A New Dusk and Dawn - AU Legend Fanfic

Part One

June

Six hundred and thirty-five years into the future, the earth isn't what it was many years ago. Here in America, it only a fraction of what once was a glorious country. The Floods were relentless, covering most of every country, the only country that remained relatively the same is Africa. Eventually the ozone layer failed everyone, which the heat caused the massive floods and crazy storms. Storms raged at frequencies far beyond prediction, with destruction so disastrous that there is rarely survivors. The smoke from the factories have such a thick concentration that on some days you can't see the sun, but the days you can, the smoke blocks out most of the light casting a dark, grey light across the planet.

I stood on the roof of one of our city's tallest buildings, trying to see the sunrise. Most every other morning I could get a glimpse of the bright, golden rays. The wind tasted bitter as it flew in a southwest direction. I pulled on the straps that held the mask over my face, which allowed me to breathe the little oxygen the planet has left, tighter so it wouldn't fall off as the winds grew stronger.

My watch beeped signaling that the sun was starting to rise, the time being exactly six hours, fifty-three minutes and thirteen seconds in the morning. I sat down allowing my legs to dangle over the edge of the building. I waited. At first nothing happened, my city remained dark, gloomy, and still. Then the sun's rays broke through the thick clouds, they were a beautiful golden color. Things started to sturr, now that the sun was awake.

As quickly as the sun came it left. I counted the time the sunrise lated, forty-two seconds, the longest I have ever watched the sun's lights. Maybe things are changing. But the likelyhood of that possibility is rare.

Roars and screeches sounded below me, sometimes the artificial beast muddle their sounds from many different animals. Mechanical dogs would meow five times then change the sound into a neigh of a horse. Once upon a time I heard that these mechanical animals weren't always robots. That they were actually living, they had blood and they could breathe. After I learned that it is difficult to look at the creatures. Their beady, dark, red eyes were sometimes the only thing you can see.

Footsteps echoed behind me, they were light and barely audible. "I thought I would find you up here." It was Day. I turned around to meet him, his usually blond hair was dark, because of the thick morning smoke, and was pulled up into a ponytail. He is gorgeous. "When am I not?" I replied to him, the faintest of smiles on my face. He laughed, "Good point. We should go before the onslaught of people and smoke wake up." He reasoned with me. I nodded my head in a yes motion, my black hair fell in my face for a split second before I pushed it behind my ears.

Day headed towards the side of the building, glancing once over at me to make sure I was following, he jumped down onto the ledge that jutted out (it is three feet wide, stretches all the way around the building). From there he lowered himself to the foot holes that lined all the way from the third story. We were seventy-five stories up. He expertly made his way down. I envied how flawless he looked doing it. Scaling buildings is, in fact, illegal, but the darkness of our clothes hide us too well for anyone to notice, plus the thick smoke was a good addition.

I headed down myself, I went quickly - just as fast as Day - but I stumbled a few times, ten times exactly. I heard a thump below me, indicating that Day is soundly at the bottom of the building. I felt my foot hit the last foothold, (there are exactly 375 footholds, five for every story); readying myself, I shoved off of the building and landed with a crouch. The jump down doesn't hurt that much after you do it twenty times a day for three weeks straight. Which we did when we first went exploring.

I followed him to our cottage, it was just a way away from the capitol building. ( 2,640 feet away from the building to be exact, a half mile.) Mechanical creatures prowled the streets but other than the occasional screech from them, nothing else was moving. We quickly made our way home, twenty minutes passed since the sun had risen. Zero seven hundred hours and thirteen minutes. School starts in (2,220 seconds or) thirty-seven minutes. It will take the two of us at least another ten minutes to get home and from there catch the clunker, which will take us to school. It wasn't really a school, more of a rehabilitation camp, or labor camp. Day and I always manage to escape before they even get a quarter of a mile to the camp. There was barking behind us, I guess we disturbed the guards. We took off in a sprint. By the time we reached our hole in the wall, we were sweaty and out of breath. We were also five minutes behind schedule. Day quickly put in our code and ran for the showers.

Our cottage wasn't shabby, it is just very small on the outside, the whole cottage is roughly 925 square feet. It is very easily concealed, behind 23 feet tall Oak trees(we have five in front and five in the back) and 13 feet tall Red Maple trees(these are along the side of our cottage, seven on each). On the inside it was very spacious. We have two bathrooms, four bedrooms, living room and a kitchen. I quickly showered, then changed into the school colors, not that you could tell what the colors were, dark blue and silver. Day changed his air mask into the standard ones they issued every year. I took off the ones Day and I made. They were old gas masks that I upgraded to fit this era. Cutting off the top half so it was only the bottom part that covered my nose and mouth, I made it less bulky. We designed them to hide our identities incase we were caught, but it hasn't happened so far. Our mask was red and a grey, silver color. The government issued masks were half a mask as well, but were a plain black, and used way more energy than needed.

An alarm blared outside, it sounded like scraping of metal on metal signaling that the clunker was here. It always stopped twenty-five feet left of our house, which is were we always appeared to be coming from. We did this incase any Republic soldiers came after us. I grabbed my school bag and nap-sack on my way out the door. The clunker stood out in all its glory, it was ten feet long and five feet wide, it uses seventy gallons of oil-hybrid. But the government doesn't tell you that. The only reason Day and I know this is because we broke into the ExxonMobil headquarters, downloaded certain information; we were in and out of there within 52 minutes. We almost got caught.

A New Dusk and Dawn

Part Two

Day

June's watched beeped signalling that it was 11:30 P.M. She shifted uneasily on her feet, eager to start the mission. June wasn't always as fast as me, but that didn't stop her from keeping up. While I was more lightweight on my feet, she was a quicker thinker. She was better with technology than I was. The lights below turned purple, shining through the thin, black smoke, I glanced back at June. She seemed more awake at night, more happy. It makes her all the more beautiful.

"Time to go." I informed.

She nodded and zipped up her jacket, it was silver, the only color that shows through the black fog that hung in the air. We started forward.

"We should reach the head quarters at exactly 12 P.M. We can't afford to be a second late, the guards arrive at 12:00 and 32 seconds. Day, you have the frequency waves transmitter, right?" June asked me, her voice was just loud enough for me to hear as the roars of people moving below us died down.

I nodded and showed her. She grinned at me. We have been planning the invasion for three months. Scouting out exits and entrances, getting the floor plan, and looking at the security. We traveled quietly and quickly on the roof tops of the building leading up to the headquarters. June could probably give an exact coordinate to where we were and how much we have covered. It was 11:36 P.M., and we are ahead of schedule. I can see the headquarters lights gleaming orange through the smoke. The lights, like most of the ones in the city, are powered by salt from the sea. I am not sure how, but scientists figured that we are surrounded by salt water, we might as well put it to good use. It works so far, but regulations are still in place in case we run out of salt. June thinks that by taking salt out of the ocean we are slowly killing the animals that live there; the ones who didn't die when the ozone layer burst or when the pollution went into overdrive nearly killing every living creature on the planet.

I stopped, and held out my hand signaling to June that she should too, footsteps. From down below, they were moving quickly. I peered over the edge of the building, we were only twenty stories up, high enough so they can't see us. So they can't shoot us. I pulled out my sonic sunglasses, they could track heat energy, as well as electromagnetic, chemical, electrical and mechanical. I counted seventeen men in labcoats; the only reason I could tell that they were labcoats was because of the purple stripe they have glittering on their arms.

They were all carrying some type of metallic weapon, or at least that is what it appeared to be.

I turned to June, "News report stat." My voice was barely above a whisper and very clearly urgent.

June pulled out her silver disk, except it wasn't really a disk, that is just what they call it. It had more of a rectangular prism shape, that could project stuff if you wanted it to. Only military officers have access to this technology. We may have stolen some and upgraded it a while back, two years exactly. Her hair fell slightly into her face, causing her to try and blow it out of the way, I wondered for a moment why she didn't put it up.

She quickly hacked into a secure server, then scanned for anything that might pertain to us. I continued to watch the men until they disappeared to the right at the cross road of Lane and Kite. I sighed with relief. We were going left. I looked at June, she looked ashened. My mind went into overdrive to try and figure out what was wrong.

"What?" My voice shook as I spoke to her, "What's wrong?"

"The security plan," She explains, "I just realized. . . our transmitter will only cover us for thirty-two minutes. It'll take at least five minutes to get past their firewalls, then we have to worry about people coming in. And-" She broke off, I didn't blame her for not finishing her thoughts. But I was more shock to find out that her calculations were off. She was never off. She took a deep breath, it must be effecting her, she must have not been expecting this, and I didn't either. She continued, "What if we don't get out in time?"

That was the question that had been burning in my mind for the past twenty-four hours. I did the only thing I could think of doing, I hugged her, and kissed her on the cheek. I couldn't afford to get lost in her now. Then I grabbed my June by the shoulders. I could barely see her outline, but I looked directly into her brown eyes and spoke every calmly, as if she were a frighten child,

"We will get out of there. Trust our planning. We haven't failed once, and I don't expect to start now."

With that we arrived at the base of the building exactly at 12pm, June quickly punched in the code to allow us access to the first floor. The building itself was about one hundred and thirteen stories tall, we needed to get to the ninety-fifth story. The security was a difficult task, but every time we hit the red button on our freeze frame, the cameras all freeze at the frame ten seconds before us. It was a very useful gizmo. We made it to first floor security in fifteen seconds past twelve. Seventeen seconds before the guards show up to check in. June jumps the five feet desk with easy and quickly plugs in our radio transmitter along with our video transmitter. I could hear the voices of the guards coming down the hall, I silently urge June to hurry.

"Done!" She hisses, then sprints to the now opening elevator.

I don't hesitate to follow her. The door closes right as the first guard rounds the corner. He didn't see us. I sagged down on the wall of the elevator. I grinned at June.

"Close call huh?" I asked her.

She flashed me a grin as well. Ten seconds past. The ride up the elevator was quiet, I watched June sort through her thing in her small pack. Even in the dim light I could tell she was worried. Her internal clock was probably freaking out. I started to hum a song, out of the corner of my eyes, I see her look up. Then smile as she shook her head to herself.

After a few moments of silence and five minutes in the elevator, putting us five minutes behind schedule, the elevator signals that we are almost there.

"We are cutting it too close, Day." June tells me.

I just nod. "If it comes down to it. I'll buy you some time, probably five minutes at the most." I inform her.

The elevator dings. It just occurs to me that there might be people on the other side of the door, judging from June's face she just figured that out too.

Luck was on our side, no one was there. Quickly as we could we made our way to Room 818. The Intelligence Room. It hold all the information regarding everything that runs on energy provided by fuels or everything really. I punch in the code for the room, 214-892-765-90018. The door clicks green letting us know that our code worked. I guess months of stalking finally paid off, mostly. The room, thankfully, was empty. June settled herself next to one of the monitors.

"Okay," She started as I locked the door behind us, "I have exactly 27 minutes and 45 seconds, before we have to start rushing. Lets get started."

I stood guard as she worked. It only took her three minutes to get rid of the firewalls, which saved us sometime. It has been a total of six minutes since she got into the base's top secret information. She was transferring it to her flash. So we could look more in-depth later. She has 13 minutes left. I already got started on my distraction methods, simple frequency upsets, and a few techno bombs. The techno bombs will give off an electromagnetic wave that will disrupt their systems for a whole two minutes, but since this is a government protected building the bombs will probably only last a minute.

I have a total of ten and in the process of making the eleventh, when June said, "Set off two bombs. It'll set them back even more. I have a bug running through their system, I installed it before we left, incase we needed more time."

I nodded my head, "That was smart thinking."

I set off two of my bombs, now I only have eight and a half, and twelve minutes left. Technically, we have fourteen minutes left, if you count the two bombs I set off. June told me earlier today that her bug would keep them busy for a while, it'll make them think that someone is hacking into their system when we already have been. With luck it will give us an extra ten minutes.

"Check this out." June called me over. She motioned to me, and flipped her hair over her shoulder. It's exactly, 12:34.

"What?" I questioned as I made my way over. She just pointed to the screen.

It Read:

World Changes Over Time

Since the year 2039 all use of fossil fuels has been banned from this planet, Earth, until further notice. This is to allow the Earth to regenerate all depleted non-renewable resources. The UN, and Leaders of The World will let the World know when it is safe to use the resources.

There was more but none of it was all that interesting to us, June skipped down to a different paragraph on the same article, while I set off two more bombs. Ten minutes left. It is 12:42. Two minutes until we run out of cover.

As of the year 2646, resources are still very limited, but are ready for use. The LoTW and UN organizations have sorted out even percentages to each surviving country for its use. Coal and Oil will only be used for Carbonated Energy, not for manufacturing or motorized vehicles. Those are to continue to run on Heat Energy and Salt Energy. Wind Energy is to be used for other needs. The Organizations ask you to Please Refrain from Over Use of Your Limited Resource. Thank You.

What this doesn't explain was the thick dense fog that covered everything in blackness. I voiced this to June She agreed, and quickly searched for another article that would explain this condition. I set off the remaining seven bombs. They don't work. I silently curse. This wasn't good. Eight minutes left. Our cover was going to be found out soon. Good thing we disable the cameras in this room beforehand.

Ozone Layer

The Ozone layer disappeared in the year 2046. Luckily The Organizations where ready for this mass extinction that was to happen when the Ozone disappeared. They issued a safe county. Each country could have up to seventeen counties. These counties had a protective layer over them that acted as a temporarily ozone layer.

Each Layer lasted for twenty-five years, and could house 42,000 people. Young children were automatically allowed into the county, everyone else had to take a test determined on age and liability. The Test was to see who was the fitness to survive. Anyone over the age of 65 was not allowed access into the counties. (We send our condolences.) The Test had a physical portion and a logical portion. The physical portion lasted up to an hour and a half long, while the logical had seventy-two questions that were different every time someone took the test.

The Black Thick Smoke project was designed, and is testing, to bring back the ozone layer. While it does seem to work in some areas, it does not work in all areas. Scientist are working on a different hybrid gas that could bring back the ozone. This gas must be non-flammable, and easily manipulated.

The mutation caused the normally clear gas to turn black or deep purple, while giving off a toxic gas. This is why every year a new gas mask is issued, because new gases are being tested to see if they will be applicable to create a new ozone layer.

Coal and Oil Update

Less than 15 Percent of the Earth's coal and oil resources have been replenished in the 610 years that they have not been touched. SInce we found other ways to survive, as the technology around continues to evolve and thrive, Heat Energy has been found very efficient, because of the rising temperature of our planet. Also with new technology available The Organizations sought even new ways to obtain energy, which is how scientist stumbled across Salt Energy. Naturally, It too more than a decade to harness the power it could become. Hydraulic power has becoming one of the world's leading energy source. Seeing as more than half of the world is underwater. The Organizations are working on a way to allow us to live underwater, but that is centuries away.

"June is it ready? We need to head out now." I told her urgently. Six minutes left.

She nodded her head, and clicked the screen so that it went back to the home page. "Ready." She replied grabbing her flash, "Let's get out of here." Her brown eyes gleamed with the new found information.

But there were still a lot of things unanswered. For example, why-if oil was banned from use-then were the clunkers using over 70 gallons of it? I guess we will find more when we plug the flash into our own computer at home. Grabbing my bag, I pushed open the far window and looked down.

We planned the escape route very carefully, scale down the side of the building until floor 56. Then we break into the nearest window and from there, don't get caught. I set my hands on the ledge looking back at June for a second before I throw myself on the other side of the glass. The air was beyond cold, there was ice on the side of the building. I pushed the images of myself falling 95 stories to my death to the back of my mind. I start making my way down, finding foot holes, yelling out to June to watch where she steps. She probably can't even hear me. I pray to a force out there the she won't die tonight. Two minutes into the climb the intruder alarm sounds, by this time every guard will make their way to the 95th story, while June and I are on the 25th and going down. I reach the 25th floor, carefully I pull out a Window Smasher, and place it on the window. It beeps and the glass shatters. We have three minutes before they figure out we aren't on the 95th floor and start shutting down the stair ways. I jump into the window. June comes in after me.

As we ran June explains some things for me, "The clunkers don't run on purely oil or coal, it's a hybrid. They give off an even more toxic gas. If we didn't kill every animal back then, then we have now. They don't have the technology we do, they can't evolve this fast either. So we shouldn't be alive. What have we been eating the past 610 years, since the world has changed?"

Good questions, June, I thought, but I don't have answers.

We made it to floor one without trouble, so that mean we are going to be shot on sight if they are outside waiting for us, or they haven't figured out where we are. We were on top of the building across from the factory headquarters right when the guards showed up outside to look for us. At exactly 12:52AM. Surprisingly no one suspected two teens to break into the Headquarters. Of course they suspect their number one enemy, Day and Night. They might not know what we look like, but they were pretty close with our names, or well they know Day is my name, but they don't know June's. We made it back home without a hitch.

I laid awake that night thinking, that if the Earth knew what was going to happen 635 years ago, would they have tried to fix it sooner? Would they stop thousands, millions from dying a painful death, would they save millions of animals that would other wise be long gone? If they had know that the continuation of abuse usage of fossil fuels, would bring their own destruction would they change, or did they think of it and already try to fix it but realized that it was too late. I wondered what the Earth would be like if our past lives hadn't destroyed so much of our ecosystem.

But for now, we can embrace a new Dusk and Dawn, because this time tomorrow all of the information will be leaked to the rest of the world. And The Republic of America will know who did it, but will have no way of finding us. We do just enough to keep them on their toes, but not enough for them to find us. And that is how we stole 500,000,000 Republic Notes worth of information and gave it to the public in 52 minutes.