271.
271.
271.
I am number 271.
There is a hundred of us today, all figuratively branded with our numbers, and we are sentenced to die with them to boot.
The thing is, I am not going to die.
I refuse to.
At the present, I am no longer in an isolation cell,
instead with my new Delinquent brethren, we are hovering, a possible hundred feet, above the big blue planet.
A hundred teenage delinquents are wavering in sleep status, or waiting patiently, but no doubt when we get close to Earth's surface that will be a different story. They are assembling us into the launch ship. I step onto the Earth bound vessel without much of a fuss, because they are carrying and herding the rest of the large group right after me. There is barely enough space to squeeze in.
I make it in all the same.
We are the 100.
We are Chancellor Jaha's mission to save and report on Earth's ability to sustain life.
They strap me into my designated spot and my combat boots reach the ground in a seat that hugs both of my hips. "Sit down, sit down," they tell us and I lean back and wait. I wonder how the Chancellor would feel if he was strapped into one of these seats?
"Nia Vega," one of the Cadet attendants reads my number, I get flashbacks as they scan me, "Check. Next."
They sat me down and injected me with a serum.
It didn't hurt but it still knocked me out cold.
My brain was still awake.
Just like the humans survivors that ascended into space, sometime later, they had to come back down.
Ninety-six years later, we would reap what they sowed. To go where no Ark man or woman has gone before, and pave the way for future generations to return and prosper on soil, with real water, wind, and pure sunlight.
"What a pretty reason for a suicide mission," I mutter to myself.
That was the government propaganda bullshit they wanted us to believe, but in my head, I knew the real reason. We are rats. We had no purpose on the Ark except to feed off our masters, get injected with the right medicines, locked up until needed, and handcuffed with metal bands to shove the point across. Just like lab rats, we are disposable and reusable.
That cruel truth is better than any lie they feed us. We are lab rats dropped down to test a radioactive world. The poor fools that think otherwise, well, they can keep believing it for all I care. It is human to avoid the hard things, but that was not me.
I lived for the hard parts.
I began my strategy.