Clouds of Tyranny
Prologue

In the year 2084, the United States of America elected its first and last female president in history, 37-year-old Rebecca Brahm who was born and raised in the small town of Carlsbad, California. She grew up akin to a mother employed by the police force and a rusty construction worker for a father, who died when Rebecca was 17 making her valedictorianship in high school bittersweet. In college she majored in business politics with a minor in law, graduating at the top of her class of 13,000 at Harvard at the age of 24. She would spend the next decade or so working with the college as a liaison with new acceptances of the college. At age 35, she joined the board of trustees being their youngest member in history as well as quietly planning her presidential campaign the following year. She didn’t seem to want anyone to know about this considering all the failed campaigns of women over the past seventy-five years. However, on Election Day in 2084, she prevailed in her life-long quest of being the country’s first female president. She would go on to serve four consecutive terms as the President of the United States.

Upon President Brahm’s death in 2117, a town was constructed in the desolate deserts of Arizona aptly named Brahm. At the town’s dedication a bill was passed; a bill that made it unlawful for any male official to be elected into any authority position within the town limits. The natives of neighboring towns called this segregated town “No man’s land.”

In the year 2110, Russia threatened the United States of America and Europe with talk of a weapon of unimaginable power and destruction. They are not taken seriously by the United Nations or America. This angers Russia; so they display their power in the most vulgar way possible: they drop the “ORB”, as they call it (Omniscient Ruining Blast) in the center of Australia. This caused a blindingly bright beam of green light to shoot into the atmosphere, parting the clouds, and destroying every living thing on the continent. The continent itself broke into a dozen small islands and peninsulas that would not settle or be livable for 500 years. The result from this “demonstration” was a total surrender of the Asian countries to Russia and the renaming of Asia to Sovietopia.

In the year 2115, the first human clone is created in Switzerland by a team of scientists. The clone was physically flawless but behind its eyes there was a different story, the clone was hostile and violent. Not five minutes after opening its eyes it began to attack the scientists, digging its nails into their throats and pulling out the jugular veins of the first three. Then the accelerated learning of the copied brain discovered that a scalpel could do harm to living things. It went on to kill 13 scientists, the last of which actually had his head completely removed and the clone was carrying it around with him as he released his volatile personality on the good people out in the street. It managed to end the lives of 22 civilians and a police officer (bashing one to death with the decapitated head) before being shot to death by the police force. Switzerland was then forced to sign an agreement that they would suspend and disband all scientific research and projects dedicated to cloning of any type.

In the year 2120, the United Nations, with the exclusion of Sovietopia, made an agreement that it would be for the greater good to simply eliminate their enemy by force rather than have another Nazi power on their hands. Thus, World War 3 began and went on to last for 25 years on every continent, killing nearly a fifth of the planet’s humans. Finally, the United States of America had had enough and thought it best to simply drop a few dozen nukes on Sovietopia and end the war once and for all. After everything calmed down, the United Nations sat down and discussed the future of Earth. It was decided that a worldwide police force was needed to keep everyone in line, much like Interpol, but more severe. While the local police officers would handle crimes and rights, the world police would enforce laws by politicians and government officials. Corruption would be dealt with severely by instant execution. It was extreme but affective and no one complained.

In the year 2134, in the midst of WW3, America accomplished what Europeans could not. They cloned a perfect replica of a very prestigious scientist by the name of Walt Merler. The replica matched him in every way: intelligence, personality, and looks. It even had his memory up to the second the “real” Walt Merler was put under with gas. Within three years cloning had become a business and everyone with relatives in the war had been applying for a clone (the application process was arduous and aggravating). By the end of the war, there were over one million clones out in the world somewhere. This is when they discover something “extra” on their first clone, which had spent the last decade working as a scientist in the stead of the now retired Walt Merler. The “extra” can only be described as “majick” and the ability can be passed to their kin. However, only the female can pass it to the child growing inside them. If the child is female, the power is intensified, even more so if the father possessed the gift as well. Since the war had ended and there was now a world police, they began to hunt down these clones after a few became evil and vengeful. The worst case they saw was a man that was laid off from a packing company. He got drunk and upon replaceing his boss, he melted his flesh and most of his organs until all that was left were the bones and a brain. The world police would continue to hunt these “gifted” people for the twelve years following World War 3 until Earth had a NEW crisis on its hands.

In the year 2257, Eduardo Villalobos discovered something through his telescope; he spotted a meteor, which is incomplete. The incompletion was due in part from its collision with Neptune on its trajectory to Earth. Within weeks of reporting this to NASA, they discover that there are several shards that are inexplicably headed directly towards our planet. Scientists gather that one of the shards, the smallest of them, would collide with Earth’s surface. It would strike Canada on October 15th, 2264. Every country has their own plan to preserve their inhabitants and their way of life. Japan and China planned to build an indestructible dome over their countries where they would house their civilians, elected officials, and animals for consumption as well as breeding. America planned on a subterranean cavern under the surface much like a movie that had been made a century earlier. In fact, other countries joked that it was typical of Americans to take fiction and try to apply it to real life, as it wasn’t a very original idea. France and England set sail for Antarctica, seeing as it was the furthest land mass from the expected collision point. Africa didn’t make any plans whatsoever with the assuredness that God would protect them and that the strong would survive. South America began construction on a 500-foot wall around their continent to shield them from debris and tidal waves. Canada, being the assumed ground point zero, simply just built bomb shelters and stocked up on supplies to the country by. Canadians treated it more like the year 2000 meltdown, instead of the biggest disaster the world would ever know.

In the year 2264, the day finally came and nobody’s solution went according to plan. The planet lost over ninety-five percent of its population. The China/ Japan dome worked flawlessly, but they miscalculated the date at which they could exit the dome and continue life. When they opened the hatch, the vile and poisonous air killed two-thirds of the people on contact and sickened the rest for several weeks until almost every person dropped dead. America had the opposing problem, the foundation of the surface above them simply did not hold and the majority of the U.S citizens were crushed to death. There were minimal survivors, but they had plenty of food and water. France and England’s plan worked the best. However, they had not prepared for the extreme cold. About half of the combined populace died from the blistering cold and the predators that lurked around them.

Africa’s surface was wiped clean from the immense waves that the meteor generated, not even a single tree still stood. South America’s “Wall” was an intelligent concept but just not sturdy enough; debris and water ripped through it like a katana blade through a flag. Once again, as with France and England, their population was cut in half. Finally, Canada had gone from a large, heavily populated country, to what was now a baron wasteland.

The “Neptunian Collide” was God’s way of letting us start over, many people believed. Humanity stayed away from the surface for many decades before finally emerging and beginning the rebuilding process. The survivors knew they were thrust back into a time more like the Stone Age then a Modern Age that they had descended from. They would have to build homes, try to make their own medicine, and hunt their food. Luckily, books explaining the past thousand years of life still existed.

Only the fit and resilient survived. Over the years mutations occurred in humans and animals. With humans it affected their brains making them either incredibly incoherent or maliciously violent, with the latter were killed and burned on sight by the more ‘able-minded’ population, as they deemed themselves. Animals hadn’t really mutated, just evolved one might say, they increased in size, grew wings, or merged with another animals. For example, you might see a wolf bigger than a pickup truck or a flying monitor lizard or a large cat with spikes and tusks. Hundreds of years would pass before things resembled anything that was livable again.

In the year 2524, the ‘Neptunian Collide’ was a distant memory and the earth resembled that of the AD 1200’s complete with carriages, candlelit huts, swordplay, and kingdoms with castles; the only difference was gunpowder. The ancestors of their founders ran the small towns, while the large kingdoms had kings, stewards, or emperors to govern over all. Soon, a national army was born calling themselves the Empire, who were situated in central Asia. They would police and negotiate between neighboring kingdoms over property disputes and trade offerings. The Empire was respected and liked by all because their master, Emperor Gerard the first, was a very generous and loving man.

In the year 2604, Emperor Francisco Gerard passes away, leaving rule of his kingdom and his Empire to his eldest son, Francisco Gerard the second. The people would not have to wait to see the vast differences from father and son. Francisco the Second had a black heart filled with hate. Many would argue that Francisco the Second had killed his father before he could finish his will granting rule to his adopted son Ralph Germ. Soon, people were being executed for petty crimes such as theft, and nobody in the interacted with neighboring kingdoms and communities. Segregation reigned supreme and trust did not exist within the former boundaries of Europe and Asia.

In the year 2615, the kingdoms of Velxeer and Durma waged war over land and “rights”. The entire world feared the Empire much like the dictators of stories from the past; Kahn, Hussein, Hitler, etc. Rumors flew through the towns of fatalities within the Empire; people were being killed off, but by whom was what everyone wondered. Soon the rumors got more heated with talk of a group or rebels that vowed to never again idly stand by while the corrupt Imperials raped, slit throats, and ruined the once good lives of the honest people of the continent.

In the year 2621, the Empire began seeking information on a “spell caster” to use to their advantage, most likely to do more evil. The rebel group feels it is time to make their presence known to the world in an effort to give peace and hope to all the peoples that have been hurt and persecuted against. After seventeen years they show themselves with a sign of a blue bandana and a name…THE RETURNERS!