The people were petrified. Suddenly, an object that soared out of the hive with the luminescence of a shooting star entered into a downward trajectory at a terrifyingly fast speed and velocity toward the mountain ridges beyond the city. But instead of the loud kaboom that could be expected from a meteor crash, there was only a “pfft” from the distance, like that heard by disappointed fireworks spectators.
The black and grey mushroom cloud was a mute and anticlimactic end that left every sky observer wondering “what the hell was that?” But soon after, the hive was flashing with colorful, red square-shaped lights, accompanied by the screeching blare of an emergency alarm, sounding for the the first time in the city’s 115 years of existence and audible to every citizen and slave from the lowest point of the city to its highest peak. The alarm created an air of pandemonium and at a certain point all out panic ensued, Even the Plutocrats and Oligarchs in the hive were scurrying about in their sky-based command center trying to ascertain what had possibly gone wrong or what fuck-up had assailed them.
Deep in the mountains where the crash had occurred, an egg-shaped pod with tripod legs was planted in a 9-foot crater. It was steaming with residual heat and bore the number 2850. It was obviously one of the many escape pods embedded into the hive.
As the steam cleared, the door of the pod opened vertically. From the elevated exit, an automatic ramp shot out diagonally toward the ground. A few curious mountain creatures stopped during their night scurrying to take a gander at the “spacecraft,” before hurrying along in their nature games. The door revealed the staggering movement of two silhouettes, one dragging another that appeared to not be conscious.
“Come on, stop delaying us! We have to go! By now they have already pinpointed our location and should be surrounding us,” said the helmeted man to his smaller helmeted companion. The unconscious companion soon showed signs of life. The larger companion examined the smaller one, checking heart rate, pulse and so on. He soon took off his own helmet and his companion’s, revealing the handsome rust brown face of a man with an unkempt beard and Afro, resembling a young Cornel West in his mid-twenties. He was drenched with nervous perspiration. He looked toward the distant sky only to find the anticipated terror of his flight.
