never surprised anyone. Planning stopped that. When the tower was built to stop the sun getting any closer, no one was shocked. People cheered, yes, but after four years of planning, no one was shocked. When history ended, no one was shocked. Even when names became illegal and he was renamed Boy28B, no one was shocked. The parliament destroyed, things on Earth are going pretty downhill. Until Flayme came along. Their ideas were all about ‘feeding the fire’ and ‘progression’, though I don’t think we’ve progressed at all if Flayme’s way of solving disputes is altering the memory of all the free-thinkers. Want to find out more about my line of business? We know you do. Our name is Aqua, and we will douse the Flaymes.

Boy 28B and his sky-crew trudge through the snow, a seemingly endless expanse of cold and wet. His sky-ship flew away eight days and fourteen minutes ago, when Flayme associates claimed it for themselves. Boy28B’s crew wasn’t much, mainly a group of ex-farmers whose families had been brutally murdered. But Boy28B was a soldier. He was what you would call a cyborg, though when Flayme created him they called him a construction. He didn’t like them very much anymore. This ragtag bunch is all that stands between Flayme and complete control, but even with Boy28B’s supreme power, they have little chance of posing a genuine threat. Especially because Flayme knows all about their little game, and is going to killing them in four seconds. The future isn’t a storybook (three), the future is real (two). All will perish under the heat of Flayme; all will die (one). The future, (zero).

It is dead.