Sunlight streams through the blinds as the clock reads 12:56. The room is quiet, but if you listen hard enough you can hear a single heart beat. As you listen, concentrating on the thump thump, thump thump you suddenly become aware of the sound of a helicopter nearby. 3 Armed men dressed in military fatigues slide down a fast-rope to the street outside and quickly enter the house, pulling the 19 year old man out of his bed and out into a van below.

The Adventures of Dirk Stanton began July 25th, 2004 when he was pulled from his bed at 12:56 AM by a bunch of military guys. In Dirk’s time that was less than a year ago. But on world time it had been 15 years since he was first taken. Life was different now in 2019. Nanotechnology has become so widespread that schools no longer exist in some of the more technologically advanced countries, because nanotechnology has enabled the downloading of information directly to the brain, without the need for teaching. Schools are now known as practice centers, where people can go to practice the things that have been downloaded into them.

In 2010 an effort was made to partially terraform Mars to be habitable by life. Some scientists came up with the idea that by detonating Nuclear Weapons at the Mars Polar Ice Caps (where large stores of CO2 were located) would create the same type of Greenhouse effect on Mars as we have here on Earth. The experiment was a success of sorts. Mars will be habitable in 100 years or so, but until then no living thing can get near the surface of the highly radioactive Mars.

Veronica learned of Dirk’s fate from a friend in the government. Once nanotechnology had become so widespread, history books wanted to know about the first test subjects. The government was compelled to release this information through the Freedom of Information Act which was passed in the 20th century. Veronica was specializing in nanotechnology at the time and had worked with subjects similar to Dirk, though many years after his apparent death. It took her 2 years to develop a recovery treatment and to actually find out where Dirk had been buried.

Upon revival some of Dirk’s nanobots were upgraded so that he could ‘learn’ through downloaded information. A side effect for most people was that whatever information was downloaded had to be downloaded multiple times in order for it to ’stick’. Dirk did not have this problem. Anything he ‘learned’ immediately stuck and was usable by him.

One thing that remained unchanged from Dirk’s more adventurous days was that he was still not entirely free. He could roam the compounds as he pleased, but he could not leave the compound he was in. The Current Events Dirk received were all very closely monitored and usually quite old (the Mars Terraforming news being an example of his ‘current’ events).

Dirk constantly demanded to know what was going on…

Until one day he found out…

…to be continued…

…twenty nineteen…