Fiction: Group 3
New Tales of the Pearl River Delta
Ying Wa College, Pang, Ka Wang - 12, Fiction: Group 3
050. The world in war. Millions of missiles streaking through the sky like fireworks. Thousands of
military contracts and war meetings around the world. Public news reports show desperate presidents
signing increasingly violent contracts with powerful third-person companies such as NucTech, which
specializes in creating micro sized nuclear devices. Once, they would have been shut down for dangerous
technology. Now, the governments across the globe send out urgent pleas for new weapons to destroy
enemy countries. A war started with a basic need fuel. After years of gorging, fuel has already been depleted.
Humanity fighting for the last vestiges of oil and petroleum. Giant mechanical suits grappling for the
borderline power generators and storage stations. The world torn as the US and China desperately lash out
at each other, with neutral countries taking sides in the Great Wars that followed.
The last vestiges of Chinese humanity moved underground to escape the purge above, locking themselves in
a system of giant bunkers hollowed outas storage before the nuclear disaster. As the upper world was torn
into a post-apocalyptic wasteland, humanity burrowed underground in a last-ditch effort. Kim, one of the
last survivors, closed his computer and yawned. He took a swig of water from the purifier, which was one of
the jokes that the people shared between themselves. “We live under a river, but we need to import and
purify water!” The water above them was so polluted even before the Purge, that drinking it would
probably give you a third eye or a tail. Still, today was no day for jokes.
Today was the day of--without warning, the lights flickered out, as they had been doing for the last few
years. Power was getting low in the bunkers. There had been wind of a geothermal power generator for a
while, but apparently we weren’t on a “fault line” or something. And so the faults continued, until one day
the “Great Break” (a play on the words of Great Britain) occurred, shutting the whole City into darkness for
three days in a row. After that, the City’s Great Leader decided to return to the surface-for the first time in
the thirty years after the war reached its height.
After years of hiding, the City’s resources were depleted. It was time to return-and face what awaited
above. As for the date, the mayor had chosen the Midsummer festival, a time of family togetherness, and a
lucky day. It was today, the time of the last Break, and as Kim raced for the Great Hall, his heart raced with
anticipation-and hope.
The mayor, his old face further wrinkled by time and the ghastly light of the emergency torches, was
conducting some sort of speech Kim couldn’t hear. At the end, he touched a banner: The City Banner,
which was a square with a tree inside. He lifted it, and amongst a chorus of “oohs” and “ahs”, revealed an
ancient dial with several symbols etched on it, the five elements: Fire, Gold, Wood, Water, and Earth.
Pressing each of them in order, the hall began to shake. With a groan, the top of the hall rumbled, and a
voice, echoing in the speakers and bathing them in the suddenly restored light, boomed, “Exit Activation in
twenty parsecs. Beginning in twenty, nineteen, eighteen, seventeen, sixteen, fifteen…five, four, three, two,
ONE…AND ACTIVATION!” The ceiling split open, powered by hidden pistons. With a chorus of creaks
and shudders the many layers of walls slid open, the variety of frames, alloys, filters, mesh, and composite
that protected the denizens of the underground city retracting, people shrinking away as the last few layers
of reinforced metal sliding open, revealing a dull grey sky, and lots of dust. This was earth, as Kim now saw
it.
Sets of ladders slid out, and Kim was one of the first on them, metal rungs that led up to the surface, and a
new world. Escape from the harsh artificial light and metal walls of the bunkers. Roaming free on fields of
grass. Just as the history books had described. Unfortunately, what he saw was quite disappointing.
The exit was located near the sea, so had the War not came along; Kim would had been greeted with a
breath-taking view of the sea, glittering blue in the morning light. As it was, he was greeted with a dry,
barren, rocky stretch of land that barely seemed fit for walking on in iron boots, much less strolling leisurely
on light plastic sandals. Where the sea should have been, was a giant, flat, mile of land littered with steaming
chunks of iron. In the distance, the only thing they could see were smouldering buildings and the battered,
dented, hull of a Cyclops Storm walker D-1720, with wires snaking out of the surface. The sky was riddled
with smog and wisps of grey smoke.
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