Gene Warrior

The store… changed. Its colors are bleak and grey, antagonistic even. Is this really supposed to attract customers?

Taking another look around, most things here are the same. The grocery store, the restaurants, just shops in general. There must be some sort of strict government regulation in place.

I find it an odd choice since keeping your residents happy and oblivious to the danger that lurks is a much better choice. Maybe that's how the exalted are treated instead. The job perks are looking good.

I entered the store, Grounded Mobile. Very down to earth.

"Hello." I said with a casual wave and a smile. A teenager behind the store counter's simply shot me a glance that just screamed out 'what the hell is wrong with you'

"I want to pay for my phone service." I told him. He stopped slouching and shot me a glance. He was clearly waiting for me to say something.

"Dan Owens, I work in Sector B" He typed away on a nearby computer. He moved his mouse, did this and that for a good minute.

"Done." He simply told me. I stood there for another couple of seconds expecting to hear more but.. nothing.

"You won't tell me how much that cost?" I looked at him weirdly to which he quickly replied.

"Am I a bank?" His disinterested expression really made me think that there was something wrong with me.

"No." I said before quickly leaving the store. They are not as down to earth as I thought after all.

BZZZ BZZ

I felt a vibration in my right pocket. This was naturally my phone. I brought it out to take a look.

[Thanks for your 50 merit payment on acct-] You probably get the gist of it.

Now, either my friend Barry over in Sector B scammed me or cell phones are a large commodity. I only have two-thirds of my reward money left in my account now even though I defeated a giant worm.

I am surprised I managed to afford literally anything so far with such outrageous prices. How much do I get paid anyway? I can't imagine it's a lot.

I put my phone back and made my way back to the small apartment building. I went up the narrow stairs as usual and opened the door to my room.

Freedom! I closed the door behind me and jumped on the bed. F*ck I need a new bed. Ignoring my broken arm, I quickly whipped out my cell phone and opened up what I presumed was the internet application. The layout of this phone and its apps are completely different from what I am used to.

{Dan Owens, Sector B-42. Authority Rank: 0]

Those were the words that first caught my eye. They were right at the top of the screen after all. I moved on looking for some sort of new tab or anything that could help me navigate but...

Where is the search bar? Is it really just this dropdown menu? On the one hand, it will definitely simplify my search.

[History|Enlistment|Locked|Locked|...]

This was more akin to a government database. Like when you are doing a school project and need scholarly articles. Such an outdated UI, I can definitely do a better job and I never went to college.

No point in complaining, let's read.

For the next hour or so I was fully immersed in understanding what happened to this place. The year the timeline diverged from my original one was 1962.

For some unknown reason, nuclear weapons around the world were detonated. There were attempts to shoot them down before the nukes touched the ground but there were too many.

These nuclear warheads rain downed on the earth making everything inhabitable and desolate. Luckily the paranoid and the rich, not necessarily mutually exclusive, were able to survive the attack by hiding underground. This is where the surprises start to come in.

First things first, I am in the future. The surface was assaulted by violent storms of all kinds as a result of the nuclear fallout, the people barely managed to outlast this period of time with their vast supplies of preservable food. Unfortunately, those that couldn't outlast it died. Either by running to the surface out of desperation or starvation.

Then came the period of recuperation. Some people already had underground greenhouses, using this to supply food to the people they became powerful. These groups of people eventually formed the subterranean government.

By this point, years had passed and people started to get accustomed to their new lifestyle. Eventually came the restoration of technology as well as its progression. But humans weren't the only ones that could adapt.

Mutated creatures started to appear one after the other on the planet's surface each capable of easily killing humans. Other underground civilizations started to fall one after the next. Oh, the humanity! This is where the glorious and heroic Subtarrenean government comes in.

Driven by their sense of justice, they made those not affiliated to the government toll away for them in things like underground waste mines. The collected waste was used to perform experiments. In order to fight these mortal enemies of humans, they sacrificed themselves, becoming lab rats. Thus, the exalted were born!

Not only that but the study of the waste allowed for more boons in technology. Electricity in this world comes cheap since the collected and crystallized waste is also able to power the entire city.

With the exalted ones and the new technology, Termina, the capital city of the underground world, was protected from the mutant threat. These superhumans, called Mutational Energy practitioners, or ME practitioners for short, possessed extraordinary strength. Some could even be said to have superpowers!

Since then, the mutants have become more plenty and their strength increased as well. Luckily, the government found out that more and more people were capable of becoming exalted, this was probably due to the accumulation of radiation over the many generations. They didn't need to force people into becoming exalted ones anymore. They only needed to perform tests! They would use a catalyst to exalt your genetic modification.

This was the requirement to join the military, to successfully exalt your genes and become an ME practitioner.

Yeah, this was definitely written by the victor. So I took a couple of creative liberties if you couldn't tell. It left out a lot of details of things that likely happened like the exalted ones overthrowing the previous subterranean government.

Well, maybe I just can't believe that everything was so smoothly settled. All things considered though, I should probably try to enlist.

The benefits outweigh the losses. Why? Well, I literally can't find any downsides using my 0 authority rank. So the only way to find out the downsides is to enlist first and upgrade my authority rank.

A cunning trap. If I was raised here I might have fallen for these type of things. For the record, I didn't fall for it, I am willingly walking into this trap! It makes a world of difference.

[Enlist]

Let's just do it.