The Last 0-Day

Chapter 3 - Anton

Anton Grissom leaned against the dusty polywooden sidings of his family's homestead. Aunts, uncles, and cousins filed into the single-story house, but none made eye contact with him. An impressive feat given they drove for days to speak with Darren, Anton's twin.

"We're sorry for your loss," an aunt said inside.

Anton reread the paper recruitment notice from the United City-State Military in his hands.

Two pairs of clothing, a personal hygiene kit, one pair of boots.

No weapons new or old. No personal inserts - YOU WILL BE GIVEN CLEAN ONES.

No questionable materials including: VR-porn, VR-gambling,

or VR-propaganda.

You will be working with other Urbans from all corners of our fine land. Many have heard stories about each area, you are to disregard them and work together.

We're a force from all Centers, for all Centers.

Nothing about Rurals. Nerves tickled his neck like mosquitoes during the wet season, the collection date of tomorrow didn't help. He pocketed the notice and rolled his shoulders. Cicadas droned in the heat and an alarm beeped in the barn across a dirt yard.

He ran a hand through his short, blond hair and pushed off from the siding. The deck creaked behind him.

"Anton," his sister, Cassie, said. "Darren said to mute the alarm. We'll deal with it later."

"Tell Twin we can't do that." Anton turned. "I'll take care of it."

His sister twirled her curly-haired ponytail, her sandy eyes darting to the alarm. "If it's not serious, ignore it. Don't be late for the ceremony."

"Aye."

Cassie hurried back into the family stead.

Grissoms are always late, and Dad wouldn't want us to cut corners.

Anton's shadow shimmered on baked earth as he crossed the yard and stepped into the relative cool of their machinery barn. Half of the Grissom water-bots, auto-combines, and re-seeders recharged against the far wall, the other half worked the fields.

He flicked the wallscreen to the status pages. Bot's down in the east. He grabbed his pack, kicked the dirt off his quad's tires, and stepped on.

I'll make it in time. He accelerated down a dirt road, soil spinning out the back.

The Grissom farmland stretched for hundreds of miles in every direction, and Anton drove for forty-five minutes before the bot's localizer pinged his tablet. He skidded to a stop, stalks of corn and intermixed soya rustling in the wind.

Red hydraulic fluid was splattered on the ground like blood. Anton followed the stains into the corn, finding a water-bot on its side. Its neck cracked open, the water bladder torn out by tooth and claw. A puma attacked it to drink. Anton dragged the bot back to his quad, securing it to the front. He pulled the scouting drone from his pack. Throwing it into the air, it hovered fifteen feet above as he turned on the controller and screen.

Where are you?

From the bird's-eye-view, the flatland around his farm was a green and gold ocean. Corn, soya, and wheat swayed in the sweltering breeze. He guided the drone higher. The individual plants of the field melted into a quilt of greens and yellows. The quad-width dirt trails between each plot became wires in the circuit board common to rural farms. He spun the drone above. A tendril of ceremonial black smoke rose from the family stead.