The girl peered over the sill of the ruined window into the street below. She could see the two soldiers in their power armour, looking huge and invincible, far below her. How she hated them. Them, in their shiny suits, feeling safe from everything around them. They weren't.
They had captured a member of her cell, and had him bound and kneeling in the street. One of their observer droids was close by, recording all the action. It was probably going to run on all the major holo channels later that night. Executions were always big news. They made the people back home feel that they were winning the war. They weren't.
One of the soldiers, the one wearing commander colours, waved to the camera, and played the part of the ringmaster. He stood behind the girl's cell member, who stared defiantly at the camera, refusing to bow his head, even in the face of his own death. He could not be broken now. He would not allow himself to be broken. He would not give them the pleasure of seeing him weep.
All this while, the commander had been rattling off the standard pre-execution speech, talking about how what he was about to do was not done by him, but by the country, for the protection of the countries people. Finally, he was finished. He reached for the small blaster pistol at his side, the customary weapon of choice for the execution of a resistance member…
Pop.
With the sound of a balloon popping, two holes appeared almost simultaneously on either side of the commander's helmet, the hole on the left appearing to spray red paint. The commander's knees gave way, and he hit the ground hard, never to rise again.
To his credit, the other soldier knew what was coming next, knew that he couldn't do anything to prevent it from happening, and thus decided to take the captured resistance member to the grave with him. With reflexes trained by countless drills, drugs, and nano enhancements, he raised his heavy blaster rifle by his side, and-
Pop pop.
The first shot nailed the blaster rifle squarely on the barrel, throwing it off just enough that the shot squeezed off by the soldier went wild and melted the blacktop less then a foot to the left of the still-kneeling resistance member. The second ensured that the commander would not be buried alone.
Bounding down the stairs to the ground level, her modified hunting rifle slung over her shoulder, the girl was pleased. She had long ago learned that the only way to kill a soldier in power armour, the only place on them where their armour was thin enough to allow a bullet to pass through, was where their ears were. An amazingly difficult shot, yes, but she could make it. Death is an excellent motivator.
Her compatriot was still kneeling in the street when she got to him, waiting for her to untie his bonds. Without a word, she freed him, and helped him to his feet. Leaning on her shoulder for support, even though she was a good foot shorter then he, he staggered to the burned-out hulk of an old car to rest and regain his balance. Giving him her canteen to refresh himself with, she turned her attention to the watching observer droid.
It hovered there quietly, a soft hum and small red light beside its lens the only indication that it was still recording; the only indication that someone was still on the other end of its transmission, watching her. Probably sending a full squad to capture them both. It didn't matter. They'd both be gone in a few minutes, and the soldiers had yet to find out how the resistance members could disappear so quickly. She didn't think today would be the day that they figured it out.
She stared into the lens for what seemed like years. All of her rage, her hate, her anger, her pain, poured out of her eyes and into the lens. She wanted to make the soldier on the other end stiffen with fear at the sight of her. She wanted him to know that she hated him for what he'd done to her family, her home, her country. She decided that if the commander could be a showman, then so could she.
"Welcome to Canada, you Yankee fucks." she said, just before she raised the butt of her rifle and smashed the lens of the camera in. Having lost its eye, the droid turned about in mid air and sped towards its home in the American base downtown, near where the old Vancouver City Hall used to be. It wasn't there anymore. The Americans has bombed and leveled the area for use as their major west coast base. Through it, they controlled north to the border of Alaska and the Yukon, both now held by the Canadian-friendly Chinese government, and east to the Okanogan valley, where they were unable to traverse the mountain passes through to the Elk Valley because of fanatical and skilled Canadian resistance members.
Things were not going as easily as the Americans had hoped. Fighting major wars on two fronts, with the Chinese Empire and the newly-revived USSR, as well as fending off guerrilla attacks by merciless Canadian troops, was taking a heavy toll on the few resources the Americans had left.
"Come on," the girl said to the man, "we have to get these bodies down below before the rest of them show up." She'd grabbed the dead soldier underneath his arms, and was dragging him towards the manhole cover that led down to the sewer, and, below that, the resistance bases. She'd turned to the cover itself, and begun to pry it loose with the crowbar she kept strapped to her backpack, when she heard the man take a sharp breath.
She turned, and saw a great light coming from downtown. A light so bright that it blinded her the moment she looked at it, yet she didn't know it. A light so bright she knew instantly what it was, and what was about to happen to her.
"Thank God…it's finally over." was the girl's last thought, as the heat and shock wave that follows a thermonuclear explosion tore her body apart.
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War.
War never changes.
The Romans waged war to gather slaves and wealth. Spain built an empire from its lust for gold and territory. Hitler shaped a battered Germany into an economic superpower.
But war never changes.
In the 21st century, war was still waged over the resources that could be acquired. Only this time, the spoils of war were also its weapons; petroleum and uranium. For these resources, China would invade Alaska, the United States would annex Canada, and the European Union would dissolve into quarreling, bickering nation-states, bent on controlling the last remaining resources on Earth.
In 2077, the storm of world war had come again. In two brief hours, most of the planet was reduced to cinders. And from the ashes of nuclear devastation, a new civilization would struggle to arise.
A few were able to reach the relative safety of the large underground Vaults. Imprisoned safely behind the large Vault door, under a mountain of stone, a generation has lived without knowledge of the outside world.
Life in the Vault is about to change.