Madeleine, or at least she was Madeleine for this year, really enjoyed working with Mr. Alastaire. For an eccentric multi-millionaire, he really wasn’t the worst employer. It was almost a pity, she thought while downloading the company files onto an encrypted USB, that he was a mark. Didn’t stop the process, but it is a pity that the assignment was coming to an end. This one didn’t overindulge in ...

It is a strange thing - departure. Physically leaving the city, the country, the people, the bureaucracy, the - it had been a cathartic relief. A fulfillment of the steady drum of "get out get out get out" that has been plaguing him for months, maybe years.

And yet…

5 months later, and memories of familiar streets keep flashing in front of his eyes, little tantalizing reels of a life and a time ...

The world wasn’t always like this, the Elders once said. We weren’t always Children of Luna, basking in the soft, pale glow of the only thing strong enough to cut through the haze of the eternal smog and the space debris. They sometimes speak of a time when we were free to roam the surface under the Sun, our greatest threat. It was 3 times smaller then, a gentle warmth instead of an inferno. The E...