Chapter 1: Veldani Central
“Lareese! Lareese! You must return to you studies, Lareese!” The old woman’s voice was a shrill squawk.
“I want to climb a tree,” was the frustrated but determined response that came from the small girl with blonde hair.
A woman with graying hair who was rounder than she was tall rounded the doorway. Several layers of purple, maroon, and pale winter gold clothing made her seem all the wider. Her shoes were the common black, and antiquely framed spectacles sat upon her nose, kept from dropping by a thin gold chain on both sides. Sometimes, it likened her to an elephant.
The old woman’s eyes, magnified by her thick lenses, widened, making her look like an owl. “Lareese! Get down from there! You’ll break that sapling!”
Indeed, the young girl Lareese was pulling on one of the higher branches of the thin tree. It curled towards her, too weak to resist. It was bound to snap at any time.
“If it breaks, daddy will hire the builders to build a new one, a better one, one for climbing!” She put a foot on the trunk, as though trying to hoist herself up. She wore a simple, uniform-like dress, but it was of pale yellow, pink, and pastel blue patterns. Her short hair curled much at the ends, and there was a white ribbon in it.
“You don’t understand, Lareese. It may be common and easy to build a tree, but to grow one is a sign of great wisdom, wealth, and patience!”
“I don’t need to be patient. I’m a kid. I want to climb!” There was no roof above the square. Sky could be seen above, but there was no breeze to be felt.
“You need to study. Now come right down here!”
“I don’t need to study. I know lots.”
The old lady crossed her arms. “Indeed,” she muttered in a huff.
“Building requires an equal amount of matter of any element, and it reprograms all the electrons and protons and neutrons to make new elements, which form bonds between atoms until the larger thing is finished. Furniture is simple, living things are only a little more complex, but the creation of lifestasis allowed the building of animals and plants to be allowed for civilians.” She gave up on tugging on the branch, and plucked off a leaf instead, holding it between two fingers and blowing at it a bit. The leaf bent this way and that, weaker than the tree had been. This was the only wind it would have ever felt.
“That’s elementary knowledge, Lareese.”
“And I belong in elementary. What’s all the fuss about growing trees? It’s boring! And it takes so long for the chloroplasts an the sunlight an the time…”
A panel high on the wall showed a clock, but the clock’s image faded and was replaced by flashes of color- mostly red. Soon the word ‘Alert’ was sliding across the panel. Lareese jumped down from the square and ran to her mentor.
A booming voice came through the walls; it was a citywide broadcast. “As of fifteen minutes ago, Vatelli Central, Yarit Tamil, and Maccera have been struck. Please stay in your homes. Please, do not flood the link lines, as the Veldani Guard require clear link lines to best defend the city, I repeat…”
Lareese hugged the old lady, almost frightened, “Daddy is a Veldani Official…”
The old woman nodded, her voice no longer full of anger or frustration. “Your father is an ambassador. He’ll sort this out and everything will be fine, dear.”
Lareese let go, took two steps back and looked up to her mentor, shaking her head. “Nuh uh. Vatelli Central had a star-stopper, Yarit Tamil had the base of everything Yarit-built, and Maccera had automatic defense robots. The star-stopper is messy at close range, and there would be much collateral damage. Thus, perhaps a dozen other city-states will seek retaliation, either immediately or a short while after. Central allies will only attack aggressors, not Freethought states that haven’t lit up the big guns yet. But the leftist Freethought states and strongly defensive Bluedon pact will probably attack anyone with the wrong flag flashing.” She started to count on her fingers. “Three hours from now, any major city-state with shield-passing weapons will have used it and probably be leveled. Within twelve hours, any grazed city-state will reply in kind, with dirty bombs and unfocused weapons, even if immediate aggressors have been destroyed. Within eighteen hours, radiation, bio-weapons, and any slow acting, eco-affecting weapons will be at their worst. At twenty-four hours, it won’t matter the strength of the weapon. All major power sources will be destroyed or depleted, and the remaining city-shields will be too weak to deflect a paper plane. Within thirty-six hours, ninety-five percent of the world’s population will have been destroyed, and three of the five remaining percent will die slowly, very slowly.”
The old lady looked like an owl as she shivered. “That- that’s not elementary knowledge, Lareese,” she stammered.
“I know.” Lareese grinned, “I decoded and read most of daddy’s confidential files in less time than it took for the records guard to finish his crossword puzzle.”
The old lady only shivered.
—
A few hours later, Lareese was being tucked in for the night. She hugged a light glass orb, which had some leaf floating inside. Looking up to the old lady, she asked curiously, “Why did they call you Lady Violet back then, Miss Caveri?”
The old lady blinked, pausing for a moment before speaking, “Well, back when I used to dance, and I was a young lady, I always wore a purple dress… I was quite the celebrity back then, I guess.” She looked to the girl. “How… How did you know?”
“It’s so strange that a famous dancer would become a nanny,” she mused.
“Age makes people do some strange things, dear.”
The girl nodded. “Yeah, it had some strange stuff in your confidential background check.”
The old woman stood abruptly and walked towards the door. “Indeed…” She seemed distracted as she left the girl to turn off her own lights.
—
The next morning, Lareese sleepily walked towards the kitchen. Old miss Caveri turned off the linkscreen as soon as she noticed Lareese enter. The news was grim, but she spoke nothing of it.
“Morning, Lady Violet,” Lareese grinned with a sleepy smile. She hugged the glass orb to her chest as Caveri blinked.
“Why did you call me that?”
“Cause it sounds nice.” Lareese started to sift through the pantry. Caveri started to help her, but there was someone at the door.
A man in a suit with shades, an earpiece, and a trim haircut marched in. Lareese looked up to him and blinked as he spoke, “Lareese, you are to come with me. All officials’ families are being taken to a safe place. It is believed that a strike on Veldani is imminent.”
The young girl shrugged and went to get some things. The old lady looked from the bodyguard to the wall clock. Her voice merely murmured, “Within twelve hours…”
Lareese pranced back in with a small bag and her glass piece. After a look from the bodyguard, she slipped it into her bag and stood on one foot, bored. “Lady Violet, can I have some cookies for breakfast?”
“May and please,” Caveri corrected.
The suited man raised an eyebrow and looked to Ms. Caveri through his shades. “Lady Violet?” he queried.
Suddenly, he put a hand to his earpiece and looked up. The window showed nothing but light as bright as the sun. Immediately Lareese dropped to the floor and put her hands over her head, shrieking, “Get down!”
Between the silence of the void and the tremendous roar, heat passed over them as walls crumbled and disintegrated. The heat passed after a second, but Lareese didn’t get up. “It’ll go back…” her nervous voice quivered. And a moment later it did, the same unbelievable heat passing over them. Only then did Lareese get up.
Looking around the rubble of her kitchen as the guard got up, she murmured, “We’re beyond a mile radius of the blast point… We should leave before the radioactive dust…”
The bodyguard blinked, pulling a shard of glass from his shoulder. “Atomic weaponry is ancient… Hasn’t been used for a few thousand years. I didn’t know they taught about that in school these days…”
“They don’t. Where’s Lady Violet?” A wall and much more crumbled things filled the rest of the kitchen, blown there by the blast.
The guard shook his head. “She’s… with your mother.” He pulled up his sleeve and examined a thick, gray plastic bracelet. Several green square lights had been replaced by red. One had turned blue. Closing his eyes and listening to his earpiece, he looked to Lareese. “Come on. We’re to meet your father in Aiden Central. He’s the new Presidor General.”
Her eyes danced over the window’s blazing, smoldering view. “Sixty two point seven miles… if a straight line is taken.” She looked to her bodyguard. “You better have good legs.”
He looked to her as he moved some rubble away from the door. “Lets go.”
