It was only just 7:00am of April 21st, 2135, and the city was more alive than ever. The fluorescent streetlights shined brighter than the stars themselves, and the average building reached up to 250 floors. The hovers sped past one another, all of them busy to go where they needed to be. This was the era of technology and sophistication.
And somewhere deep inside this wondrous city, sat a certain Thomas Daae, in between sizzling rows and columns of fiery-red laser. The lasers were his jail cell bars, and his separation from the outer world, where he truly belonged. So obviously, Thomas thoroughly believed that he had no serious crime. After all, the single reason he was thrown in jail was because he the fact that he was human. But in a world where androids, robots, and cyborgs had complete control, being 100% flesh and blood was illegal, and humans were considered weak, dumb, and just consumed too much of everything. They were useless.
So Thomas sat there, with no one to talk to, except for a gloomy cellmate named Burbon Galley Fumble, who had what looked like a mustache for his eyebrows. They sat across from each other, their backs to the walls. Thomas had usually ignored him his entire time here, finding no pleasing company in him, but today, the silence was unbearable.
“What it would be, to be outside, and to be able to walk around freely,” Thomas mused out loud.
“Mmhmph,” Burbon grunted, as if he was uninterested in the idea.
“What it would be, to live back then, when we ruled over the droids and the robots and the borgs. And what it would be, to live even before any robots were even made,” he continued, determined to squeeze a conversation out of this intolerable mute.
This time, Burbon just stared at him, the corner of his mouth slightly open, as if he was about to say something, but decided against it.
Frustrated, Thomas tried again. “Who would’ve thought things would turn out this way?”
Burbon just raised an eyebrow.
Exasperated, Thomas sighed and said, “Oh, what use is this. You won’t ever talk anyway.” He threw his hands and started picking his long, dirty fingernails.
The moment of silence was disrupted when sound blasted through the prison. Both of their heads jerked up. Thomas had no idea what was happening, but soon enough, the alarms were ringing and alerting the world of a jailbreak.
Burbon was on his feet, trying to get the best view through the lasers that stood guard. “Jailbreak,” he murmured.
Thomas rolled his eyes. Of course it was a jailbreak. They happened almost every other week, whenever the lasers or the security system had a malfunction. But no one ever escaped. How could they, when the robot guards were so much faster, stronger, and smarter than all of them combined?
A blurry passed through their jail cell, and cruel gun shots were fired. The figure shrieked and fell, crumpling into a mess of their own blood. Thomas turned his head away from the corpse, closed his eyes, and wished to be in a completely different world, where he wouldn’t have to see his own kind withering away like this. But when he opened his eyes and saw that nothing had changed, he sighed and went to sleep, huddled in a corner of his own.