They have finally made it, they are immortals. Greed and vanity have pushed humanity to break the boundaries of their intellect and morality. And when a group of man already has too much in their hands, they will always want more; no matter the consequences and let alone who suffers them.
-So, how did it go, my love? – asked an impatient Leo Goodman.
-Congratulations – replied Sara Parker, a 17 year-old architect and Leo's wife, after leaving the doctor's office- you will be a father.
-Leo's eyes watered. He already had everything he could have wished for in live. Owner of some top researching facilities, a health care hospital for the unfortunates and married to the love of his life, everything he needed to make things perfect was someone to pass on his knowledge, his legacy. After all, that's humanity's biggest dream: to leave a mark for the next generations to come. And Leo's mark was really important.
-He was 20 years old at the time. Ever since he was a child, he dreamed of being a great scientist and make a difference. He graduated from university at the age of 13 (usually people would graduate being 15, but he was an exceptional student) and dedicated most of his career developing the unthinkable: teleporting portals.
-His studies have not been altogether successful at a big scale yet. However, he was able to teleport some inorganic matter through short distances and was very close to accomplish more than just that.
-Sadly, he wasn't young any more (people would not usually live longer than 25 years), and there was the possibility he could never fulfill his work. But, if things go right, his son could do so.
-Besides that, he had a very happy life. Actually, most of people in the planet seemed to be happy. There were just some unfortunate people, but they got aid from the happy majority, who loved getting involved in charity.
One day, Leo was in his home laboratory finishing a prototype for a portal gun he had designed weeks ago. Sara was upstairs making Leo's favorite cookies, when someone rings the doorbell. She gets at the door and notices two tall and bulky men at the entrance. They looked very alarmed and almost yelled at her to make it inside. They said they worked for the country’s internal affairs, and as soon as she gave them permission, they rushed inside the house and headed to Leo's lab door.
Meanwhile, inside the lab, something was happening. Blue and greenish rays started to appear in the middle of the studio where Leo was. Suddenly, those rays turned into a small electricity ring that started to grow bigger and bigger until it reached the size of a human. What followed was a dark figure (the room's lights had all turned off so everything seemed to be dark) who grabbed both Leo's arms and quickly dragged him inside what looked like a vortex. Both men and the ring disappeared, and the two other men finally made into the room, only to look at each other with disappointment and anger, and call someone through a phone-like devise. – We lost them – one of them said.
Leo was covered in dirt. He was feeling a little dizzy and he saw everything swirling in circles. He looked at the figure who said: “welcome home, brother.”
Leo woke up in a weary and rural room, on a bed that appeared to be stuffed with hay. It was very dim inside, but, thanks to some beams of light pouring down from the ceiling, he could notice that it had very much the appearance of a barn. He got on his feet and immediately went in search for an exit. He was wondering who would have kidnapped him and, most importantly, why. He was specially confused by the guy’s last words: “Welcome home, brother.”
He wasn’t successful and soon he gave up trying; when suddenly, a steel door swiped open, and his kidnapper shows up. Alongside him, two men (who looked much older than any other human being he has seen in his entire life) and woman. They were all wearing some sort of post-apocalyptic rags and were very well armed.
-Who are you and why am I here? – Leo asked frantically.
-Hey, chill! Don’t you recognize family when you see it, brother?
At that moment, Leo analyzed the man’s features. He indeed looked like him, but it made no sense to him. He was an only child and his parents passed away at a very young age.
-I don’t know what you are talking about.
-I know it is hard to believe, brother. But I will make something clear to you: your entire life is a lie.
-We don’t have much time to getting to know each other just now. But I will explain the basics to you. A group of powerful and very rich scientists found a way to become immortal. Yeah, you heard it, immortality is what we are talking about here. These people are very evil, and they did not care much about the means to accomplish such atrocity. They found out the key to make such a thing possible was through a mixture of various proteins and a chemical composition of endorphins, dopamine and serotonin. You heard it well, they basically needed the hormones of happiness to make it work. And no synthesized nor animal hormones managed to work. They needed real human happiness hormones to do it. Sounds crazy, huh? Well, I haven’t even gotten to the creepiest part, so hear me out. I guess you are not very familiar with many of the advancements we have created in this world, so let me clue you in: light speed ships, black hole bombs, you know about the immortality stuff already and saw my very own creation: the portal gun. But what changed it all was the shrink gun. I installed one into my very own portal gun so it can do both teleport and shrink. Smart, huh? Anyways, they used shrink guns to create thousands of micro-versions of this world to pretty much harvest happiness out of human crops. Your life was only that happy because they wanted it to be. An unhappy micro-world would have just been a lost harvest, and it would have been dumped.
-What in the hell are you talking about? You are insane.
-Just use your brain for once Leo! Do you think all human beings are entitled to being perfectly happy the way you were? Perfect lives, perfect jobs, perfect couples?
-Not everyone has perfect lives there. There are those who need our help.
-That’s just something THEY created and inserted inside your world in order to make you even happier. At the end of the day, if you believe what you are doing will serve a bigger purpose than yourself, you will be happier. Those people are nothing but robots, brother. You gotta believe me.
-I just believe all you are saying now is nonsense.
-We don’t have much time for this childish arguments, Leo. We have to rescue your family or else they will be executed! We are the only people on this planet who care about anything anymore. We have been entering different micro-verses in order to help other people to escape. You see, this world might be cruel and many of us are not happy at all, but what they do to you there is insane. They extract not only your happiness hormones but also a great portion of your lifetime. I am your older brother Leo. I am 29 years old, which I know would be crazy in the place where you are from. People shouldn’t die until they reach an age of maybe 80 years. But the people in power here have no boundaries. They have a group of chasers who have been gathering as many people as possible and insert them into a micro-verse so they can be happy and be harvested. It’s disgusting. They took you with them when you were nothing but a baby and have already taken a good portion of your life. I have done everything I could, and lost my own wife, just to get to you, Leo.
-But don’t worry. We’ll get your family and your work to defeat them. As you could see, I happen to have a portal gun. The one you have been designing. We are both geniuses, brother. I’ll give us that. But what you were about to create will work in a much bigger scale and will help us overthrow this bunch of jerks. Just come with me, we have no time. Oh, my name is John Goodman, by the way. Whatever, let’s go. Shit, they found us! Get inside the freaking portal! Damn, HUBBS! You will all pay for this!
Leo could not process all what was going on at the moment. He was first puzzled by all the things John was telling him. Just thinking that his entire life was a lie and that it meant nothing but a way of feeding some greedy bastards so they could live forever, was mind-blowing. He was also thinking about all the things he had in his previous world. It might have all been fake, but to him it was real. And in a way it was. The feelings he had for his wife, for his job and his upcoming son, they were all real, plus they were all real human beings too. Will he lose all of that overnight just to save a world he didn’t even know existed before?
Back to Leo’s world, the crew gets on their way to Leo’s home. Leo can’t still believe anything of what is happening, but after all of it, he knows John must be saying the truth. He had a look around and knew he will miss everything there is about this place. A perfect world indeed.
They were getting close to his house when they were ambushed by more chasers. A battle took place. There were shots coming and going from one side to the other, until Leo was captured.
John tried to do all he could, but it was too late. The chasers had already gone inside a secret ship that was hiding and it quickly took off. It was at light speed, so they barely saw when that happened. What chasers usually do to get in and off the micro-verses was to shrink themselves inside a ship and fly to the miniature planet. All of that while still being in the warehouse where all the micro-verses are kept for harvesting.
Inside the ship, Leo met a tall man with a different uniform from the rest.
-So you must be Leo. I am General Murdock. I am in command of recruiting for the crops. I’ve heard you are a really smart scientist, aren’t you?
-Get me out of here. – Leo cried – You won’t get away with all of this madness you people are doing.
-Is it really madness? Don’t you tell me you have never thought your existence is bigger than that of most people? Look, we have only made it this far in society and in science because a few of us have had more time than the rest to live and do all the things we would have never accomplished in a single lifetime. Most of us were just geniuses who were frustrated because we didn’t know if we were going to have enough time to change the world for the better. And think about it for a second. You probably don’t know much of how things work here, but human kind was a very unhappy one. All we have done to them is give them what they always wanted in the world. We make sure of that. In the end, is it better to live 25 years of full happiness than 80 of misery?
-Listen to me, Leo. You are very special. You have done in less than 20 years what many have never done in their infinite lives. I am offering you the opportunity to join us and be immortal. Together, we will make the world a better place.
Later that night, John showed up and rescued Leo. They teleported to a place in the middle of a desert, where the rest of the rebellion was hiding. But nothing was to be celebrated. Somehow, the chasers tracked them down and surrounded everyone in there, and the whole thing turned into a shooting. When John tried to use the portal gun to escape, he noticed Leo was holding it. One of the many shots got into Leo’s chest, but John saw how he quickly regenerated. He was an immortal now. Hope is lost. Leo’s life is perfect back again.