The sun was setting in the distance just behind the poppy fields.
Sun rays reflected and glinted off the rocky outcrops in the surrounding area.
It was almost too picture perfect. Above, the sky held a smoky red haze that seemed to shimmer and distort in the rapidly fading afternoon light.

Times like this you almost forget there was a war going on or even the fact that you were living in a world that was so close to complete authoritarian control, the mortars, the nukes and soldiers all seem like nothing more than a fading image emblazoned in the back of your psyche.

Walking back through the torn up city streets never failed to fascinate the young impressionable mind of Beaumont.
The cracked derelict buildings and boarded up windows once full of happy families now just ghosts of their former selves.

It was scary to think that in as little as twenty years the entire country had been eaten by a conglomerate and brought under a harsh regime.

Beaumont never really knew anything different than this dystopian society he had grown up in. It was all familiar to him. His elders however still recalled the golden age. Things were simpler, cheaper and a hell of a lot easier to live with.

When the wasp took over the supply of the basic essentials and entered the political arena things began to go downhill.
They began to spin lies of a promise, resolving problems like water and food shortages.
As a major supplier of energy to the nation no-one ever thought a company who provided the essentials could be so corrupt.

So people voted in the droves to bring them in power. How could it be worse than the current batch of money and power hungry politicians?

To start with things were good.

Nothing much seemed to change.
Then the decline started, prices went up for water and electricity. If you couldn’t pay you didn’t get any. It was that simple…The effect was devastating.

The country was split in two. You either worked for wasp and collected rationed water and power or you paid the high prices.
Those few who could afford it lived far out the way of the common public. Powerful businessmen and women in high rise cities out the way of the commoner scum on the floors thousands of feet below.
Then the company’s political arm started applying pressure to the army, which provided no match. Before you knew it, the streets were being patrolled by armed guards working for wasp.

And so here we are now, in the slum areas ridden with filth.
Beaumont ran across the beaten up road towards the demolished city centre and past a patrolling wasp soldier, he shot Beaumont a glance and motioned him to move on with his rifle.

Beaumont just looked at the dusty floor, held his breath and hurried home.

It was good to be in the relative safety of his bedroom.
Through the fractured glass of his paraffin lamp the light shone in small dull beams, Beaumont looked at the many small particles of dust swirling around the light in some sort of erratic playful dance.

It was a busy night outside, through the crumbly brick walls Beaumont could hear the echo of people laughing and joking and the smell of food being cooked.
Things always seemed better at night, the community living in this own personal nightmare could get together and try and be happy, of course the homemade alcohol made it easier.

Beaumont walked outside to watch the relative hustle and bustle around the small street.
Inside the Aces High bar was the usual crowd, seven old men singing along to shanty songs and raising their tin mugs to smashing the fuckers who stole their collected livelihoods.

Beaumont walked past the assembled drinkers toward the electricity plant; it was his favourite place for quiet contemplation.

The electricity plant had long been deserted. It was a towering behemoth of rusted steel and wires. Off limits for civilians; still it wasn’t like the place was ever under guard.
Beaumont peered into the vast empty chasm of air in front of him where there used to be a security door.
He squeezed under the rusted over gate and into the inky void heading into the insides of the steel beast.

All around Beaumont was the overpowering smell of rusted metal and fried electronics, he liked it. It reminded him of history and productivity.
Through the cracked grimy windows the moonlight trickled through creating dappled patches of light, glinting off cold shiny surfaces…an alien world.
Beaumont padded lightly over the metal grates, looking around him at the alien architecture. Like something from a science fiction film. A mother ship holding untold secrets of the history of the world as it was known back then. Beaumont breathed in a combination of stale air and dust and proceeded across the dead silent hallway.

He was heading into the heart of the structure, the reactor. He’d seen it on past visits, a structure designed like a heart. Valves and pumps forcing energy around the beast, the nerve centre, now a relic to natures will.

Beaumont quickened his pace in anticipation.

“One day” he thought to himself, “I’ll bring this place to life…”

Through the hall Beaumont could see the tip of the heart, the piping sticking out at awkward angles, snaking in and out of walls.
Beaumont slowly crept down the steps encircling the heart, moving over and under a mass of wires and pipes. He approached the bottom toward the work floor.
He sat down on the metallic floor and stared up at the heart. In the moonlight it gave off an aura. It seemed as though it was only sleeping, waiting for someone to wake it up from its permanent slumber.

Beaumont closed his eyes slowly and reclined onto the floor.
Inside his head thoughts spun round and burned themselves into his brain cells.
They formed an image of an uprising, a new life for anyone stuck with their backs against the wall.

He could taste it. He could feel it inside his soul.
It wanted to be free.

It was stiflingly hot inside the hazmat patrol suit, beads of salty sweat clung to his fur. Inside the visor number 16 could see a map of his patrol route. The beacons of light flashed on all the checkpoints. Tonight was the routine like any other night.
16 looked around the area and breathed a sigh of boredom; he flicked on the image enhancement to his visor and checked for signs of disturbance.
Nothing as usual…it wasn’t as if he was surprised either. No-one ever had the guts to wander very far out from their homes; as far as 16 was concerned the patrol routes were a piece of shit.

He began to walk the route back to the village when he noticed a small heat signature on one of the old chain link fences.

It didn’t seem like wildlife.

16 rubbed his rifle slowly and thought to himself in quiet contemplation.
“Maybe I’ll actually have something worthwhile to see for a fucking change” he thought as he began to follow the trail of heat and paw prints in the slowly shifting dust and dirt.