The Last Agent of the Old World: Awakening
#1 of The Last Agent of the Old World
My first submission with more to come, let me know what ya think of it.
Awakening Agent 000025. Good Morning.
I woke up, feeling frigid and bleary eyed. It was as if I'd been shoved in the world's most uncomfortable bed for the entire time I'd been sleeping. I took a look around and walked out of my cryo-tube, hoping that things were expected in the year 2532. I took a look at the eternal calender on the wall and saw something that surprised me. The date was 2512, 20 years before I was supposed to wake up, and exactly 430 years after I had first fallen asleep. That wasn't surprising, given that the emergency wake up was set for a full 28 years after whatever disaster had occurred, to ensure our safety. I checked the emergency and felt stunned when I read the display in the corner of my room.
Emergency Confirmed: Multiple fatalities in Agent Containment Unit 5.
Emergency Confirmed: Technology reduction to Stage 2 Civilization.
Emergency Confirmed: Government Dissolution.
Emergency Confirmed: Breach of Agent Containment Units 1-20.
Emergency Confirmed: Agent 000025 last remaining Agent in Cryo.
Vocal Request heard: Agent 000025 has been requested by name.
Note for Agent 000025: You have apparently become a legend, the Final Agent of the Old World.
I activated the recorded relevant news clips that had been played or written. For two days I did nothing but read the news and make sure that what had been said by the computer was accurate. Unfortunately, it was.
The Agents had been created for three purposes: first, we'd wake up every 50 years to share our knowledge of history with the world; second, we'd work to restore humanity if there was ever an apocalypse; and third, one of us would remain in whatever time we woke up in as a living relic. This wasn't too much of a problem anymore as in the last waking we'd been given Nanites that would keep us alive, unless either the Heart or the Brain were destroyed completely. It seemed, however, that I was the last remaining active Agent. Either they'd been killed or incapacitated, and neither looked too good from where I stood.
We had been trained and augmented far, far past what normal troops had been. We could each carry 100 kilos without a problem and mastered each weapon we were to use. We had to ensure that we could keep ourselves alive in the most hostile environments. The nanites that had been put into our systems had radically aided our training by maximizing our strength and endurance. A team of five of us was classified as a 'Squad of Mass Destruction' when put onto the battlefield in 2082, and that had been fairly accurate. If there wasn't any tech more advanced than my own, I was probably the closest thing to a WMD left on earth.
I walked over to my Locker and pulled out my emergency armor suit. The brown synth-leather trench coat was layered with ceramic plates and a bulletproof mesh that were ensured to stop .50 caliber bullets with the smallest amount of bruising possible. A wide brimmed hat that hung over the collar of the coat covered my neck and the top of my head. Finally, a pair of goggles and a small air purifier covered my face to give me complete protection. I stopped for a moment and put a bandanna over the lower half of my face. It looked like I was some desperado from a wild west program. It was almost laughable that a style that was over two centuries old in my time turned out to be the best one for covering the entire body in armor.
I finished putting the simple armor suit on and pulled out my weapons. I, like all the other agents, had been given five weapons. A simple longsword and knife ensured that I would have weapons long after my ammunition ran out. The others were a survival kit of sorts; a small caliber rifle for hunting, a shotgun for clearing out rooms, and the revolver that was listed as my personal best weapon. A quick cleaning showed that they were all in working condition.
I put them in their respective holsters in the trench coat, grabbed my emergency supply pack, and opened the room's door. What met me was a scene of destruction. The hall was ripped to pieces, the roof was gone, and skeletons littered the hall. Scorch marks told me that a fire had swept through and had been the primary cause of destruction, while the obvious bullet holes showed a battle that was one sided beyond belief. It was obvious that the invaders had been killed without exception, and I couldn't find any evidence of any of my companions falling in battle.
I climbed out of my room and onto a pile of junk, using the extra height as a jumping board to make sure that I could get out of the hall. What I saw outside was surprising. A town had sprung up around the base, whose location was a military secret. Well, I figured there probably wasn't much of a military around if there wasn't a government to fund it. Or if there was it was more of a midevil army. I walked into the town and was glad for the trench coat and hat. While it wasn't anywhere near what the locals were wearing, it made me far less suspicious than if I had anything showing.
As I walked around I couldn't help but feel a sense of the surreal. The town was made from simple wood and stone, and the people wore the most simple clothing that I had ever seen. There were a few examples of technology left, but they were all the 'Eternal' series that I had seen when I had last woken up. They were the only bits and pieces that were impossible to destroy, using a top secret alloy made to gather energy from surrounding heat and solar energy, while being all but indestructible. It was a sad state of affairs, and I couldn't help but shudder at what had happened.
A scientist working on a new nuclear powered warp drive had invited the world leaders to its grand unveiling. When they had gone on board, a group of terrorists had turned on the drive in atmosphere. The drive malfunctioned, killing everyone on board and causing some 5.6 billion casualties across the globe. The remaining population had proved too small for genetic diversity to be perpetuated, so another scientist devised the 'Genetic Reconfiguration Program'. With this, the population's genetic code was reconverted with the help of animal DNA to something that could be sustained for many generations to come.
The result was that I was, quite probably, the last true human left on an earth that was closer to a furry's paradise than the earth any of us had known. I didn't know how long that would last, however, if the reconfiguration virus were still alive. That was why I was wearing the air purifier. I got several odd looks as I walked through the town, and felt a little startled as I approached what appeared to be the town's front gate. A set of guards were placed there and I saw a good example of what the recombination had done. They were a mixed lot, from wolves to foxes to cats with a rhinoceros or two. One of the closer ones, a fox, nudged the wolf next to him as I got closer.
"Halt, and declare your business," the wolf said as I walked up.
"Just heading out to see what the world's got to offer," I replied.
"And who's your patron?" he asked.
I was thrown for a bit of a loop. The last news had been about the recombination causing aggression in some of the population before cutting off completely. I had no clue what to say.
"No one," I replied, hoping that it wouldn't be a bad answer.
A stunned silence came over the chattering guards. "No one?" asked a nearby rhino. "Are you sure you don't want to try that again?"
"Not a single person, as far as I know, can claim patronage over me in this day and age."
"Right, then," he said, standing up. "So, another for the Slave Pens, then." He reached for me and tried to grab my arm, which suddenly had a large revolver in it. He stopped.
"Ah, no, I don't think so," I said. "I'm going to walk out of this gate, and you aren't going to stop me. Understood?"
He nodded and saluted, "Yes, sir. I didn't realize you were a Patron, sir. I won't make the same mistake twice, sir." I felt rather confused, but nodded and walked through the gate, wondering where this new life would lead.