[ IP ] The Sheltered City

Secure/Contain/Protect 
 
 S3cure/Conta1n/pr0tect 
 
 53cure/C0n7a1n/pr07ec7 
 
 The terminal in his hand relayed its last message, fizzled and died. 
 
 Thaddeus stood alone on one of the faults caused by the portal. It had all gone so wrong. So many machines and impossible creatures and *dead* *things* had all but obliterated humanity in the late 3000's. 
 
 Then salvation came from the very place that had loosed the abominations. The same clandestine organization that had once found the monstrosities, studied them and locked them away as best they could offered all their resources to try to save earth. 
 
 It was n't enough. 
 
 First the Americas fell. Tales of moving statues, reanimating corpses, mechanical people, a red pool that spat out demons and a damn big lizard that just *wouldn't* die* emerged. The organization moved it mission to from saving all the earth to the remaining parts of the earth. 
 
 Then the Sculpture appeared in Wales one morning and by the next morning all living creatures in the country were dead. Like a herald of destruction the same evil that had laid waste to the Americas swept through Europe. 
 
 Then Africa. 
 
 Then the Middle East. 
 
 As the mission turned into a resistance, then a organized retreat, then a siege against the last human city, the leaders of the organization realized that they had no choice but to retreat from the world all together. 
 
 Thaddeus knew because he had been one of them. He knew what is was like to stand in front of a dying world announce they would leave it. 
 
 But it was n't that simple. The organization, while good wardens, were terrible administrators. People did n't want to follow an organization that had led them to ruin. 
 
 But the organization knew what they had to do. They had to leave this dimension and take an entire unwilling city with them. 
 
 The warp portal was constructed in secret, a massive thing built to rise out of the city. Thaddeus had been the first and only person to willingly step through. When the Old World Leaders had found out what the organization had done they murdered those who stayed behind. 
 
 But it was too late. Plans had been set in action and the portal would not be stopped. 
 
 Thaddeus gazed at it now. A whole city coming through heaven's gate like soft-serve ice cream. He glanced at his terminal again, knew what the doomed Foundation had tried to relay in their last seconds. 
 
 Secure the people. 
 
 Contain the people. 
 
 Protect the people. 
 
 He had a lot of work to do. 
 

