The Prologue

I guess, before I begin, I should give a little back story. The time is 2197AD. The world is facing an economic crisis. The final drops of the planet's oil reserves are fiercely fought over, with prices skyrocketing. Most of the world's transportation is now public, running on electric power. However, up to this point the world's scientists had been unable to come up with a true alternative power source. Nuclear reactors were discovered to damage the environment far more than we predicted. Solar power was far from efficient enough to provide enough power. Alternative oil sources such as biofuel turned out to require more power to produce than they provided. Hydrogen fuel was cracked but also had a horrible return rate.

There was only one possible source of power that could provide the power the world needed. Sometime in that year, 2197, the world's scientists finally cracked the code to nuclear fusion. The fuel to power ratio was insane. It was seen as the saving grace for humanity. The world's powers joined together and worked to rebuild Earth's power infrastructure to use the new nuclear fusion power. The fusion reactors were so powerful, that one reactor was enough to power all of North America. So thusly, one was built in every continent.

Everything was wonderful for a number of years. The reactors ran clean, used incredibly small amounts of uranium, and continued to meet the growing needs of the world. That is, until power output hit a brick wall. Suddenly, the reactors refused to output anymore power. Scientists immediately went back to work to discover why no matter how much fuel was added to the reaction, it would not output any further power. Many thought that it was simply a physical limit of the reactors, and that the government should just build another. However, the government countered that the reactors were prohibitively expensive, and that if there was any way to get the current reactor to produce more power, it should be explored.

And so the scientists explored possibilities. It didn't take long until one brilliant scientist devised a method of creating multiple fusion reactions at the same time inside the reactor. It was retrofitted to the reactor, and everything seemed to be fine. After a short while, the retrofit was added to all the other reactors of the world as well.

Long story short, that retrofit was what started this whole mess. We're not quite sure exactly what happened from this point on, but apparently the retrofit caused an uncontrollable fusion reaction to occur. It began to devour everything around it, like something out of a sci-fi movie. One by one the reactors failed. The world was in panic, as everything was swallowed up by these out-of-control fusion reactions. The governments and scientists worked together and came up with one last idea to stop the reactions. Using the last remaining cache of nuclear weapons, they were fired at the fusion reactions. Everyone knew it would be a devastating explosion, but it was deemed necessary in order to save the Earth from being removed from existence, eaten by these man-made suns.

The nuclear weapons worked as planned. They countered the fusion reaction, puffing it out similar to how a flame dies without oxygen. Hot mass and radiation exploded for over a thousand miles in every direction, on every continent. In an instant, the world's population dropped from 9 billion to 150 million.

The world leaders (those that survived) met together, joining together and appointing a new world government. Everything that survived the explosion was gathered together in the one place that seemed to have survived the most, New York. The high-rise buildings protected the city in a way the rest of the world could not have been. Over the next few years, an immense dome was built over the city, and it was revitalized. The entire world's population was moved inside the dome. Inside, a new fusion reactor (without the retrofit) was created, the last remaining power source of humanity.

Still reading? Good.

Skip a couple hundred years or so. The dome city, named City Eternal, was thriving. Humanity had survived the worst disaster they'd ever seen. The new government decided to try a geo-reclamation project. Over the next decade, a new, immense device called the Geo Reformer was created. It had the ability to take the nutrients in the soil and revitalize them, as well as revive any preserved plants, even if all that remained was one cell. It seemed like a wondrous achievement. The government immediately put it to use to increase the size of the dome city. However, over time, people began to question the motive of the government with this Geo Reformer. Instead of creating new cities, it just continued to increase the size of the dome. People also began to wonder why, if the Geo Reformer made the area inhabitable again, did it need to be under the dome. Was it possible that the government was hiding something?

Of course, this is where my story begins.

My name is Yukari, and I am rebel.